Recently, there have been several changes at IRIS. Annette Dubreuil is staying on as a part-time project co-ordinator, and is giving up her duties as IRIS co-ordinator. She will be putting her sustainable business model for aboriginal communities into action. She has been working on this project for the past 2-3 years, voluntarily, and is going to pursue her dream of making it happen. I have asked her to keep checking in with us and to let us know how it’s going.

We welcome, as part-time summer IRIS co-ordinator, Meagan Heath. Meagan is finishing her MES in the Faculty of Environmental Studies. She is an expert on garbage, was one of the organizers of this year’s York U garbage survey, and works part-time for CSBO – Campus Services and Business Operations. She is a woman of many talents including being tri-lingual, and she is passionate about reducing waste.

My friend and colleague, Prof. Ellie Perkins recently forwarded an article to a number of us about the “cost of eggs”. I assumed that it was all about the nutritional value of hens’ eggs and expected to read that I could soon keep chickens in my back garden in Toronto – and why not? Vancouverites can. With the advent of the growing season, I am currently in an “urban agriculture” headspace, as well as engaged in the ongoing battle to increase the number of vegetarian meals that my family eats (for both cost and carbon footprint reasons) to over 50%. It turned out that Ellie’s article was a very curious piece about the high value placed on the eggs of students with high SAT scores by couples hoping to conceive via fertility treatments and egg donations! Eggs are parts of life cycles, and all organisms need food as they go through their life cycles. Food security and sustainability of supply are huge issues.

My latest set of blogs are a bit delayed, because following on from teaching BIOLOGY 2010, York’s Plant Biology course, and the arrival of a very early spring, I am writing a lot about food – security and sustainability. These blogs take a lot of fact-checking and research and are time-consuming to write.

So, here’s a quick shout out to the LCBO – the Liquor Control Board of Ontario – who this past weekend, likely did more to promote cycling as a form of sustainable transportation among non-enthusiasts, than all of the cyclists, cycle clubs and cycling advocates that I know, put together, including the City of Toronto cycling office!

They put a very handsome young man, dressed in an impeccably tailored suit on a bike, and made it the cover of last weekend’s flyer promoting French wine. This arrived as an insert in our Saturday paper.

The City of Toronto was well ahead of the Canadian curve when it came to adopting basic principles of sustainability around public transport, intensification of building density and the need to increase sources of renewable energy. The Ontario Green Energy Act has provided marvelous opportunities for increasing provincial sources of renewable energy. I have been amazed at how wind farms built in recent years in southwestern Ontario and on the way to Grey Bruce have livened up the landscape. But, as the province moves on from terrestrial wind farms to offshore projects, one Toronto community is mobilizing against them. Some Guildwood residents have asked their city councilors, Paul Ainslie and Brian Ashton, to bring forward a motion to the city’s executive committee asking the province for a blanket-moratorium on wind-power development. The Globe and Mail article, Bluff residents fight wind turbines, explains that this motion, if passed, will be purely symbolic.

Last Friday, I was one of the volunteer parent drivers for an excited group of school children that included my daughter. We went to the opening day of  the “Harry Potter” Exhibition at the Ontario Science Centre. Like all trendy exhibitions, the cost of entry was pretty steep, and naturally, since this is a commercial enterprise which is all about making money, the exit of the exhibition led directly into the gift shop. All kinds of pricey Potter paraphernalia was on sale:  a Wizard Chess set for over $400 and a replica of the marauder’s map for $45 (prompting me to keep asking myself, “Do J K Rowling and Warner Bros REALLY need another few million?”). Luckily, my daughter kept her selection on the less expensive side and settled on a $20 Parchment Paper Writing Set.