The Changes

Imagine... quiet, greener streets and clean-powered vehicles! That healthier future is just around the corner to a curbside near you with BIG Green Island.

Starting in 2011, all the major car manufacturers are introducing electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, and Canadian communities are not ready to accommodate and encourage growth of green transportation.

BIG Green Island provides an innovative solution by making it easy for people switch to electric vehicles and take action on climate change and end our dirty addiction to BIG Oil and the Tar Sands. We build and manage innovative high-speed charging stations for electric vehicles and bikes/e-bikes for any site - rural, suburban or urban. We will create installations that are community and user-friendly, and will greatly reduce a community's carbon footprint, and increase livability. BIG Green Island stations can be mobile or permanent, depending on the need of the neighbourhood or community.

This pilot project will encourage growth in electric vehicle use and help the future arrive NOW. The charging stations will connect to larger, existing networks in North America, enabling drivers to go longer distances, and reducing range anxiety while greatly reducing our collective carbon footprint. These green transportation hubs will also accommodate ride-sharing and cooperative car sharing programs. Our renewable energy expertise allows for the hubs to run on solar, wind, micro-hydro power sources and use smart-grid innovations, feeding into the grid for a fully clean and renewable infrastructure.

The inexpensive use of used shipping containers allows for fast and efficient set-up in a broad range of space requirements. More permanent arrangements can also be arranged to suit residential, commercial or public requirements. Our electricians are fully qualified and certified to meet the federal, provincial, and local electrical guidelines for instillation and specialize in renewable energy instillations at home, for business and the community at large.

BIG Green Island thinks BIG and creates the BIG changes we want for our communities and the planet.

The Tyee is fundraising to create four Investigative and Reporting Fellowships, grants we give to journalists to finance in-depth analysis of important issues in BC. Previous Tyee Fellowships have broken major stories, empowered citizens, and won national awards. They've uncovered dangerously inadequate dams on the Fraser River, argued for cheap public transit, explored the possibilities for improving our schools, brilliantly advocated for toxic-free job sites, and have chronicled the local urban farming revolution. Once we've raised the money - we have $3,500 to go and eight days left to find it - journalists can apply by proposing their ideas, which will be reviewed by an independent panel of judges. Anyone who donates to the Fellowship can suggest ideas and be entered to win one of three fantastic prizes. Visit http://thetyee.ca/About/Donate/ to help fund fiesty, fresh, investigative journalism in BC!

Degrowth is coming it is just a matter of when and how ready we are for it. Running for the hills isn't the solution as that takes us backwards, we have to learn how to live in these cities, in this populous environments that we have created, but without the resources that we've grown so sadly accustomed to.

For instance I am changing the way that I look at my clothes. I want stylish and comfy clothes but I am no longer going to bring dyed cotton halfway around the world to save you guys from seeing my beer-gut. I'm going to source and support locally produced, sustainable clothiers and if they don't exist I'm going to start to create a market for one.

I am also going to tele-commute more and cycle when I can. Roll on summer.

The goal of this year is living packaging-free from Earth Day 2010 to Earth Day 2011. I imagine there will be practical changes I make in this year that will last for a lifetime. Just as important to me, however, are the mental shifts I hope to see. First off, I am eager to see how this experiment affects my perspective on human rights issues – my perspective on poverty, my ideas about consumption, my view of exploitative extractive industries. Secondly, I am eager to see what mental shifts about my own life and community happen throught this process. Already, I can imagine I will be doing a lot more eating at home! I’m wondering how shifts like these will affect my sense of community and wellness.

As I decided to live packaging-free for a year, I started researching and am inspired to learn about the many fabulous people who have done some fantastic projects and research. I have a blog at unpackaged.wordpress.com

A 5 year goal:
1. Invite others to grow harvest eat play (you're invited!)
2. Grow harvest eat play (organically) in my small space
3. Inspire others in my community (i.e. strata complex, 140+ units) to grow harvest eat play too
4. Inspire others in local community (many stratas - townhouse jungle) to grow harvest eat play
4. Create community garden
5. Include family, especially 2-year old son, in all of the above