Guest Columns

Hi. My name is hanspetermeyer, and I'm a dance-aholic.

That's a good thing. Dancing keeps me physically fit. It puts me in the arms of women of all ages, shapes, and sizes. It keeps my heart and mind opening to change. 

I can't reduce all things in life to what happens in the dance space - but I try. Something happens when two people dance together. It speaks volumes about how we deal with change.

I'm not naturally graceful when it comes to making or accepting change. Just ask my ex's. Nevertheless, I think I'm making progress. Dance is a big part of this. It gives me a metaphor and a practice for being a little more open, a little more flexible.

It all comes down to trust.

I'm a little afraid to

For many children, back to school means back to homework and cramming, report cards and “How long is it until spring break?”  For most children, school is a necessary evil; but does it have to be such a trial?

What if……

I have sat down to write this post a bunch of times, and can't seem to nail it.

I have now been back from Bologna a few weeks, and parts of it are receding into memory, but other parts are still extremely fresh and current. I have been trying to make sense of it all, but am having trouble summing it up succinctly. If someone asks me about the trip, I can either smile and say it was amazingly interesting and inspiring and then stop, or I can go on for a good ten minutes fumbling to explain what I experienced (check out parts 1 and 2 of my journey, or all my blog posts about it).

Okay, so the title is a bit of a joke. I’m not someone who makes up grand theories, but the past week and a bit in Bologna has really got me thinking about history, culture and the way we run businesses.

In a few short days, I head off to Bologna, Italy on behalf of Vancity staff and members. Needless to say, I’m pretty excited about it. But why is Vancity sending its Web Director to Italy?

You’ve probably heard of carbon offsets. They are the intangible vouchers you can buy to counteract your impact on the climate every time you burn fossil fuels or otherwise cause the release of greenhouse gas emissions. I had known about the idea of buying and selling carbon for about ten years before I was offered a job with Offsetters in Vancouver, Canada.

“Offsetting? But I don’t believe in offsetting,” I recall thinking. Carbon credits were spurious, the good ones were painfully difficult to create (lots of paperwork involved) and, at the best of times, they just resulted in a net-zero impact on the climate – for every emission reduced, someone else lets one go.
My first exposure to carbon trading was in the spring of 1999 when I attended a climate change conference in El Salvador. International delegates had been invited to explore some of the opportunities and risks associated with the carbon trading schemes of the new Kyoto Protocol. A hot topic was the Clean Development Mechanism, a Kyoto program to encourage investment in developing nations through carbon trading. Would this just be another way for wealthy countries to exploit poorer ones? Would carbon reductions be pursued at the expense of other social and environmental impacts? At this time the carbon market was still just an idea but it was already becoming contentious.

I later moved to Vancouver to work with a company that designed and installed solar water heating systems. My first assignment was to support the company’s involvement in an experimental carbon-trading scheme called GERT (the Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Trading Pilot). GERT offered a means of learning about carbon trading by doing it, with participants from government, industry, and environmental groups. It was an interesting concept, but the reporting and analysis seemed endless. We were quantifying something that didn’t exist (a lack of emissions) and could never be proven. We had to calculate, research, and reveal a lot of data, and we were at the whim of a committee to review and scrutinize our claims. I had strong doubts that the business world would ever participate in something like this.

I spent the next seven years designing solar water heating systems and working with other experts in renewables and energy efficiency across the country. We would always evaluate the CO2 reductions associated with our projects but we couldn’t really assign any monetary value to them. When Offsetters approached me, they were looking for someone with my project experience to head their sourcing department. I was impressed by Offsetters’ perspective on the emerging carbon market: their mission was to lead by example with high quality projects and to prove that offsets could be a legitimate part of the climate solution.

What about all that paperwork? It’s still there, but the industry has evolved and the process is more streamlined than it was back in the GERT days. There are internationally recognized quality standards, third-party validators and verifiers who sign-off on the project and the numbers, as well as registries where the public can view the transactions and confirm that each credit is unique and not being double-sold. It appeared that the international carbon market was becoming quite sophisticated and that it was an opportune time to help build the local market in B.C. and across Canada.

Okay, but what were the actual projects? I looked at the Offsetters portfolio: ground-source heat pump installations at five community buildings including care facilities for seniors and the disabled as well as a First Nations school and Band office; energy efficiency measures at a commercial greenhouse, supporting local food production and reducing their exposure to natural gas price shocks; international development projects in Cambodia, Uganda, and India that brought energy efficiency and resource security to small communities. I was impressed. The projects supported appropriate technologies and they had real social benefits outside of the carbon trade.
I realized that I was being offered the opportunity to seek out and develop more great projects to add to this list. As you may have guessed, I took the job.

So what about the issue of the net-zero impact? That every tonne offset is countered by another tonne emitted? Well, I soon discovered that people who pay for their carbon emissions have a strong interest in reducing them over time. And they do. Our repeat customers are proof of this. Over the long term, they save money and reduce risk by fine-tuning their operations to make a smaller impact. In the short term, they support new projects that make a difference right away.

It’s a great job and I enjoy the challenge. I suppose I’m still an offset skeptic in the sense that I scrutinize every project and every aspect of the process. After all, if I see anything wrong, it’s now my job to fix it.

-Morgan McDonald

Morgan McDonald has a background in mechanical engineering and over ten years of experience designing and describing sustainable energy systems. He was a founding director of the BC Sustainable Energy Association and is an educator on solar heating systems. Morgan also plays piano and keyboards in the innovative avant-rock group “Fond of Tigers”.

Jennifer Lash is the Executive Director of the Living Oceans Society based out of Sointula BC. We presented her with the challenge of becoming ChangeEverything's very first video Guest Columnist and she responded with this great video outlining why she does what she does and what keeps her inspired to do her work. We hope you enjoy it.

Nola Poirier is a freelance writer, living in Powell River, B.C.
She is the author of many wonderful stories, a campaigner, a leader and an inspiring presence. You can also read her home energy efficiency blog



I have moved, actually moved, 39 times. That doesn’t count the months I’ve spent traveling, or my frequent relocation during the four years I lived in my Volkswagen van, Olive.  I attended six elementary schools, two high schools, and I’m just about to begin studies at my seventh post secondary institution. For my most recent move, I left a main floor rental suite in east Vancouver and trekked up the Sunshine Coast to buy a four-acre lot with a rundown house, a small orchard of fruit and nut trees, and plenty of cleared space available for gardens.

The distance is not so considerable as when I moved from Victoria, BC to Plymouth, England. The contrast in weather is nowhere near as great as it was leaving the balm of Bermudian breezes for a bracing winter in Greenwood, Nova Scotia. And my lifestyle has not changed nearly so acutely as it did when I moved from the bucolic splendor of Smithers, BC, to the rugged urbanity of downtown San Salvador, El Salvador. Nonetheless this move has inspired a disproportionate shift in my thinking.

The move was planned. I mean, in the end it all happened in a span of five weeks: deciding definitely someday we (my husband and I) would buy land and move rurally, viewing land, putting in an offer, having it accepted, packing up the apartment, moving out of there, and moving into here. So it does feel quite sudden. But in the big plan for my life, living on an acreage, and growing much of my own food had been an aspiration since I finished high school.  So it also feels very familiar.

I have worked on organic farms as a labourer, a permaculture designer, and an educator. I have been a writer and researcher for educational programs on sustainable living, and I have learned from many amazing teachers about key concepts and technologies to support a more sustainable lifestyle. All of these experiences informed and further inspired the life I envisioned for myself.

Some people argue that people living in cities take up less space. I don’t agree. I think the urban/rural question isn’t the important one; the key is living well, wherever you are. And urban dwellers don’t necessarily use less space. No matter where a person lives, their footprint depends on where food is grown, where carbon goes and oxygen comes from, the energy type and amount they use and where it’s sourced, the transportation required for people and goods, and waste disposal and sewage.

As part of my own attempt to live well, I began right away to make energy efficient changes to my new house. I had an energy audit, switched to CFL light bulbs, used materials from the property for renovations, sealed up the gaps and cracks, and now I’m preparing to increase the insulation in the basement and attic. I have also been surveying the property to determine the angles of the sun for growing and passive home heating, the best location for my garden, drainage routes, soil type, and the prevailing winds. This information will help me apply permaculture principles to the property, to maximize production, benefit natural cycles, and minimize labour and resource input needs.

But as prepared as I thought I was, my thoughts took a turn when the snow melted and I walked my land last week. This space, this 3.96 acres, contains about two acres of arable land. With two of us living on it, we each have about the amount everyone could have if all arable land on Earth was all divided equally among the population. This is it. That means that in this space I should be able to grow ALL the food we use year round. As well, at 2006 population levels, there are 5.6 acres of total land per person. Therefore, this property is almost half the space that the two of us can use for all the resources and manufacturing we consume. And that amount doesn’t factor in ice caps, tundra, and deserts, nor does it leave any land in wilderness areas.