the Transformative Learning Centre of OISE-UT presents

The Green Economy

 

Practical Strategies to

Create Community-based

Eco-economies

 

Thursdays, 6-9 pm,

April 8  to June 10, 2010

 

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,

U of Toronto, 252 Bloor St. W.

 

(directly above St. George subway stop)

Eighth Floor, Room 8-214

 

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Our ordinary mind always tries to persuade us that we are nothing but acorns and that our greatest happiness will be to become bigger, fatter, shinier acorns; but that is of interest only to pigs. Our faith gives us knowledge of something better: that we can become oak trees.”                       --E.F. Schumacher

 

Registration, Fees and General Information:  click here

 

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Schedule :  Speakers and Topics  

 

 

April 8    

Principles of Green Economics and Introductions

Appro2with Brian Milani, course coordinator and author of Designing the Green Economy.  In this class, we’ll introduce ourselves, and look at the principles that make green economics a holistic paradigm of economic development.  What makes this perspective based on ecological alternatives different from one based on environmental protection? 

 

See:  What is Green Economics? by Brian Milani

 

John Cartwright, Green Jobs are the Future, background paper, Toronto Good Jobs for All conference, Nov. 2008

Powerpoint Presentation

 

A few key links:

Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE)

Transformative Learning Centre

Social Economy Centre

Good Jobs for All Coalition, Toronto

Blue-Green Alliance

Blue Green Canada

Institute for Local Self-Reliance  (David Morris)

FEASTA: Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability (Richard Douthwaite)

Redefining Progress

Zero Waste Alliance


            
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April 15

The Soft Energy Path & Community Power

 with José Etcheverry, President, Canadian Renewable Energy Alliance,

Asst. Professor, York U. Faculty of Environmental Studies

EtcheverryJose.pngJosé has been at the centre of creating a renewable energy economy in Ontario and Canada, including Ontario's new Green Energy Act.  He has worked at a researcher, policy analyst and catalyst for the Suzuki Foundation and served as an advisor to numerous provincial government and international energy initiatives.   José has been a chair of the World Council for Renewable Energy, worked for the climate change team of the Global Environment Facility in Washington DC and was an intern for the Mexican Electricity Research Institute. Besides York, he has taught at U. of T. and Simon Fraser.  His current research is focused on renewable energy technology transfer, training and education, climate change and energy policy.

Readings:

Michael Todd, "Power Drive: York's Jose Etcheverry is on a mission to convince Canada that renewable energy works—and time is running short," York U mag, February 2008

Keith Parkins, “Soft Energy Paths”, Gaia briefing paper.

Pembina Institute, Plugging Ontario into a Green Future: Renewable is Doable Action Plan, executive summary, Dec. 2008

Tyler Hamilton, "US Prof Sees Green-Jobs Boom Here," Toronto Star, May 9, 2009

Robert Poulin & Heidi Garrett-Peltier, Building the Green Economy: Employment effects of green energy investments for Ontario, report for Green Energy Act Alliance, Blue-Green Canada & WWF, 2009

Alice Klein, "Sellout or sweet deal? Samsung will brand Ontario as North America’s wind and solar leader, as long as Grits don’t blow the grid on nuclear," NOW, Jan. 27-Feb. 3, 2010.

Adria Vasil, "Taking T.O. off the Grid," NOW magazine, Oct. 6-13, 2009

David Morris, The Smart Grid: Why Obama's Plan to Help Renewable Energy May Backfire and Aid Big Coal, AlterNet, February 6, 2009

Tyler Hamilton, "Rush is on to lock up rights to flat GTA rooftops," Toronto Star, Jan. 12, 2010

James Howard Kunstler, “The Long Emergency: What’s going to happen as we start running out of cheap gas to guzzle?”, excerpt from The Long Emergency, Grove/Atlantic (2005), reprinted in Rolling Stone magazine, March 24, 2005

Links:

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Green Energy Act Alliance

WindShare

Ontario Sustainable Energy Assn.

Rocky Mountain Institute

Pembina Institute

David Suzuki Foundation

Energy Efficiency Office, City of Toronto

 

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April 22

Socially Responsible Investment

with Eugene Ellmen, Social Investment Organization

EllmenEugene_0809.jpgSince 1999, Eugene has served as Executive Director of the S.I.O., Canada's national association for socially responsible investment (SRI). He is one of Canada's leading experts on SRI and the author of the critically acclaimed Canadian Ethical Money Guide. Eugene has an extensive background in journalism, and in communications and public affairs with the financial industry, government and in private consulting. This special Earth Day class will be a tour de force of key issues in, and strategies for, green and social investment.

Readings

·      Eugene Ellmen, "Socially Responsible Investing in Canada," Green Money Journal, August/Sept. 2008

·      Marshall Glickman and Marjorie Kelly, “Working Capital: Can socially responsible investing make a great green leap forward?”, E magazine, March/April 2004,  vol. XV, no. 2  

·      Michael Shuman, "Put Your Money Where Your Life Is: Americans want to invest locally. What's stopping them?," Yes! Summer 2009

·      Woody Tasch, "Slow Money, Manure and Prudence," Green Money Journal, Summer 2009

·      Hazel Henderson, "Reforming Global Finance: The New Financiers," Ethical Markets, February 2009

·      Matt Taibbi, "Wall Street's Bailout Hustle," Rolling Stone magazine, Feb. 17, 2010

Video

·         Bill Moyers Journal:  Simon Johnson and James Kwak on US Banking Reform, April 10, 2010

Links

§  Social Investment Organization

§  RSF Social Finance

§  New Resource Bank                

§  Social Funds.com

§  RBC Jantzi Funds

§  Green Money Journal

§  Calvert Foundation

§  Domini Social Investments

    

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April 29

Community Indicators of Real Wealth

with Rosalyn J. Morrison and Mini Alakkatusery of Toronto Community Foundation on Toronto's Vital Signs 

rosalyn3.jpgRosalyn (left) is VP for Community Initiatives, and Mini is Program Manager, at Toronto Community Foundation, one of Canada's largest charitable foundations. As an independent public foundation, TCF is uniquely positioned to be a catalyst for change and achieve its mission of connecting philanthropy with community needs and opportunities. More than 300 individual and family donors, high-impact communityMini Alakkatusery small.jpg

organizations, and cross-sector leaders are mobilized to tackle complex, quality of life issues in creative and inspiring ways to ensure the vitality of Toronto and make it the best place to live, work, learn and grow through the power of giving. This community leadership is facilitated by identifying issues in Toronto's Vital Signs, a quality of life report, convening cross-sector leaders to explore solutions, and investing in these solutions through grant programs and special city-building initiatives. 

 

Articles and Links

·         Donovan Vincent, "Poor Get Poorer in an Affluent City," Toronto Star special section on Vital Signs 2009, The Star, October 6, 2009

·         TCF website: Toronto's Vital Signs 2009

·         Toronto Star special section: Vital Signs Report: includes articles on 2009, ECONOF~2.jpg2008 and 2007 reports

·         Ontario Community Sustainability Report 2007, Pembina Institute report

·         John Talberth, “A New Bottom Line for Progress,” Chapter 2, The State of the World 2008, NY/Washington: Worldwatch Institute, 2008

·         Linda Baker,  Real Wealth: The Genuine Progress Indicator Could Provide an Environmental Measure of the Planet's Health”, E Magazine, Volume X, Number III, May-June 1999  

·         Happy Planet Index, New Economics Foundation

·         Neighorhood Sustainability Indicators Guidebook: How to create neighorhood sustainability indicators in your neighborhood, Urban Ecology Coalition, Minneapolis, 1999

Sustainable Measures (Maureen Hart)

Redefining Progress

Sustainable Seattle

Global Footprint Network

 

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May 6

The Built Environment

martin1with Martin Liefhebber, green architect and community designer.  Martin is an award-winning designer most well-known for the off-the-grid CMHC Healthy House and the Wilson Natural Home—but the scope of his pioneering work includes straw bale, rammed earth and “earthship” buildings, as well as radically affordable shelter for the homeless and participatory community design.  Social justice, human health, ecological regeneration, community vitality and spiritual renewal are all part of Martin’s design concerns.   He is proficient in both the theory and practice of ecological design, serving as an adjunct assistant professor of architecture at the University of Toronto.  Martin was presented a Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to green building and sustainable communities at the 2005 at the Toronto Regional Green Building Festival. 

feature:  Martin on the Embodied Energy of Existing Buildings 

Readings & Links:naturalbuilding1.jpg


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  May 13

Green Manufacturing & Insourcing

with Sarah Winterton, Environmental Defence and Blue-Green Canada

    and Andy King, United Steel Workers and Blue-Green Canada

sarahWinterton3.gifSarah is the Education and Outreach Director at Environmental Defence, a national environmental NGO that has been at the forefront of a range of important environmental campaigns, research and education.  Sarah is a vet of over 20 years of environmental activism and networking.  Her many areas of expertise include toxics and eco-tourism, having served as national coordinator for the Blue Flag program, an international eco-certification program for beaches and marinas.  In Blue-Green Canada, Sarah is not only building alliances between labour and environmentalists, and developing policy pressure on government for action to create green jobs, but also coordinating pioneering research into supply chains to reveal practical possibilities for green manufacturing domestically.

 

As department leader in Canada of the United Steel Workers Canadian National Health, Safety and Environment Office, Andy King has been a stalwart of the Green Labour movement in Canada for years.  He has worked extensively in the field of occupational health, both as a lawyer and as a labour representative. He has appeared before courts, tribunals, inquests, and inquiries all over Canada, and represented worker interests at the International Labour Organization, and on numerous federal and provincial government task forces and advisory boards concerned with worker health and safety.  He has also consistently championed green job creation, and was a founding member of Blue-Green Canada and a vocal advocate of the Ontario Green Energy Act and its potential to stimulate green manufacturing in the region. 

Readings:

·         Bill McDonough & Michael Braungart, “The Next Industrial Revolution,” Atlantic Monthly, Oct. 1998

·         Walter Stahel, “From Products to Services: Selling performance instead of goods,”  ITPS Report, #37

·         Ed Cohen-Rosenthal, “What is Eco-industrial Development?”, chapter 1 of Eco-industrial Strategies: Unleashing Synergy between Economic Development and the Environment, Sheffield UK: Greenleaf Publishers, 2003

·         Bernard Marszalek, "Green-collar Jobs, Industrial Policy, and Society with a Future," New Labor Forum, Fall 2008

·         Green Jobs: Toward decent work in a sustainable low-carbon world, United Nations Environment Program report, Sept. 2008

·         Philip Mattera et al, High Road or Low Road? Job quality in the new green economy, report for Good Jobs First, February 2009 

·         Apollo Alliance, Make it in America: The Apollo Green Manufacturing Action Plan, March 2009

--full report Apollo GreenMAP

·         Gary Gereffi et al, Manufacturing Climate Solutions: Carbon-reducing technologies and US jobs, Duke Center on Globalization, Governance and Competitiveness, 2008-2009

 

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May 20

Sustainable Transportation

with Martin Collier, Healthy Transport Consulting

    and Beth Jones, Green Communities Canada

Marty2003.jpgMarty Collier is a longtime catalyst of sustainable transportation in Toronto.  His firm, Healthy Transport Consulting, specializes in public and private sector assignments that promote cycling, walking and transit-friendly communities through transportation demand management (TDM), context sensitive design and smart growth principles.  In 2008, Marty founded Transport Futures, an on-going series of learning events designed to facilitate rational dialogue on a range of challenging TDM measures and infrastructure funding mechanisms, including road pricing.  Besides working with the Niagara Escarpment Commission, the Ontario Smart Growth Network, the Community Bicycle Network and the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation, Marty managed Detour's UrbanSource Bookstore, which was connected with Transportation Options and Moving The Economy until 2006.  Marty holds a Master in Environmental Studies degree in Urban Planning from York University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen’s University.

 

Beth Jones is the Associate Director of Green Communities Canada, where she focuses onBJONES3.gif  sustainable transportation, including the EcoDriver and Canada Walks programs. In 1989, she abandoned academic psychology for environmentalism, working for Greenpeace, and eventually getting an MA in green economics and popular education.  In 1997 her efforts shifted to urban transportation and she co-founded Moving the Economy, a visionary conference that became a City of Toronto office focused on promoting the economic benefits of shifting to sustainable transportation systems. Beth chairs the board of Transportation Options, where current projects include the Bike Train and a range of cycle tourism initiatives.  She is also vice-chair of the board of the Planet in Focus environmental film festival.

Readings & Links:

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Christopher Hume, "When it comes to transit, province has a blind spot," Toronto Star, March 30, 2010

Mike Bulko, "Trying to Understand Road Pricing," Spacing Toronto website, Oct. 23, 2008

TEA report, A Citizens' Guide to Light Rail, 2007

TEA report, Rapid Transit for Toronto's Inner Suburbs, 2007

The Toronto-Niagara Bike Train Initiative

 

Transport Futures

Beth Jones.ca

Metrolinx

Victoria Transport Policy Institute

 

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May 27

Values-Driven Business:

The Co-operative Model in Natural Building & Food

with Matt Adams and Sally Miller,  The Fourth Pig natural building co-op and West-End Food Co-op

MattAdams2.jpgMatthew Adams is the co-founder of the Catalyst Centre worker co-op (a non-profit popular education organization) and the Fourth Pig Worker Co-op (a non-profit natural building/education organization) and has over twenty years of experience in the non-profit sector.  He also works as the director of special projects at rabble.ca, the publicist at the Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts, and you can hear him rant on the podcast "I Read The News Today, Oh Boy!" on rabble.ca.

 

SallyMiller2.jpgSally Miller has worked for almost twenty years as a co-op developer and manager in the US and Canada.  Most recently she provided resources and training for developing co-operatives in the community-owned renewable energy sector at the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association in Toronto.  She is focusing on curriculum and workshop development, and market development, for Fourth Pig. 

 

 

Readings/Links

James Trimarco and Jill Bamberg, "Worker Co-ops: Green and just jobs you can own,"  Yes! Summer 2009

, , Yes! Summer 2009

Ontario Co-operative Association

Canadian Co-operative Association

Ontario Straw Bale Building Coalition

 

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June 3

Green Pathways Out of Poverty:

Community Enterprise and Green-collar Jobs

with Rosemarie Powell, Jane/Finch Community & Family Centre and Jane-Finch Green Jobs Coalition

Rosemarie.bmpRosemarie is the Assistant Executive Director of the Jane/Finch Community and Family Centre, a community based organization driven by passion, innovation, and a strong commitment to social justice, community engagement and collaboration. She is also a member of the Jane Finch Green Jobs Coalition, Chair of the Green Change Collaborative Project Management Team and a former Public Relations Chair of the Jamaican Canadian Association. Rosemarie’s presentation will outline her personal perspectives on various social justice issues related to the green economy such as food security, preservation of community assets and job creation for residents and youth.

Links and Readings:

Women Moving Forward

Catherine Porter, "This graduation day for poor single mothers could be last of its kind," Toronto Star, Nov. 10, 2009, reprinted at ParentCentral.ca

David Hulchanski, "Three Cities Within Toronto: Income polarization among Toronto's neighbourhoods, 1970-2000," U. of Toronto Centre for Urban & Community Studies, Research Bulletin 41, Dec. 2007

Van Jones and Ben Wyskida, “Green-Collar Jobs for Urban America: Oakland looks for a greener path toward prosperity,” Yes! magazine, Winter 2007

image018.gifVan Jones, The New Environmentalists: How to make the green movement less white, Colorlines, AlterNet, August 7, 2007

Green-Collar Jobs in America's Cities: Building Pathways out of poverty and careers in the clean energy economy,  report for Apollo Alliance & Green for All, March 2008

Diverse, Green, Beautiful Cities,” Sarah Van Gelder interviews Carl Anthony, Yes! magazine, Summer 1999

Sarah van Gelder, "Rebecca Adamson: Age-Old Wisdom for the New Economy," Yes! Summer 2009

Winona LaDuke, "Local Energy, Local Power," Yes! magazine, Winter 2007

Adele M. Stan, "Big Business's Hidden Hand in the Smear Job on Van Jones," AlterNet, Sept. 8, 2009

·         Apollo Alliance

·         Green for All

·         Sustainable South Bronx

 

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June 10

Green Economic Strategy

and a Local-Sustainable Food System

with Wayne Roberts

Wayne is the innovative coordinator of the City of Toronto’s Food Policy Council, a two-fisted politics & economics commentator for WAYNE2NOW magazine, and Toronto’s all-purpose green economics guru.  He has a doctorate in labour history and economics, and a background in a number of movements for social change. In 1992, he helped co-found the Coalition for a Green Economy, and soon co-authored the classic work of practical green economic strategies, GET A LIFE! How to make a good buck, Dance around the dinosaurs, and Save the world while you're at it (Toronto: Get a Life Publishers, 1995).  A realization of the pivotal position of the food system in social change led him increasingly to focus on food as a means of connecting the wide-ranging social, cultural, political, health, economic, and ecological benefits of green development.  He co-authored another classic Real Food for a Change  in 1999, and in 2008 published The No-Nonsense Guide to World Food.  Ever the rebel against narrow silos of expertise, Wayne will "get two birds stoned at once" in this course finale by covering both food system alternatives and overall green economic conversion strategies.

·         Wayne Roberts.caWaynesBook.jpg

·         Wayne Roberts, "The skinny on what’s eating us: Campaigns against obesity can’t be about self-­control – fat isn’t an eating disorder, it’s a political one," NOW, Feb. 3-10, 2010.

·         Wayne Roberts, "Real meal deal: Food system belches a third of carbon gases, so put it in the climate pact," NOW, Dec. 9-16, 2009

·         David Whitford, "Can Farming Save Detroit?", CNN/Time Detroit website, Dec. 29, 2009

·      Harriet Friedmann, “Scaling up: Bringing public institutions and food service corporations into the project for a local, sustainable food system in Ontario,” Agriculture and Human Values (2007) 24:389–398 

o   Catherine Porter, “Food Growers Target Customers with a Conscience,” Toronto Star Oct. 3, 2007

·      David Morris, “Is Eating Local the Best Choice?”, AlterNet, Sept. 2007

·      Richard Manning, “The Oil We Eat: Following the Food Chain Back to Iraq”, Harper's Magazine, February 2004

·      Wayne Roberts, “Slaves to the Sheaf: Blame our addiction to wheat for rising prices, not hungry 3rd-Worlders  NOW magazine, March 2008

·      Wes Jackson, “Natural Systems Agriculture: A Radical Alternative”, The Land Institute website, April 17, 2001

·      Rebecca Spector, “Regaining Connections Between Farmers and Consumers”,; excerpt from Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture (Island Press, 2002)

Links:

 

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