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the Transformative Learning Centre of OISE-UT presents
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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
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Registration, Fees and General
Information: click here
Schedule : Speakers and
Topics
April 8
Principles
of Green Economics and Introductions
 with 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
April 15
The Soft
Energy Path & Community Power
with José Etcheverry,
President,
Canadian Renewable Energy Alliance,
Asst. Professor, York
U. Faculty of Environmental Studies
 José
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:
April 22
Socially
Responsible Investment
with Eugene Ellmen, Social Investment Organization
 Since 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
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Michael Shuman, "Put
Your Money Where Your Life Is: Americans want to invest locally. What's stopping them?,"
Yes! Summer 2009
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Woody Tasch, "Slow
Money, Manure and Prudence," Green
Money Journal, Summer 2009
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Hazel Henderson, "Reforming Global Finance: The
New Financiers," Ethical Markets, February 2009
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Matt Taibbi, "Wall
Street's Bailout Hustle," Rolling
Stone magazine, Feb. 17, 2010
Video
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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
April 29
Community
Indicators of Real Wealth
Mini Alakkatusery of
 Rosalyn (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
community
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
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TCF website:
Toronto's Vital
Signs 2009
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Toronto Star special section:
Vital Signs Report: includes articles on 2009,  2008 and 2007 reports
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Ontario Community Sustainability
Report 2007, Pembina Institute report
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John Talberth, “A
New Bottom Line for Progress,” Chapter 2, The State of the World 2008, NY/Washington: Worldwatch Institute, 2008
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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
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Happy Planet Index, New Economics
Foundation
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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
May 6
The Built
Environment
 with
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:
- Alex Wilson / Nadev Malin, “Establishing
Priorities with Green Building,” Environmental Building News September/October 1995
- John T. Lyle, “Urban
Ecosystems”, In Context magazine, Spring 1993
- Michael Smith, “The Case
for Natural Building,” in Kennedy et al, The Art of Natural Building, New Society Publishers, 2002
- Jane Jacobs Interviewed
by Jim Kunstler, Metropolis
Magazine, March 2001
- Neil Seldman and Mark Jackson,
“Deconstruction shifts from philosophy to
business”, Emmaus PA: BioCycle,
vol. 41, no. 7 (Jul 2000), pp. 34-38
- US EPA, Lifecycle
Construction Resource Guide, 2008
- Canadian
Green Building Council, Toronto chapter, Ontario Centre for Green
Building Design and Development
- Toronto
Green Development Standard
- Building Green TV
May 13
Green Manufacturing & Insourcing
with Sarah Winterton,
Environmental
Defence and Blue-Green Canada
and
Andy King, United Steel Workers and Blue-Green Canada
 Sarah
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
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Walter Stahel, “From Products to
Services: Selling performance instead of goods,” ITPS Report, #37
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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
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Bernard Marszalek, "Green-collar
Jobs, Industrial Policy, and Society with a Future," New Labor
Forum, Fall 2008
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Green
Jobs: Toward decent work in a sustainable low-carbon world, United
Nations Environment Program report, Sept. 2008
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Philip Mattera et al, High Road or
Low Road? Job quality in the new green economy, report for Good Jobs
First, February 2009
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Apollo Alliance, Make
it in America: The Apollo Green Manufacturing Action Plan, March 2009
--full report Apollo
GreenMAP
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Gary Gereffi et al, Manufacturing
Climate Solutions: Carbon-reducing technologies and US jobs, Duke Center
on Globalization, Governance and Competitiveness, 2008-2009
May 20
Sustainable
Transportation
with Martin Collier, Healthy
Transport Consulting
and Beth Jones, Green Communities Canada
 Marty 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 on 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
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Transport
Futures
Beth
Jones.ca
Metrolinx
Victoria
Transport Policy Institute
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
 Matthew 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.
 Sally 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
Gar Alperovitz,
Ted Howard, Steve
Dubb, "Cleveland's
Worker-owned Boom," Yes! Summer 2009
Ontario Co-operative
Association
Canadian Co-operative Association
Ontario Straw Bale Building Coalition
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 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
 Van 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
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Apollo Alliance
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Green for All
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Sustainable South Bronx
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  NOW 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.ca
·
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.
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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
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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
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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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