I was up until 3:30am last night reading. Because I couldn't. Put. The Book. Down. It's called The Silver Metal Lover and it is wonderful. It's one of those books that I try not to re-read very often because it's SO SAD. And also beacuse I honestly can't put it down once I've picked it up. Which means that, when I picked it up last night, I was being very irresponsible. With malice aforethought! Because I have to study. For my exams. And that requires being awake. OH GOD THE STRESS.

Anyway, go read the book, it's the only book that has ever made me cry. And every time I read it. Yeah, I'm a sap.

Then as I was trying to fall asleep (oh the irony of turning out the lights at 3:30am and then being unable to fall asleep) in between the cat poking at me and standing on me, I dreamed about a planned issue of the Independent Voice, and an article that was going to be published about the City of Kingston and its, er, foibles. And I thought up a great schtick that should have gone in the article, and I must share.

It was a comparison of the Top of Kingston Society with the, er, bottom. So it include be a full-page feature of the anti-Mayor, with a well-lit and -posed photo of... a poor working-class stiff who sells hoagies in front of City Hall.

It went like this:

Meet Ron. Ron is the anti-Harvey. Why? Well, for starters, instead of being owned by the Springers, Ron owns a Springer Spaniel.

Ok, that was it, that was the entire joke. But I'm sure the rest of the article would have been just as funny had I written it.

It's April. In honour of April Fool's Day, Virgle. Take the quiz, it's hilarious.

In other news, I made a stupid mistake and dropped a few zeros in my Earth Hour calculations. Ontario saved 925MWh, not kWh. So, HOLY CRAP. What's interesting is the newspaper reports of a "meagre" savings of 3% or 4% in places like Brantford and London. I don't think people really understand the scale of electricity use and how much generation that "meagre" amount represents. We have really dropped the ball on educating the press about energy issues. If we talked about a 3% growth in the economy or a 4% drop in the unemployment rate it would be met with hysterical approval. This is an order of magnitude smaller than the ramifications of those things, obviously, because it was just one hour and not a month or a quarter. But nevertheless, it is significant.

In other other news, I'm getting a cold. I have a sore throat. Two essays due. Last four days of class here we come.

Stupid things I've heard today:

Stupid Guy 1: Earth Hour only made a 5% difference. Those dumb environmentalists! See how much it'll take to get to a 20% reduction in GHG levels? Hah! I've proved a point of some sort!
My reply: Using the Feb average numbers of hourly average energy usage, we saved about 925kWh 925MWh during a single earth hour. The average house uses 1kWh a month. That is a hell of a lot of power. Not bad for a first coordinated try, especially considering it was a symbolic awareness-raising event to send a message to politicians and policy-makers.
Stupid Guy 2: Hah! Base load is manufactured even if you don't use it! So you saved nothing! Hhaeheahheah!!
My reply: Base load is manufactured to meet the minimum possible nighttime demand. Intermediate and peak load serves the remainder of demand during most of the hours between daylight and about 23:00... and intermediate load is modified in real-time to match demand.
Stupid Guy 3:Climate change isn't even happening! You're all morons!
My reply: Also, the earth is flat! And dinosaurs roamed the earth along with cro magnon man! Who hunted them for sport!

Earth Hour Speech delivered at the City Hall event

Earth Hour is a global event to acknowledge humanity’s influence on climate change. This is a chance to demonstrate our shared commitment to reducing the energy we use and the burden we place on the environment.

Canada is a leader in participating in Earth Hour; we have one of the highest participation rates in the world. Kingston is joining more than one-hundred-and-fifty communities across the country in turning off our lights for one hour this evening.

We’re down here tonight because small actions have big consequences. On the first annual Earth Hour last year, the city of Sydney, Australia turned out unnecessary lights and decreased that day’s energy use by ten percent. But what they also did was to kick-start a movement that has taken off in a truly spectacular way. What we have here tonight is international grassroots direct action; tonight’s Earth Hour is a symbolic effort that shows us that we can work together, from the ground up, across all borders, to make a real impact.

Obviously, one hour is not enough. Canada uses more energy per capita than any other nation on earth. And Canada is the sixth-largest energy consumer in the world. Most of our energy comes from fossil fuels, so every reduction we make in our energy use directly reduces our greenhouse-gas emissions, and reduces Canada’s impact on climate change.

I’m sure we all recycle – sorting our paper, cans, and bottles into blue and grey boxes and leaving them on the curb for the City to collect. But of the environmental “four Rs” – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recover – the most important is Reduce. This is the key to combatting climate change: It’s kind of ironic that, to more, we have to do less. We have to consume less. We have to use less.

We must take the principles we’re sharing here, and put them into action in our everyday lives. We can’t stop with this one event. Turning out our lights for one hour tonight will save a truly startling amount of energy, but reducing our energy use every day will make the real difference.

Earth Hour is an effort by citizens; we can’t rely on governments to lead the way. Stephen Harper famously denied the science about climate change. Stephen Harper’s Conservative government reneged on Canada’s commitment to the Kyoto accord, to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The Conservative government slashed national programmes established to fight climate change and promote renewable energy. They are more in the dark in Parliament than we are here tonight, and the real power they waste every day is the power to show principled leadership.

The science is clear: climate change is real, it is happening, and it is caused by human actions. It is the biggest threat to the Earth’s environment that has ever existed. Public-opinion polls consistently show that Canadians care about climate change. The proof is right here, with all of us who came out tonight in the cold and dark. By turning off our lights for one hour, we are showing our leaders that it is possible to combat climate change. By participating in Earth Hour, we send a powerful message to Parliament and to the rest of the world: that we are concerned about our environment, and that we are willing to act to preserve and protect it.

It’s up to us – each and every one of us. We must take personal responsibility for reducing our energy footprint. It can be as minor as turning off unnecessary lights. Lighting uses between five and fifteen percent of electricity in homes, and one-third of electricity in offices. It can be as easy as shutting down computers and televisions when they’re not in use. These appliances use between ten and sixty percent of their total energy while in “sleep” or “stand-by” modes. It is as simple as leaving the car at home and taking the bus, cycling, or walking.

We can combat climate change. It begins here – with us – tonight – with one hour of darkness for a brighter future.

.

Volunteers Needed!

We're doing a membership drive here in the local riding association, because it beats sitting on our hands waiting for the Liberals to start acting like they were elected or something. We're looking for a few volunteers to call up our ten people on our list of 1000+ past members and ask them to volunteer, donate, and renew. And then those people will call up 10 members and ask them to volunteer, and those people will call up 10 members, etc. Like a pyramid scheme! And only people who are in the first wave win the biggest commissions! Ok, actually, there's no commission. None.

Nevertheless, we need YOU! to help us. It's easy: we only need people to do 10-15 calls each. A calling script is provided, and each call should take about five minutes at most.

It's not cold calling, because yuck. No, these are people who are friendly and have helped out the NDP in the past. So they will be happy to hear from you, at least as happy as people can be when they're being asked to haul out their cheque books :)

There will be an event afterwards with the beer and the hanging out and complaining about Stephen Harper and Stéphane Dion. The beer won't be free, but the complaining will!

If you'd like to help out and get a warm fuzzy feeling about contributing positively to local politics, drop me a line: 613-572-4NDP. Or email me, reneestephen@ndp.ca. Or leave a comment!

• Did you know that the City of Kingston has 1803km of paved roads? Neither did I! We also all take 23 bus trips per year, and all of us have had run-ins with that one bus driver who constantly runs 10 minutes late and can't go an hour without a cigarette.
• Rick Mercer nails it. God bless Canada, indeed.
• Environmental Impact Assessment of the International Association of Impact Assessment Conference. People practicing what they preach.
• The class struggle continues.

This morning I attended a breakfast hosted by OPSEU to kick off International Women's Week. There was croissants and fruit and ... most importantly ... COFFEE.

I'm not a morning person. Really, not. And this morning was especially exciting, because it was icy! With the freezing rains! And I forgot my wallet! But it wasn't just me. The bus driver was blinking sleep out of his eyes, and I got the impression that, as long as I didn't have three heads and thus require him to wake up enough to be concerned, that I was welcome to hop on and ride for free. Just don't make any loud noises, OK?

When I got there, late, because I can't catch a bus on time to save my life, I spent an hour with several wonderful women and men who all shared the common cause of believing in women's rights in Canada. We heard a lovely speech from Sister Pauline Lally of the Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul about the state of inequality that women in much of the world today face. Then I gave a nice little speech pointing out that, despite what Stephen Harper's Conservatives said when they cut funding for women's rights advocacy, we had not achieved equality for women here in Canada either.

Then there was more coffee.

So, happy International Women's Week, folks. I'll end off with an excerpt from my speech:

Equality is fundamental to our future as a nation. We’ve come a long way, but not all the way. We’ve made a lot of progress, but we haven’t crossed the finish line.

So let us use International Women’s Week to remind us about women’s issues, and carry those thoughts into action in our daily lives, in our homes and at our workplaces. Women’s equality is part of a fair and just Canada ... and, with hard work and constant vigilance, we will achieve equality for women in Canada and around the world.

Cheers.

Today I attended the opening of the LVEC K-Rock Centre. (While at the opening I made a conscious effort not to call it the Crock Centre, because that would have been unpatriotic.)

I actually went down there to stand in front of the building picketing it with IATSE, the union who does all the rigging and lighting for performance events. IATSE was shut out of the bidding process for the Centre by the management company the city hired, a US company who hates things like safety regulations, fair wages and workers' rights.

But the threat of a big ugly picket caused the management company to agree to sit down with the Union and hash something out. Suspicion says that this is just to shut them up for the opening weekend, but hey.

Anyway, a lovely city councilor invited me to come inside once the picket was called off, so I followed her around and saw the inside of the K-Rock Centre. Now that it's there, there's no point spilling milk to crumble crying cookies into, so I'll come out and say that it is very, very nice. (If it ever gets paid for, it will be even better.)

Thanks to my guide I was introduced to everybody important in the city. I mean, I already knew the most important person there, and I also got to meet one of my six loyal readers (Hi, Alex!) which was a special treat. I also got introduced to some less-important people too, and shook all their hands, thus spreading my evil germs. And not the disease of socialism, but something rather more prosaic: my cold.

Among the people who I infected, and who I can now pretend to know: I, or K, or L, or some alphabet letter from the local radio station. G! That's it. G. Nice guy, but would flirt with a couch if it was introduced to him as Sheila. Many men in suits including two KEDCOs and a downtown business association, as well as at least five advisors to various people. All of them were tall. On the political front, I'd already met John Gerretsen and Harvey R., but this time I also got to meet Mr. Milliken, who might be my opponent in the next Federal election. (He's nice, seemed kind of embarrassed to meet me. Probably knows that I'm out for his job. Well, one of them, anyway.) I also met a Springer, who looked disconcerted when I called him by his first name.

Gerretsen's son Mark is really nice. And very tall.

Finger foods were served, I forgot more names than I remember, and the general consensus is that there will not be an election.

I have one beef: maybe it's because I'm a girl or something, but this is the second time that John Gerretsen, after being introduced to me, stepped RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME to talk to the person on my right, and then turned his back and physically cut me out of the conversation. At least this time the person he was talking to had the grace to look embarrassed. Don't politicians get lessons in how not to be socially obnoxious? Also, Harvey's lost some weight. I guess he can relax now that his legacy project is open - stress eating is what gets you every time.

In general, it never ceases to amaze me when I go to dos like this how much of a club being rich and/or influential is: it doesn't matter your politics as long as you're on the side of the upper classes. Just a general observation from a flea on the ear of the capitalist running-dogs. (Also, I was the only one wearing Doc Martens. Except maybe Alan, I forgot to check.)