TO Climate Plan; Food Film

[angela bischoff]

Toronto City Climate Change Plan backed

Jul 17, 2007 04:30 AM jim byers city hall bureau chief

TheStar.com
One of the most ambitious climate change plans in North America has been
adopted unanimously by Toronto City Council.

About an hour after a divisive debate that saw council members defer the
issue of imposing dramatic new taxes on city residents, councillors voted
37-0 last night in favour of a plan that aims to cut greenhouse gases in
the city by 6 per cent by 2012, 30 per cent by 2020 and by a full 80 per
cent by 2050.

A report circulated earlier this year talked about banning two-stroke
motors, like those used in lawnmowers and leaf blowers, by 2010. But
councillors yesterday merely asked staff to report at a later date on the
idea, as well as on how the city could ban such machines from its own
operations such as parks maintenance and street cleaning, by 2009.

"It's an amazing vote," said deputy mayor Joe Pantalone. "We're going
beyond the Kyoto Accord targets and we're going to look at everything from
energy retrofits for buildings in the city to installing geothermal energy
at Exhibition Place."

Pantalone said the city will also promote the use of hybrid vehicles as
taxis, and create incentives for green roofs and solar power cooperatives
in neighbourhoods.

The report also talks about bringing in road tolls to increase transit
usage, but there was no vote yesterday on specific toll proposals. The
issue is likely to resurface in the coming months, but Mayor David Miller
repeatedly has said tolls would work only if the city uses the money to
build transit lines in areas not currently served by the TTC, and only if
tolls were brought in on all area highways and not simply on roads owned
by the city.

Pantalone said the vote shows how far the environmental movement has come
in Canada.

"Everyone from councillors on the right to members on the left said this
is a fight worth having," he told the Star.

Councillor Doug Holyday, a notorious penny-pincher who represents Ward 3,
Etobicoke Centre, said he voted for the city's climate change plan in part
because spending on such things as building retrofits would be recaptured
through energy savings, and because some of the money would come from
other levels of government. "It does seem ambitious to me for a group that
doesn't have much money," Holyday said of the plan.

Miller has said the city only needs to spend $1 million on the plan this
year and that $84 million could be taken from a Toronto Hydro reserve fund
to cover 2008 costs.

---------------------------------------------

YOU ARE INVITED TO:

Alexander Park Family Movie Night -- FREE

The Future of Food

Do you know how your food is grown?

Do you know what foods in Canada have Genetically Modified Ingredients in
them?

How does this affect your health?



The film program will include 2 animated environmental shorts from the NFB

Lord of the Sky and Arkelope



Wednesday July 25, 2007     6:30 pm - 9 pm

Alexander Park Community Centre  

 105 Grange Court

THE FUTURE OF FOOD offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing
truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that
have quietly filled our grocery store shelves in the last 10 years.

>From the prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada to the fields of Oaxaca, Mexico,
this film gives a voice to farmers whose lives and livelihoods have been
negatively impacted by this new technology. The health implications,
government policies and push towards globalization are all part of the
reason why many people are alarmed by the introduction of genetically
altered crops into our food supply.

Shot on location in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, THE FUTURE OF FOOD
examines the complex web of market and political forces that are changing
what we eat as huge multinational corporations seek to control the world's
food system.

The film also explores alternatives to large-scale industrial agriculture,
placing organic and sustainable agriculture as real solutions to the farm
crisis today.



-- 
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Eulogies for Tooker and Stories for a
healthy mind, body and planet
http://www.greenspiration.org
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Join our email list by emailing us at:
greenspiration at web.ca
Write "subscribe" in the subject line
and tell us what city/country you live in
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<