Category Archives: Business

Quit Buying Soulless Crap, Support Your Local Economy

I reflexively shared a post about boycotting goods from China on FB. Not due to Covid, but a pile of other reasons such as undercutting local manufacturing, terrible environmental damage, horrid working conditions, etc.

I deleted my share, because the post was overly inflammatory.

Yet, if the average Canadian had a clue about how much of what we buy is shoddily made in China under horrid conditions. . . . Sheesh.

I had a gig stocking at a retail outlet for awhile not too long ago. I would think way over half of the knickknacks came from China. Often as not, as we opened boxes upon boxes stacked on pallets, nauseous chemical smells would waft through receiving.

Anything made from plastic stank. Even supposed wood products stank of preservatives or perhaps fungicides or pesticides.

I shudder to think of the people in the factories producing this shit.

Each shift entailed filling multiple huge garbage bags with packing materials ranging from Styrofoam to plastic to bubble wrap. . . . All to be “recycled,” eh?

No more cheap baubles. They’re like sugar that may give you a short-term lift, but long-term soulless emptiness.

Let’s make better choices. Let’s buy local. Let’s buy handcrafted. Let’s buy art not kitsch. Let’s buy quality that lasts. Let’s not throw things away.

What Happened to the $1 A Year Men?

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau?

Finance Minister Bill Morneau?

Members of Parliament?

Canadian corporate execs?

There used to be a tradition in Canada, and other advanced nations, that if you were in politics, and wealthy, in times of trouble like WWI or WWII,  you’d quit drawing on the public purse.

Same for corporate executives.

Here’s a reference for you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-dollar_salary

Yes, overall your salaries are a tiny slice of the national budget, but symbolically they are huge.

Apologies to women, it has been evident that nations run by women have been much faster to step up to issues like this.

Why Are Folks Drooling Over Shoes on LinkedIn?

So I popped over to the increasingly irrelevant LinkedIn to hopefully glean some wisdom about business in these trying times, and was smacked with a thread of folks drooling over some stupidly crippling high-heeled shoes that only the 1% could afford.

And drooling over the model’s legs. . .

I understand folks are hyper and nervous and whatever. But jeez, could we be adults?

If that post and responses had appeared on any internal business LAN, the poster would likely have been in deep shit.

Plastics Street Garbage Entering Storm Drains

Street garbage seen today, much of it plastics, leading straight to a storm drain at the corner of Edmonds and Fulton in SE Burnaby, BC. This was perhaps a 5-meter stretch of curb.

I am documenting more of this when I run across it because the Stream of Dreams Murals Society is researching how plastics are impacting local streams, and eventually the Fraser River and Pacific Ocean though storm-drain pollution.

The City of Burnaby is providing some support for this project.

All drains lead to fish habitat. When this garbage is washed into street drains, it ends up in local creeks, begins breaking down, and keeps moving downstream affecting fish and wildlife along the way. It will eventually arrive in the ocean, perhaps as microplastics.

plastics garbage burnaby bc street

Are We Up to Really Tackling Climate Change?

10, 15, 20 years ago, I’d go to sustainable communities conferences and revel in people getting charged up and excited.

Now I go to sustainable communities conferences and I see people walking out of keynote presentations in tears. . .

It’s been much the same message all along, but it’s finally sinking in with more folks that time is running out.

I work and talk with “kids” in their 20s and 30s, half my age, and more of them are afraid to have children, because there is dwindling optimism in what the future holds.

I help deliver watershed education programs to elementary schools, and there’s an unease among the kids, and alarm among the teachers. . . .

It’s like a world war.

Is this our D-Day? Environmental Destruction Day.

It’s said we can still turn things around, but it’s going to take WAY more effort than any government or almost any political candidate from the big two parties in the current Canadian Federal election has been willing to admit. . .

Are we up to this?

Can we as humans see beyond short-term gain and look a few generations into the future?

Last Day Exhibiting with Stream of Dreams at EcoCity 2019

It was yet another gorgeous day in downtown Vancouver at the EcoCity 2019 event (@ecocity2019). It was my second day helping staff the Stream of Dreams Murals Society booth @StreamofDreams . I’ve been doing some PT work this year helping deliver the Stream of Dreams watershed education and community art program in schools.

I really enjoyed this event. Talked to lots of folks over the two days, collected a bunch of biz cards, and will be following up with many.

There was a serendipitous moment as I was chatting with a conference goer who didn’t seem all that impressed with our watershed education and community art program. Just then another woman walked by and squealed “Oh my gosh, Stream of Dreams! I love your program, my kids got so much out it, and teachers at her school were raving about it!”

No, I’d never met the second woman, and no cash was exchanged under any table : – ).

It’s very rewarding to get such unsolicited positive feedback.

stream of dreams founder Louise Towell Manager Krystal Brennan
L-R: Project Manager Krystal, Co-Founder Lu. Great people to work with!

stream of dreams murals ecocity 2019 vancouver

Stream of Dreams Booth at Vancouver EcoCity 2019

Lovely day in downtown Vancouver at the EcoCity 2019 event (@ecocity2019). I was helping staff the Stream of Dreams Murals Society booth. I’ve been doing some PT work this year helping deliver the Stream of Dreams watershed education and community art program in schools.

Had fun chatting with lots of other exhibitors and visitors, and also enjoyed meeting the folks from Royal Roads University where I did my MA, and University of Saskatchewan where I got my BA and BEd, and the University of Victoria, where I did a year of writing.

Great to see all the environmental programs coming out of these unis, and others!


While the multi-hundred-million dollar buildings are impressive, what really stands out to me is the tree. It outshines them all.

No More Consultation Let’s Get Implementing!

I think governments at all levels, municipal, regional, provincial, and federal, should stop doing studies, stop doing consultations, and go back into their files for the last 10 years and look at everything that has been consulted and planned, but never implemented.

NEVER IMPLEMENTED

Talk  – action = Zero

I say 10 years, because if you went back 20 or 30 or 40, the lack of implementation would be even more depressingly overwhelming.

Think I’m kidding?

I’m one citizen. A fairy active one, and I have a full four-drawer filing cabinet full of stuff on government processes that I’ve been asked to contribute to over the many years. And not a dime of compensation, just my tax dollars frittered away, again, and again, and again.

Not much joy out of those thousands of hours….

And on the other hand, what’s with governments moving forward with environmentally and culturally horrendous projects like the Site C dam?

Shame.

Ag Journalists Tour Byrne Creek with Someone Very Special

It was a pleasure to meet Cathy Glover today and get a photo taken with her at the monument to her late father Ken, who was instrumental in leading initial cleanups of Byrne Creek and the ravine decades ago.

A group of agriculture journalists toured the lower ravine with us. We talked salmon, invasive species, water quality and quantity. I feel there are common concerns about such issues across BC and Canada.

Glover monument Byrne Creek