Is it easy being green?

The other day I won a blog contest hosted by Alberta Views magazine through their blog. The prize was a gift basket put together by Bullfrog Power. Bullfrog is a company that sells power in certain Canadian provinces that is generated 100% from wind power. The basket is quite nice, filled with items promoting Bullfrog and other green enterprises. It also included a $25 gift certificate for 1 month of power from Bullfrog. Besides the fact that I'm not really sure that $25 bucks is going to cut it for my power bill (and I live in a condo - my power consumption is not that high), I'm really not sure if I'm going to run out and switch my eletrical provider.

I subscribe to what I consider to be a 'general green philosophy'. Some would probably consider it 'green lite'. I believe we only have one planet and we should do our best to care for it. But we also need to use what is on it. I don't believe we should rape the planet for its resources, but we can use so much of what is available on this planet and the use of these resources provides us the foundation of our modern society. A very typical, centrist position to take. I love the outdoors. I love to go camping, hiking and exploring areas outside of our urban landscapes. Nature provides us with some awesome vistas to take in across this planet. I've made a point to discover as many as I can, be it here in Alberta or across the planet on another continent.

I sympathize with some of the green political positions. But I also cannot bring myself take on some of their more radical lifestyle changes. I walk to work (even in -30C) because it's more convienient for me to walk rather than pay a large amount for parking or a bus downtown while it is still quicker for me to walk. The fact that it cuts down on my carbon footprint is a bonus, but not the sole reason I walk to work. I drive a fuel efficient car because it was cheaper for me to buy it new than pay car payments on a vehicle that had no warranty. I also love the fact that my entire petrol budget for a month seldom exceeds $100 - and this includes trips to Red Deer and Calgary.

For me, I just cannot bring myself to stop eating meat because of the large carbon footprint cows emit from grazing to their journey to my supermarket's freezer. We were without a car last year for a month and it was difficult for the 3 of us to do much of anything that month. While fresh veggies do taste better than those I buy at my local produce store, I just don't have the space to cultivate my own garden. I also don't like pickle beans that much - so I will pay for those trucks to transport my vegetables from California and Mexico during the winter months so I can enjoy my veggies year round. I'm not going to boycott Shell or Esso because I still need the fuel they're selling so I can make those trips to my parents or my sister's.

My brother in law best demonstrates what I believe to be the most accessible green philosophy - He loves the outdoors and does everything he can to minimize his impact when he takes a trip to go camping, boating or whatever activity he picks for the weekend. He recycles what he can in a city with a limited recylcing program. But he drives an F150 to carry said boat and camping supplies.

Protecting the planet is important but our society cannot abandon their cars, power plants and plastics. Green action needs to be accessible. There are practical things we can all do, and some of these actions have economic benefits. I would vote for candidates who espoused green philosophies if their proposals were practical to implement. I think green candidates would have more success if they would work to get the vote of someone like my brother in law or the farmer in Rimbey who is ticked off with radiation emitting power lines being strung over his farm. Instead the green candidates focus on the fact that their campaign brochures are printed on recycled paper and take train rides instead of plane rides to carry on their campaign message. This doesn't make them accessible to the average voter and keeps them irrelevant - at both the federal and provincial level.

I still haven't decided if it makes sense for me to switch my power from Epcor to Bullfrog. My power bill is expensive enough right now. And besides, I'm not sold on the fact that wind power is an economical method to generate electricity. It takes thousands of turbines to generate anything close to power generation of a fossil fuel run plant. While I think it is a good thing to use the turbines to relieve some pressure off our fossil fuel plants, it just won't work out to replace them all. In the last 10 years there has been some very interesting developments in other generation methods. I will continue to keep my eye on those methods and who knows, maybe Bullfrog will tap into one of those methods to help with it's supply in 5 or 10 years. And then I won't even need a coupon to help me make the switch.

leadership and an astronaut on EVA

I was at a seminar today as part of a leadership program I am doing with work. In the first activity they asked us to pick an image that best described why we are taking the leadership program. The picture above was one of the images so I took it almost immediately. There are so many reasons why this describes my reasons for taking the leadership course that I couldn't share them all in the 1 minute that was provided in my group. This image works on so many levels for me that I thought I'd share some more thoughts.

Since I was a child I dreamed of being an Astronaut. I even went to space camp down in Kansas - 3 times. For someone with an over active imagination, space represents the frontier of one's imagination - there is no limit what you can imagine in space. So while I may have moved on with my dreams to become an Astronaut, my imagination has not. I still keep up on the news about the space program, I still track down and read good sci-fi, every so often I even try and write something about it.

Leadership is all about pushing the limits. And an Astronaut on an EVA* in a MMU** certainly pushes all boundaries currently known to man. And this image represents something a little more materialistic as well - this man has gone about as high as anyone can go. I am currently near the bottom of my organization. I hope to learn the skills and prove myself so that I can advance and move up in this organization. This will of course take time.

An Astronaut is a highly trained scientist and are often the top researchers, engineers and pilots in the world. This picture respresents years of training and research. And while we only see one person in this photo, literally thousands of people are responsible for making this one spacewalk possible. Only this photo was taken in a vacuum, the achievements of many are represented in the photo. A successful leader must work with and have the backing of the people he or she led in order to achieve what he or she sets out to achieve.

As a kid, I knew the name of the Astronaut in this photo. I had to look it up tonight. Few people will know the name of Bruce McCandless but most will recoginize this photo. The same applies to leadership - the results of a leader will often be known rather than the name of the individual. From developing a new social program, to designing additions to a city to educating and mobilizing the public on an important social issue, we don't often remember the names of the leaders who led us, but we will remember their achievements. Not all of us can Barak Obama or Jim Ballsillie - but leaders from any level in an organization can achieve great things.

So I hope as I start my career and complete this leadership program I can learn something from those who have went before me and help to bring about some positive change - somewhere. It will take time and discipline, but I believe it will be worth it.