Green T and Credit Valley Conservation Team Up Again!

Talk about exciting fall events...

You won’t want to miss the Sept 28th Green T environmental speakers’ night! For the 2nd year in a row, Green T & Credit Valley Conservation have teamed up to bring a special speakers evening. The venue is the beautiful SGI Caledon Centre just north of Alton. This is a beautiful location any time of year, but at its prime in autumn, and we are fortunate to be able to visit at this time!

Guest speakers on this special night will include climate change expert and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Don MacIver and artist and award-winning author Franke James. And Franke is bound to have some copies of her infamous book Bothered by my Green Conscience with her. A poster is attached. Reserve your seat early; the last time we were in this venue we filled 126 seats.

You’ll even get an opportunity to meet Stacey Fokas, and grab an autographed copy of her just-released book "freshalicious" (eat fresh, eat local, eat healthy).

Last but not least - we’ll have on hand a limited number of our brand new fab-design Green T shirts. This new shirt, adorned with a trendy “word-cloud”, is 100% certified organic cotton and Canadian-made and Caledon-purchased.

The best news is that it’s free with your purchase of a 2011 Green T membership, as long as supplies last.

To guarantee your free shirt with membership mail your $30 membership fee in now to 209 Foundry Street, Bolton, ON L7E2P7 – payable to “Green TEA”. Or you can pay conveniently online at http://www.greentcaledon.ca/join.html Pay your 2011 membership, in either fashion, and we’ll have a shirt waiting for you on Sept 28th.

DATE: TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 28th at 7:00 pm (doors open at 6:30)

VENUE:
SGI Canada Caledon Centre for Culture and Education
20490 Porterfield Rd (Cty Rd 136), Alton

Looking forward to seeing you for an awesome Green T night – don’t miss it!!

We're Soaking In It...

On Wednesday, October 28th, an audience of over 125 Green T members and other local residents joined Green T and Credit Valley Conservation at the beautiful SGI Caledon Centre as we co-presented "Slow Death by Rubber Duck", a talk by prominent Canadian environmentalist and author Rick Smith.

The evening opened with a short presentation by Aviva Patel, Terrestrial Specialist at Credit Valley Conservation who spoke about Natural Heritage Systems and their vital role in providing us with services that sustain life.

Then Rick Smith took the floor. Smith, who is also the Executive Director of Environmental Defence Canada, spoke to an attentive audience for over 40 minutes on the subject of environmental toxins in our environment, then stayed behind for an additional quarter hour or so, answering questions and signing books.

It's no secret that our planet is struggling under a load of toxic pollution from vehicles, smokestacks and garbage. We hear about it every day, we see it ourselves when we drive in the city. But there is another type of pollution taking place on planet earth... it's chemical, it's everywhere, and - the thrust of Smith's talk - we're literally soaking in it.

Smith's talk centred around the book he co-authored with Bruce Lourie called "Slow Death By Rubber Duck". In the book, the pair use humour, plain language and tests they devised and implemented on themselves to illustrate the extent to which we are being quietly poisoned every day of our lives by everyday items like plastic, cosmetics and lawn care items.

In particular, they isolated what they called the 7 Deadly Syn-thetics:

1. Phalates - the things that help aromatic items carry scent more efficiently;
   
2. PFC - Non-stick coatings like Teflon that off-gas at high heats;
   
3. PBDE - a fire retardant which bioaccumulates in blood, breast milk, and fat tissues;
   
4. Mercury - found in large quantity in large, long lived fish like tuna;
   
5. Triclosan - a synthetic, broad-spectrum antimicrobial agent that can cause everything from skin irritation, allergy susceptibility and dioxin contamination to the destruction of fragile aquatic ecosystems;
   
6. Pesticides - now banned in Ontario, these chemicals kept our grass green for decades, but at what cost?
   
7. Biphenol A - a pollutant once commonly found in many products (such as baby bottles) that can mess with human hormone balance, and is particularly nasty when heated up.

Powerful & compelling stuff... and some of it was truly frightening. An evening that could have been distressing and depressing, to be sure. But Smith's primary message is ultimately an upbeat one - small changes can make big differences. His secondary message is clear and urgent... these chemicals will be with us for a long time, sitting in our blood and the blood of our children. Lets clean up our act now - and help ensure a healthier life for future generations.

Smith's book is a compelling read and a must have on any home bookshelf. It is available at fine bookstores everywhere (and of course we like Forster's Bookgarden in Bolton and BookLore in Orangeville). If you prefer to order online visit SlowDeathByRubberDuck.com , Amazon.ca , Chapters.Indigo.ca or http://www.randomhouse.ca