I've been home on PEI for two weeks, trying to get my brain back in gear. It's been on hiatus for the last year and a bit, while I played in Scotland. So now I am back 'on air' and its all a bit frightening and exhilirating at the same time.

I am helping with a webcourse offered through UPEI, which is called The Natural Step. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to learn where we are, where we CAN go and how we can get there. Yes, it's a course about teh environment and it's a course about business, but it's also a course that can teach us a lot about ourselves and the power we wield as consumers and citizens.

Some people are a bit hesitant about webcourses as they don't offer the same interaction that one can get in a classroom setting, but you know what? They offer an equally refreshing interaction - an interaction that is not bound by geography or tine and, most importantly, they offer the type of forum where people feel comfortable expressing their opinions and thoughts without fear. It's an incredibly supportive medium for exchangin ideas and encouraging action. Again, I highly recommend it!

For more information about The Natural Step, which is a methodology for businesses looking to reduce their footprint, I have posted a link to the main website (see right column).

So - where is PEI making progress?

Well, a recent announcement that the Wind Test site at North Cape is going to become the National Site for Research is one big leap forward. Expect increased funding from the NRC, perhaps increaesd access to wind energy and increased employment opportunities/research opportunities that will draw educated and influential people to our wee Island.

To quote Bob Dylan : 'The answer is blowing in the wind'

There's also the organic movement, which seems to be gaining strength in numbers from both the producers side and the consumers side. As part of my university studies I did a case study on an organic farm, Springwillow Farms, run by Raymond Loo. What a fascinating opportunity to learn more about food, farming and the playres involved! Raymond is such an inspirational person too!

Then, of course, there's reputed to be a transit system in the works for the big city of Charlottetown. DO I sound skeptical? OK< I must admit I am. They are gonig ot have four buses running! Four buses is not enoguh, not nearly enough. For a transit system to be effective it needs to be efficient. I can see the transit system being useful to people who don't have cars at the moment, but it will hardly encourag motorists to park their cars and start using public transit. The incentive just isn't there.

OK - for the moment that is all the time I have.....Reduce, Recycle, Reuse & Respect Mother Nature!

There's a rather fierce debate going on at the moment here on Prince Edward Island. The topic is Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and whether there should be a blanket ban on them across the Island's agricultural community. Opinions appear to be divided, as seems the norm on PEI whenever there's a whiff of proposed change in the air.

Ideally, I would love to see PEI go all the way and revamp it's entire agriculutural industry in line with the tennents of organic farming. All the elements for success seem to be here - we have a well established agricultural industry as it is, thus there is a great deal of knowledge held within the community, the Island is isolated, thus boundaries from other agricultural communities are well-defined, there is an every-growing demand for organic produce both on and off the Island (I was astounded at how busy the Farmer's Market was on Saturday!) and there are already some established organic producers on the Island who could provide leadership and knowledge.

But it's not that easy is it? Nobody likes change, least of all when the current way of doing things appears to be working alright..maybe not briliantly, but well enough. So what incentive is there for farmers on PEI to switch to organic farming, which is riskier, would involve futher capital investments and it could take up to seven years to become certified organic? The incentives to change just aren't there. Or are they? Maybe it's simply that the benefits haven't been illuminated properly, or maybe it's that people, generally, are resistant to change and will reject it if they have the ability to. So what's the solution? Incentives? Policies and laws? Education?

One way to show support for the organic community on PEI might be to attend the Organic Harvest Dinner being put on by the Culinary Institute on September 29. If you are interested in checking out the menu or picking up tickets here is a link to further information http://david.goldnet.ca/index.php?page=coop_programs Hope to see you there!!

Welcome fellow inhabitants of Earth. I've recently returned from a year long hiatus from reality (chosen location of hiatus = Scotland) to find myself smack dab back in a world full of pressing matters, ever-increasing natural disasters and increasingly consuming self interests. It's not all bad though. Positive change has been happening since I left too. People are, I believe, starting to gain an awareness of how day-to-day activities and the basics tenets upon which we carry on with life are having a global impact. Hope remains alive.

I have taken the advice of a very inspiring friend and mentor, Rob Paterson, to create a 'passion' blog in addition to my personal blog. The result is Earth to Shannon, which will be a forum for discussion about any and all topics relating to the environment - from global topics such as climate change to topics closer to home such as whether GMO foods will be banned on Prince Edward Island.

My hope is that by posting on this blog I will find myself actively engaged in a learning process that will help me better understand the complexity of the environmental issues/concerns that exist and perhaps give me a heads up as to how I can actively participate in change for the better. I'm also hoping that this blog will be more interactive and invite everyone to make comments and/or introduce new topics to the discussion.

For this first post, I invite you to take a look at this site http://www.myfootprint.org/ to calculate your personal footprint on the world.

I find it intersting that the largest footprints on the world are created by the most 'advanced' nations, as we have the wealth to consume more meats, take long-haul flights, drive autombiles, etc. At the same time, the greatest devastation from our lifestyles has not been, until very recently, evident in our own backyards. Most of the environmental degradation is taking place in third world countries, particularly in Asia, where corporations take advantage of cheap labour and non-existent environamental laws to bring us products at bargain prices. So the garbage remains far, far away.

Ahh, but climate change is starting to catch up with us and there appears no way to keep that from entering our backyards. The number of destructive floods, hurricanes, mudslides, heat waves, etc over the past few years seems unprecedented. Whether these climate changes are due to human activity that has taken place overhte last century still seems to be up for debate, but with the glaciers melting and the ozone layer depleting it seems hard to continue denying that our existence is interfering with Mother Nature's maintenance of our hom, Earth.