From WWF-Belgium: Darth Fladder

Click here to view the embedded video.

From Jaclyn A. Smith, a green hero in Vancouver: Cold Water

Click here to view the embedded video.

And don’t forget to check out all of the awesome videos and photos our Canadian supporters have submitted to our Earth Hour Every Hour contest. The contest deadline is March 25 so you only have a few days left to submit your own!

This year, Earth Hour takes place on Saturday, March 27 from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. (local time). Families are encouraged to join millions of people around the world and turn off their lights for one hour in support of action on climate change. Small acts can make a big difference.

Here are some activities to help you and your family make an evening out of Earth Hour:

1.         Make a plan: Engage your family in a conversation about conservation and come up with ideas on how to save energy, limit waste, and make a positive impact on the environment at home.  Then discuss other ways your family can take action for the planet year-round, like switching to CFL light bulbs, using cold water to wash your clothes, and buying energy efficient appliances.

2.         Community involvement: Find Earth Hour events happening in your community and get involved.  Being part of a community with purpose will prompt your kids to start seeking out other opportunities to get involved on their own and inspire more action.

3.         Candle-lit games night: Dust off the board games or play a game of flashlight tag.  Gather the family for some old-fashioned quality time to remind your children that games can be played without a computer or TV screen and that fun can be had with mom or dad.

4.         Take a tour: Explore your neighborhood in a whole new light and take a flashlight walk, or tour around your city using “green” modes of transportation. Walk, bike, skateboard, scooter, or take the bus and show your kids that travel can be fun, and sometimes faster, when you leave the car at home.

5.         Scavenge and save: Set up a scavenger hunt in and around your house to mark off areas where energy can be saved. Encourage the kids to place flags or stickers in spots where appliances or computers can be unplugged and lights turned off – highlighting the spots where they can make a difference.

1. We can solve 3/4 of climate change by changing the energy we use

First step is cutting down our use. Do those lights really have to be on? Can the computers be turned off at night? Think before you switch on.

2. 10 million Canadians care about leadership on climate change

Every person who participates in Earth Hour is sending a clear and inspiring message to our leaders to take further action needed to help our planet.

3. We’re in the hot seat this summer – and it’s not on the beach!

Canada is hosting the G8 and G20 Summits in Huntsville and Toronto in June, and climate change is on the agenda. Let’s show the world what we are capable of.

4. Wildlife’s best hope is avoiding 2 degrees Celsius

Global warming is already threatening our coral reefs, the base of ocean life. If we can limit the warming, we can stop 1/3 of species from risking extinction.

5. WWF wants to help you make every hour Earth Hour

There’s a big growing community online of people wanting to do more and looking for support. Join us on the Living Planet Community.

For more information on WWF’s Earth Hour campaign go to www.earthhourcanada.org.

The WWF CN Tower Climb has been my pleasure to participate in for the past 20 years annually. Over the past 15 I have put together corporate teams and in some cases conquered the tower twice in one year. Last year was the first year I was able to participate with my two youngest children (after the corporate climb of course). It was a very proud moment for all of us and my wife met us at the top to celebrate our success.

WWF-Canada works around the world but focuses on the environmental needs at home. From “The Gully” off Nova Scotia to the habitat of our polar bears to the north, their work ensures life on this planet can continue its way of existence in the most harmonious way possible. We only have one place to live in this universe so let’s look after it for our future to enjoy as we have.

I am always surprised with the fundraising portion. Over the years the internet and WWF-Canada’s site has made it easier to get in touch with supporters. I usually set fundraising goals that are easily surpassed. Even at $200 I have been able to double or more my goal. While my donations have gone up so has my climb time (but not by much haha). Last year I climbed with my 6 year old and we managed to just break over 30 minutes. I let him finish first so his climb time would be better than mine. While it wasn’t my best time it was my best climb ever.

I encourage you to participate and ask your friends to join you or help support our cause. It’s a great way meet new people and challenge yourself to do something spectacular. Climbing the CN Tower can be something to scratch off your accomplishments list and allow you to say “Hey now!  That wasn’t so hard!” But keep in mind to have that little extra energy for the end so you can push it through the finish.

It’s been some time since this climber was able to break the 20 minute mark. I’m thinking for shooting for a modest time like 20:20 to celebrate 20 years of climbing. For fundraising I’ll be starting a little earlier this year and have so much interest from co-workers I may be looking at two corporate teams for the climb. It promises to be a spectacular event this year for all.

Put your best foot forward and hope to see you there!

Member governments of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) chose to vote today on the proposal. 72 out of 129 CITES members voted against the trade ban, 43 voted in favour, with 14 abstentions.

“After overwhelming scientific justification and growing political support in past months – with backing from the majority of catch quota holders on both sides of the Atlantic – it is scandalous that governments did not even get the chance to engage in meaningful debate about the international trade ban proposal for Atlantic bluefin tuna,” said Dr Sergi Tudela, Head of Fisheries at WWF Mediterranean and observer at the CITES Conference of the Parties in Doha.

Once the Principality of Monaco had tabled the proposal this afternoon and a number of countries had given brief interventions, Libya called for an immediate vote on the proposal.

“The regional fisheries management organization in charge of this fishery – the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, ICCAT – has repeatedly failed to sustainably manage this fishery,” said Dr Tudela. “ICCAT has so far failed miserably in this duty so every pressure at the highest level must come to bear to ensure it does what it should.”

WWF will proactively call on restaurants, retailers, chefs and consumers around the world to stop selling, serving, buying and eating this endangered species. Already a growing body of the global seafood market sector is choosing to avoid Atlantic bluefin tuna to give the exhausted fish stocks a chance of recovery – including such groups as Carrefour Europe.

“It is now more important than ever for people to do what the politicians failed to do – stop consuming bluefin tuna,” Dr Tudela said.

The Principality of Monaco – the CITES member country that submitted the proposal for a CITES Appendix I listing of the species – became last year the first country in the world to be entirely bluefin tuna free. WWF is urging other countries to follow suit.

At my restaurants – Kultura, Nyood and Eatalia, we will be rolling out a very old time honored tradition.  Its called back to basics.   We will turn off the lights, light the candles and celebrate minimalism.  Remember when we actually sat down and spoke to one another without interruption, analyzed the other persons face (not Facebook) and enjoyed the food, drinks and company.  Our mixologists will prepare their best Dark and Stormy and our chefs will do their best to work with limited light, it is very tricky to cook good food that is well presented under low light; but they are up to the challenge.  And if all goes well we may be bringing live musicians into the mix because in my world food and music are a must.  Truth be told I will be walking around the restaurant singing as I always do, maybe I will bust out some Soul Food songs as well.

At home my family will be having a Earth Hour party complete with candles, lots of paper, glue, crayons and snacks that do not require cooking (more on that later).   Several of my cousins and their kids will be joining us to have a good old fashioned play o rama.  There is nothing like the sounds of silence and children enjoying themselves.   The play o rama will end up outside so the kids can enjoy the stars in the suddenly blackened sky.  Remember that.

We have evolved past meat on a stick over an open fire for some time now so I have included a no cook recipe that is absolutely delicious from my Soul Food CD and there are more recipes available at www.rogermooking.com/recipes

Enjoy!!!

Lemongrass Fruit Salad

Ingredients

1 Mango (diced)

½ Pineapple (diced)

2 Kiwi (diced)

1/8 Watermelon (diced)

½ Can of Lychees (drained and halved)

Lemongrass Simple Syrup Dressing

1 Cup White sugar

1 Cup Water

2 Lemongrass stalks chopped fine

½ Tsp Lemon juice (fresh squeezed)

2 Drops of Vanilla extract

Method

Smash stalks of lemongrass with the back of your knife to bruise it and free the flavour then dice very fine and place in a bowl.  Add water, sugar, lemon juice and vanilla extract.  Allow mixture to infuse for 30 mins.

Assembly

Dice all fruit into same-sized, bite-sized pieces.  Combine into a serving dish and dress with Lemongrass Simple Syrup Dressing.

What we want most is to hear YOUR story. If you’re living Earth Hour every hour, upload a short video or photo essay for your chance to win the trip of a lifetime to see polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba. The deadline to upload your entry and collect votes is March 25, so the clock is ticking! Don’t miss out on great weekly prizes for voting too.

For a little inspiration, check out these videos from über model Gisele Bündchen, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, and Canada’s own Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This brief blog post will show you just how to train for a stair race such as the CN Tower Climb. There is a specific way to train that allows you to develop better explosive muscle contractions to help drive you up those stairs faster.

Before I elaborate on what you must do to help you complete the CN Tower Climb, let’s take a look at muscle physiology; please bear with me!

Our leg muscles are comprised of different types of muscle fiber types, Type 1 and Type 2. These types are sometimes referred to as slow twitch and fast twitch muscles types.

Muscle Type I (Slow Twitch/red muscle fibers):

• Can use more oxygen to generate more muscle contractions
• Known to fire more slowly and fatigue more slowly then fast twitch muscle fiber types
• Used in aerobic activity such as running and marathon or cycling

Muscle Fiber Type II (Fast Twitch/white muscle fibers):

• Known for generating short bursts of energy and speed
• Fire more rapidly and generate a great deal of force
• Used in anaerobic activities, such as 100 meters sprints or explosive weight

Stair climbing is very unique in that the activity uses BOTH muscle fiber types for the duration of the climb, therefore you must develop both your fast and slow twitch muscle fibers!

If you only develop Type I muscle fiber types (for example running long distances), then you are going to be using less of your leg muscles to drive you up the stairs!

Now what can you do to improve your performance? Great question, and the answer is  not to climb more stairs, although that does factor into the equation. You must develop your leg muscles so that they can perform explosive movements over a length of time.

Strength training is a wonderful way to increase your leg strength and explosiveness and will allow for a more dynamic movement up the stairs.

Some sample exercises that we would prescribe to you would be:

1. Bodyweight Squats
2. Bounding from one leg to the other
3. Standing Lunges
4. Hamstring Swiss Ball Curls
5. Dumbbell Step Ups
6. Plate Pushes
7. Bench Jumps
8. Wall Touches
9. Plyometric Jumps

Of course some of these exercises you will not know. For a introductory online training session to help you climb faster, please visit Step Up Canada.

In addition there is the traditional cardiovascular work that must be done. You should be completing two to three cardiovascular workouts per week and then building to four cardiovascular workouts and two strength training workouts per week.

I would highly recommend that the beginner stair climber should do the following:

Monday – Weight training (Consisting of lower body work and core)
Tuesday – Long duration cardiovascular work (20 minutes if possible and build up to 45 minutes
Wednesday – Upper body strength training and core work
Thursday – Interval training OR a full stair climbing workout (Interval training allows for better cardiovascular endurance and helps burn body fat faster as well).
Friday - DAY OFF!
Saturday – Lower body strength training, focusing on bodyweight movements only; the key of this workout is to build the explosiveness
Sunday – DAY OFF or long duration cardiovascular work. If your body is tired take a day off; if it feels good train!

I can imagine the consequences (not good) for the climate and local eco-systems of tripling the size of what is already the largest industrial project on the planet, but to be honest the scale of investment involved was simply too big for me to even imagine what else we could do with it.

Thankfully, our colleagues from WWF-UK have teamed up with the Co-operative Bank to produce the Opportunity Cost of Tar Sands Development: How to better spend $379 billion. This report shows how the world-changing level of resources being poured into expanding extracting and processing the tar-like goo underlying the boreal forest could instead be used to create green energy or to help meet global development goals.

For example, that much money could fund a Europe-wide shift to electric vehicles and massive expansion of renewable energy (so we wouldn’t need the extra oil from the tar sands to get from point A to point B).  As a more local example, the $7 billion (or 2% of $379 billion slated for expanding the tar sands) that will be invested as part of the wind and solar power deal between Ontario and an industrial consortium led by Samsung will produce enough electricity to power over 2 million Chevy Volt-like plug-in hybrid vehicles travelling 18,000 km/year on electricity alone.

It would also be enough to halve the number of people in the world living without access to clean water and sanitation, provide universal primary education, and help avert the deaths of four million children, 300,000 mothers and almost half a million victims of HIV and TB.

Critics of these kinds of analyses often point out that just because you don’t use the money for tar sands doesn’t mean that it will be available for other environmental or social purposes. But in this case, it isn’t a purely intellectual exercise. As noted in this story for the UK newspaper The Guardian,  this new report is part of a concerted effort to put shareholder and public pressure on UK-based oil companies (and the pension funds that invest in them) to shift their investments towards building a green economy.

And we are talking about enough money to change the world – for better or for worse.

I’ll turn the lights off there and will be glad to enjoy an hour of rest and calm in this especially hectic month. I’ll use that hour to think about all the others around the world doing the same.

Knowing the rate at which my country – the U.S. – is spewing CO2 into the atmosphere; it might be tempting to dismiss Earth Hour’s impact in terms of the actual reduction in carbon emissions. The amount of CO2 avoided that hour, while certainly nice, is dwarfed by our entire fossil fuel powered infrastructure, including our cars and buildings and planes and factories and garbage incinerators and so much more. But the real value of Earth Hour is not in CO2 reductions. The real value is in joining with millions and millions of people to make a collective stand, to take collective action. And that is what we need more than anything right now.

It’s the people-coming-together part of Earth Hour that excites me. Coordinating millions of people around the world to take action simultaneously, for the Earth, is big. It’s a huge opportunity to exercise our atrophied collective action muscles. Today, it’s turning the lights off for an hour. Tomorrow, who knows? There’s a whole world of opportunities to make change, once we get that collective action muscle going again.

Hundreds of millions of people taking collective action is a powerful symbol. It is a powerful statement. It shows our leaders that a lot of people (voters, taxpayers, citizens) are paying attention and that we care. It is a way to show each other that we’re not alone in our concern and our commitment. There are enough of us who care about the planet that we can turn things around. We can redesign our industrial economy to meet our needs without poisoning people and the planet. We can use less stuff and share what we use more fairly.

When I think back to the defining moments in history, when really big and really good change happened, there was often an individual act which has become a symbol of that moment of transformation. Rosa Parks sitting down on the bus. Gandhi making salt on the shore. Those single acts didn’t cause the big change by themselves, but since they were part of larger, courageous, visionary, ambitious campaigns, they have come to symbolize that larger change.

For those who want Earth Hour to be such a symbolic defining moment, there’s work to be done. Use the organizing for Earth Hour to strengthen your community, use that hour of no light to think and discuss the many ways we can chart a new path. Make Earth Hour be not just about turning off the lights, but about turning on that collective action muscle and applying it to ever bigger, ever more ambitious goals.

Click here to view the embedded video.

(Click here to learn more about how WWF-Canada partners with leading businesses that are committed to making positive changes for the environment.)

Annie Leonard is the author of the new book, The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-and a Vision for Change.  She  is an expert in international sustainability and environmental health issues, with more than 20 years of experience investigating factories and dumps around the world and turned her experience into a powerful 20 minute film that has become an Internet sensation and has inspired 10 million viewers.  Please visit storyofstuff.com for more information.

In keeping with the mission of The Story of Stuff, the book was produced with the smallest carbon footprint by minimizing resources and toxic inputs in its production via electronic copyediting, 100% post-consumer recycled paper, soy-based ink and non-toxic binding and jacket materials.

Meet Annie Leonard in Toronto:

Tuesday, April 20th, 7 p.m.
Indigo Books & Music
55 Bloor Street West, Toronto ON

For more info, please visit Facebook.