Tony Lepage

The story behind this post takes me back one month ago, after I attended the Toronto Resource Investor’s Conference. There were a number of seminars and debates on various resource investment strategies like investing in uranium, oil, gold and even diamonds.

One of the panel discussions asked a question about Asia’s need for raw minerals. While all the members of the panel were more than willing to share their ideas on how Asia will affect the price of base metals, one man, Ian Doig, had a different plan. When his turn came, Mr. Doig could not offer any intelligent comment on the topic of base metals. I appreciated his honesty; however, I remained hesitant to dismiss his motivations.

You see, Mr. Doig has been bitten by a bug. Sure he was probably bitten over 35 years ago when he became an investor, but his symptoms were showing their face that day. My associates and I tried our dearest not to laugh and although it was hard, we kept it together. Mr. Doig is an oil investor from Alberta. He bluntly stated “it’s been a fantastic year.” He continued to speak about oil until he was told that the panel would discuss oil after covering some other topics first.

Earlier this week, I met with some old friends. I had accused them of polluting my air by each driving their cars, individually, to our meeting location. Once we had ordered our appetizers, they were quick to point out my hypocrisy. I had accepted a ride, in a car, to the restaurant.

My friend and I took the drive for granted. So much so, that we did not even know where we were going. We did enough driving just looking for the place that I too may as well have driven my own car. If I had taken public transit, I would have made damn sure to know where I was going before I left the house.

Further, when I drive (on the bus) over the DVP/404 on the Finch Street overpass I see four lanes, bumper to bumper and moving slowly. I also see one lane, moving quickly, and I swear, there is barely anyone using the lane. It’s the carpool lane! While I’m glad that most people don’t abuse the lane, I am shocked that there is such a small percentage of people carpooling.

Back at the restaurant, my contradictions were not limited to just accepting a ride, after all, carpooling is much better than driving individually. I am not sure of the purpose of some of the comments, but I will take them as constructive criticisms. One of my friends likes to point out that I shop at high end retail stores, like Harry Rosen.

Well, that, my friends, ends TODAY.

Over the past few days, I have taken action. It might be easy to assume you can make small little changes at any time but let me tell you, it is not. I think this is going to be a hell of a plan to stick to, but I am sure that I, and you as well, can do it. Do it for the children… and the kittens, the poor little kittens.

What drove me over the edge? This website: http://www.supportmyob.com

When I saw the trailer for this video, it felt like my heart fell to the floor. I agree that environmentalists can cause devastating harm to a person’s way of life. I also agree that Greenpeace often goes over the edge.

I don’t agree that we should pillage the earth as if it is our right–it isn’t. The very people who believe that we should be allowed to build “environmentally-friendly mines” would also feel that their children should be allowed the same opportunities. Too bad we mine non-renewable resources.

The environmentalists, really, are against growth, they think that what the people need is to keep in their traditional ways of life. Maybe they should be kept as happy peasants.

This is a direct quote from the above mentioned documentary. It’s also a bad definition of what environmentalism is. The fellow who made this comment has some form of an agenda. Sustainable development is not a tough term to define. In fact it forces us to ask ourselves “do I need this?”

My Challenge

I am hereby challenging anyone who reads this post to make your own blog post about your environmentalism. Do your part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Document it.

Here is what I’ve done:

• Replaced all the light bulbs in my apartment with energy efficient ones. A total of 15 light bulbs with a cost to replace of $106. The amount of CO2 that would have been created if I did not switch is (150lbs x 15) 2250 pounds per year.
• Set my computer to enter standby after 30 minutes of inactivity. Monitors off after 15 minutes.
• Here’s an easy one for me, but it still counts I take public transit to work, everyday. A 25 minute ride, that spans the distance of 18 kilometers: (1lb x km x day) 9360 pounds per year.
• Today, I started to sort my garbage properly. I will rinse out anything I want to be recycled and will recycle anything that is recyclable. It is surprising how much recyclables I used to throw out.
• Three meat-free days per week. I will not eat meat on a meat-free day. A lot of energy goes into producing meat. Hopefully I can further reduce my meat consumption, but for now one step at a time. By eating 3 days with no meat: (21 kg for one day a week) 63kg of pollutants and who knows how much CO2 per year.
• Page Media will no longer be selling shirts in styles that are not produced sustainably. For now, this means my only provider is American Apparel. It also means I will have to stick to their organic cotton line. I will provide more info on this in the near future as I look to other “fair trade” options.
• Finally, I will not be purchasing any new clothes. I will purchase second hand clothes, or clothes from fair trade retailers. Guess this means Yorkdale is out of the picture for Tony. Oh yes, this means no more Harry Rosen as well

I urge every one of my friends to take action and do something. If you’d like (I know I would) then tell us about it too!