BlogUofTO

By Amna Abu Askar

We’ve heard time and time again the three famous Rs: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. We were taught to recycle and differentiate recycling items into cans, paper, and plastic as young as four-years-old. However, despite our efforts in recycling, about 9% only is recycled by the recycling industry. This is because we are recycling way more plastic than the recycling technology can keep up with.

In 2016, Canadians discarded 3.3 million tonnes of plastic of which only 305,000 tonnes were recycled. 137,000 tonnes of plastic was burned to create energy, and 29,000 went into unmanaged dumps.The remaining 2.8 million tonnes of discarded recycle ended up in landfills. That is roughly the weight of 24 CN towers!! 

The throw-away culture we live in is exploiting our natural resources and increasing the amount of waste. Thus, recycling should not be our only focus, but reducing the amount of material we consume could significantly reduce waste flow into landfills. 

I’m sure you’ve heard of minimalism. If not, allow me to introduce you to it. Minimalism is living with less, with what meets our needs rather than our demands. That said, minimalists don’t lead boring lives with a single outfit in their wardrobe, rather, they live by the philosophy of no excess. And instead of relying on material possessions for entertainment, they focus on life-based experiences allowing them to lead more meaningful lives while saving the planet by cutting down waste. Living “zero waste” will help minimize pollution and conserve our natural resources.

With reducing consumption comes reusing items. Those two go hand in hand in minimizing what we throw out. For instance, instead of throwing away a broken vacuum cleaner, fix it, or recycle its parts. 

Not only are you saving the planet by living simple, but you are also reducing your expenses and living a more fulfilling life. The next time you add an item to your cart, ask yourself if it’s necessary? Let us add a fourth R and Rethink our choices.

By Da Beattie

Toronto has two main beaches. Woodbine and Cherry beach. 

Before COVID, you could subway to the beach. After you got yourself to your nearest train station, you had to take the subway to woodbine and hop on a bus and then walk before you finally got to the boardwalk where you were going to walk some more. Getting to Cherry beach is no easier and by the time you wait for the bus, change lines, and wait for another bus you may as well have biked. 

Biking before COVID was very easy. But now it is easier. Before you could enter the Don Valley bike trails through Bayview, the Brickworks which also leads to the Bayview Extension and the many other entrance points that take you into the Don valley trails. Ever since COVID, the latter half of the bayview extension and other roads is closed to pedestrians and cyclists on the weekends. Directly taking you into the Canary district, you are now only a few streets in each direction from both Woodbine and Cherry beach as well as the Distillery. Even during the weekdays, the trail is relatively safe with new bike lanes extending the Bayview extension bike lane almost until the end. While the path is no longer shut down, there is only a small strip of road that is bike-lane free.

If you would rather go through the city, the new Danforth bike lane will be your best friend to get to Woodbine Beach. Much needed, it only took a global pandemic for Toronto to get a bike lane on the Danforth. Along the entire Danforth, you can follow the bike lane all the way to Woodbine detouring through the various neighborhoods if you so choose. 

If you would rather go to Cherry beach, or more recently known as Chainsaw Beach after a chainsaw event occurred over the summer, the path is just as straight forward. Not far from woodbine beach, Cherry beach is also close to Tommy Thompson Park. If you are looking for a flat, car free, leisurely ride Tommy Thompson Park is for you. With great views of downtown Toronto, the path is wide and large enough for safe social distancing. It is not always open so you must do your research beforehand. https://tommythompsonpark.ca

If the time saving incentive of biking to the beach is not enough, financial incentive may be the key. Not only is cycling cheaper than a car, it is cheaper than the subway and safer than the subway. If you can’t get your hands on a bike, you may just have to wait until next year. But don’t worry, the beach is going nowhere. Except maybe underwater.

By Amna Abu Askar

Global climate is drastically changing, threatening ecosystems, and human survival. As global warming worsens and our governments fail to address the climate crisis effectively, it might be necessary to turn to geoengineering, an otherwise scientific taboo, to reduce rapid climate change. 

Geoengineering is a large-scale human intervention in the Earth’s natural system to halt climate change. There are two main types of geoengineering technology: one that aims to shade the Earth from solar radiation and another that aims to remove carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Geoengineering methods vary from constructing giant space mirrors to reflect solar radiation, seeding clouds with salt and other materials to reflect more light into space, and fertilizing the oceans with iron to stimulate the growth of CO2-absorbing algae. 

Geoengineering interventions are mainly inspired by nature. Right now, oceans are absorbing vast amounts of carbon dioxide. One way to drive oceans to take in even more carbon dioxide is to fertilize the ocean with iron to stimulate the growth of marine algae, resulting in algae blooms, which in theory would absorb the CO2 from the water and cause more CO2 absorption from the atmosphere. There are concerns, however, that this intervention might disrupt the marine food web and whether such blooms will increase the ocean’s total carbon dioxide uptake.   

Another method that has received much traction lately is Stratospheric Aerosol Injection. A technique inspired by the climatic aftermath effects of the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption. The volcanic explosion ejected millions of gaseous particles up into the stratosphere. What was of interest to geoengineers, however, was the way sulfur dioxide particles interacted up there. These sulfur particles produced sulfuric acid droplets, which interacted with water and created giant veils, shading the Earth from the sun and reducing sunlight by 1%.  Global average temperatures dropped by 0.5 degrees celsius, and the cooling effects lasted for three years. We can perhaps mimic this process by injecting sulfur particles into the stratosphere via specialized aircraft. Scientists assume that injecting about six megatons of material into the stratosphere would reflect enough solar radiation to slow down global warming, granting us enough time to transition to a fossil-fuel-free economy.

These interventions do not come without their side effects. Stratospheric Aerosol Injections could alter rainfall patterns, which could have negative consequences on agriculture, including poor harvest leading to famine and limited resources. Also, it turns out that the sulfuric acid veil after the Pinatubo eruption not only cooled down surfaces but also heated the stratosphere. These acids are harmful to the ozone layer, and injecting sulfur particles could cause ozone holes. Scientists have already proposed using a combination of gaseous materials that are less harmful to the ozone layer, but research in this area is still ongoing. Critics also say that researching such technology encourages politicians to delay switching to a carbon-neutral economy. Despite geoengineering efforts to slow down global warming, we are continuously adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This means that once the intervention ends, the natural cycle will take over again, and the Earth would heat up at an even faster rate than before. This temperature shock in such a short period could disrupt natural systems considerably that it would be almost impossible to adapt in time. 

There is so much controversy regarding geoengineering. It could halt climate change or escalate its effects, making things much worse. Perhaps there is a simpler answer to all of this, and hopefully, we won’t have to resort to geoengineering.   

By Da Beattie

Do you ever miss high school? If so, then young adult books are for you. Less of a genre and more of an age group, young adult books are targeted to teens and feature teens as their main characters. 

If you normally spend your spare time out and about, a task harder to justify as covid numbers rise in Ontario, reading could be the solution. If you don’t have the space or the money, the library has about 100 locations across Toronto. After months of books being pick-up only, the library has re-opened to allow shelf browsing. After returning books only through the outdoor drop box, books stay in quarantine for approximately 6-8 days before being put back on the shelf. 

From fantasy, dystopian, contemporary, and romance, here is a list of my favourite 2020 young adult reads. 

1. Four Days of You and Me by Miranda Kennealy  
2. The Upside of Falling by Alex Light 
3. If We Were Us by K. L. Walter 
4. Project Emma by Hannah Kay
5. Just a Boy and a Girl in a Little Canoe by Sarah Mylnowski 
6. Havenfall by Sara Holland 
7. The Map from Here to There by Emery Lord
8. Throw Like a Girl by Sarah Henning 
9. Majesty by Katharine McGee 
10. Meet Me at Midnight by Jessica Pennington 

By Da Beattie

I first discovered David Attenborough through my living room cupboard. Amongst many other DVD’s was the Planet Earth full DVD collection of 5. Back when our TV was a cube, and you had to rewind the VHS, the DVDs seemed like a new foreign adventure.

In light of his new Netflix original documentary, David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet, I thought I would go through some of my favorite nature documentaries.

Planet Earth would be the most iconic. I may have watched Planet Earth II before Planet Earth, but it was then when I fell in love with David Attenborough’s iconic narration. Blue Planet is the ocean version of Planet Earth, and both are produced by BBC Earth.

Our Planet, a Netflix original series, is also narrated by David Attenborough. Possibly more interesting than the actual series Our Planet: Behind the Scenes takes you to the site of the film and to the everyday struggles of filming in different conditions.

Although not narrated by David Attenborough, one of my favorite Netflix original series is Night on Earth. Less than sixty minutes, each episode is a great before bed documentary. The six episodes take you across the earth, filming never seen before activity that occurs only in the dark. Using thermal imaging cameras and other technology, Netflix also takes you behind the scenes in Night on Earth: Shot in the Dark.

If you are looking for more of a story, DisneyNature has gone across the world and turns each documentary into stories with characters.
If you’ll now excuse me, I am going to watch Dancing with Birds.

By Da Beattie

For our first post I thought we could start by talking about Justin Trudeau’s latest announcement to ban single use plastics. This includes straws, stir sticks, grocery bags and more.

To a regular person like me this seems like a good thing. But if you have taken to social media recently or in the past you may have seen some controversy. Many disabled people rightfully have voiced their issues with straws and ableism saying that a straw ban is another form of how the world was not made for people with disabilities. As an abled person myself, I am unsure of how to feel about this, but like any teenager, I made my way to Starbucks.

If you have been to Starbucks recently you may have noticed that they have paper gift cards and paper straws. The signature melt in your mouth feel we all associate with meringues can now be associated with a Starbucks drink.

But did you know that paper coffee cups are not recycle? Because they are coated in plastic/wax, only the plastic cold cups are recycle. Even then, according to National Geographic, only 9% of recycled items actually get recycled (Parker, 2018). In a pandemic where reusable cups are largely not accepted, we must reduce our usage and reliance on disposables.

An easy way to start is to wash out Ziploc bags. Although many companies have started producing reusable alternatives to plastic bags such as Stasher bags which are made of silicone, Ziploc bags are easy to wash due to their flexible but sturdy plastic nature. Because they can hold a shape when creased, they are also easy to dry without having to use a stand to prop the bag open.

I hope this first article has found you in a good place. If you would like to write for BlogUofTO please do not hesitate to email bloguofto@outlook.com

Sources

Parker, Laura. 2018. “Here’s how much plastic trash is littering the earth.” National Geographic.https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/07/plastic-produced-recycling-waste-ocean-trash-debris-environment/