environment – Jewish Independent

Musician tries to offer hope

Montreal-based musician Elizabeth Leslie has a new EP out, Brave Animal, which, among other topics, tackles climate change. (photo from Eric Alper PR)

It had always been musician Elizabeth Leslie’s dream to visit Scotland, which her Sephardi ancestors had made their home. For years, she had envisaged hiking the Highlands, reveling in its beauty and experiencing the misty, “dreary” British weather that she had heard so much about.

Learning about the Leslie clan and their lives as Jews intrigued the young Canadian musician, who had been raised in Eastern Canada and is now based in Montreal. But so did the idea of experiencing a truly Scottish spring. So it came as a rude shock, she said, when she finally arrived to the British Isles to be greeted by a drought of parched hillsides and 25˚C weather. Her image of Scotland’s Highlands, she admitted, appeared to be sorely out of date.

“It wasn’t green rolling hills anymore. It was just glaring sun,” said Leslie. “I was peeling off layers and [there was] yellow grass and rampant tourism.”

That experience became a seminal moment for the musician, who attributes the erosion of the Highlands to humanity’s greed and the unrealistic goals of 21st-century capitalism. “Capitalism affects everything,” she told the Independent. “It’s a selfish beast and it’s unsustainable.… Capitalism mixed with climate change and the fact that climate change is a product of capitalism, [makes it] glaringly obvious that we need to completely reimagine the way we live.”

Her recently released EP recording, Brave Animal, speaks to that urgency. Its lead song, “To the Next,” is the summation of what she sees for future generations left to navigate the impacts of a warming planet. Its dark-wave melody is as hypnotic as its lyrics:

“There is only one place left to go / And I’m afraid that it is far / If you listen close / You will soon hear / All their words / Are full of fear.

“Men might be masters of this world / But little girl / We’re going to the next / Men might be fighting against this world / But little girl / We’re fighting for the next.”

According to Leslie, the song was written before Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg rose to notoriety. Still, its refrain hits to the heart of a question that is commonly voiced these days.

“When I wrote this song,” Leslie said, “Greta wasn’t around … but [she is] exactly the kind of girl I am speaking to in the song and she is metaphorically what that little girl is.”

Leslie added, “I mean, who is there to comfort Greta Thunberg? Why is there a teenager fighting [against] climate change and why aren’t the older guys in suits doing it with their millions of dollars?”

In Leslie’s eyes, change is motivated by leadership, and she believes there is a dearth of examples for young people to follow these days.

“There’s really no adult role models out there who are really standing up – at least in music,” or none willing to tackle a topic that is already defining a generation’s social and environmental expectations, she said. “I am just trying to give them some glimmer of hope, I guess.”

For this artist, probing difficult questions seems to come naturally, even when the questions are unpopular with those around her. When she learned some years ago that her Scottish ancestors were Jewish, she searched for more information and unearthed stories of the Leslie clan – started by a Jew who had served in a distinguished position for Mary, Queen of Scots, and was a Knights Templar – despite warning from her mother about antisemitism.

Although her mother wasn’t Jewish, she was concerned about her daughter taking on an identity that had been subjected to persecution throughout millennia. The warnings, though, didn’t deter Leslie, who later converted to Judaism.

“My mom had like 10 cups of tea per day and my dad drinks scotch every other night and my uncle plays the bagpipes and all that stuff, so it was a huge surprise in a lot of ways,” said Leslie about discovering her Jewish heritage. “But, for some reason … I always had a feeling about it.”

Although Leslie said her visits to shul are more infrequent these days, she sees a parallel between the values she was raised with and the ethics that Judaism espouses. Fairness and protecting the environment are at the heart of both her identity as a Jew and as a musician, she said. As is social justice. She said she was incensed when she found a book about the Leslie clan and learned that her ancestors were forced to convert to Christianity.

“That connection with the culture and values and also a really deep need to right the wrongs of the past” were key to her decision to convert, she said. “I just found it so unrighteous that my family was forced into this religion [of Christianity]. We already had a religion. I just felt it was so unfair and I wanted to turn back the clock.”

Her identity as a Jew has also been shaped by her relationships. Leslie, who self-describes as a non-binary queer person, was first introduced to Judaism when she dated a woman who had been raised Charedi and maintained a Jewish household. Leslie said the exposure to Jewish traditions was both fascinating and “extremely familiar.”

“I think one thing I love about Judaism is … we have never forgotten who we are,” said Leslie. “And I think that sort of cultural preservation is really important, especially in the face of recent antisemitism, in face of capitalism and climate change and everything, that sort of centreness is a power. And I think it is really important.”

Leslie’s music can be purchased through a number of online venues, including Spotify or by connecting through her Facebook page.

Jan Lee’s articles and blog posts have been published in B’nai B’rith Magazine, Voices of Conservative and Masorti Judaism, Times of Israel, as well as a number of business, environmental and travel publications. Her blog can be found at multiculturaljew.polestarpassages.com.

Motivating people to change

Tzeporah Berman is international program director for Stand.Earth. (photo from Tzeporah Berman)

There is no silver bullet when it comes to responding to the climate crisis, according to Tzeporah Berman. The 25-year veteran of environmental activism and international program director for Stand.Earth said it needs a multi-pronged approach.

“A lot of people like to say it’s negotiations or policy work or protests, but, in my experience, the most effective campaigns that have made change have been the ones where there has been a diversity of tactics and approaches,” Berman told the Independent. “The most effective initiatives are the ones that are not just about educating, but are about motivating people to take action on an issue…. What we need to try and do is motivate people to make change.”

Berman was among those who started Stand.Earth (formerly ForestEthics) about 20 years ago. According to the website, the group “designs and implements strategies that make protecting our planet everyone’s business. Our current campaigns focus on shifting corporate behaviour, breaking the human addiction to fossil fuels and developing the leadership required to catalyze long-term change.”

In the 1990s, Berman was an organizer of the Clayoquot Sound logging protests that contributed to agreements to prevent clearcutting. More than two decades later, as construction of the then-Kinder Morgan-owned Trans Mountain pipeline expansion ramped up, Berman participated in the sit-ins on Burnaby Mountain.

“The War in the Woods … it was this tipping point moment on the issues and Canadian history, where people were engaged from all walks of life,” she said. “Whether or not the rainforest should be clearcut was a conversation around everyone’s kitchen table. I think that’s true today of climate change and pipelines, that it’s one of these rare moments in history where it is a populist issue, where everyone is engaged in the conversation, and I think that’s why you see, in both circumstances, such a diversity of people showing up.”

Last year, the concern reached a fever pitch in Canada and elsewhere, with unprecedented numbers of people marching in the streets calling for climate action. Asked what Berman thought of elected officials such as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or NDP leader Jagmeet Singh participating in marches like last September’s global climate strike – that, at their heart, target leaders such as them to address climate change through policy decisions – she said she believes they show up with good intentions.

“We’re living in this strange moment where our elected officials are starting to understand the urgency and importance of climate change, but that is not yet translating into their policy proposals,” she said. “It’s like there’s a time lag and they’re saying the right words about urgency and joining marches, but their policies represent the best thinking on what climate policy should be from 10 years ago. I don’t think they’re being disingenuous when they join a protest … but one of the big problems that we have is that so many people believe that they’re doing enough and other people need to do more. We like to celebrate how progressive we are, but we have a very mixed record. Canada is among the worst in terms of G7 countries with our climate plan.”

Despite estimates of more than one million people in Canada marching in climate strikes last year, Berman said the environmental movement is sorely outnumbered resource-wise in comparison to the oil and gas industry lobby. In a tweet sent at the beginning of this year, Berman spelled out 10 tips for successful activism.

“Do stuff that makes the world respond. Don’t just respond to the world,” she wrote. She expanded, telling the Independent that advocates need to be sure they are the ones setting the agenda, not governments and corporations. “Campaigners and campaigns are not proactive enough, we just respond to what decision-makers are doing. Instead of doing that, what if, months before, you looked at what you think needs to happen in order to protect the climate, our water, the air, produced a report with recommendations for policy, and then held a press conference and a public information night. Then you’re putting a proposal out there of what you think needs to happen in the world.”

Last November, Berman presented to 400 people at Temple Sholom, giving an overview of the scientific evidence of climate change and the role of nations and individuals moving forward. She spoke of the loss of the “culture of engagement.”

“Today, we have a weak civil society engagement muscle and an overextended hyper-consumer muscle,” she said during the presentation.

“We got lazy,” she explained to the Independent. “We live in a democracy, we assume it’s functioning, and leave it up to the politicians…. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but I think it’s a culture that was eroding over the last generation. Growing up, it was expected in our community that you volunteer – for your synagogue, for your church. We don’t really have that culture now and the result is we’re not engaging in our communities as much as I think we used to. I notice now that we’re starting to see it more as a result of the more active student movements, but I think that’s because they’re scared.”

The role of community groups such as religious institutions should not be underestimated, she added. “People are going to be more willing to engage in the issues if they feel safe, if they feel a sense of common purpose, if they trust the people they’re organizing with. It’s one thing to hear scientists, or read an article. It’s a very different thing to sit down with people in your community … and organize. A lot of people right now are searching for what they can do. [Institutions] should be providing leadership and structure.”

Berman continues to be a leader in her own right. Late last year, she was awarded $2 million US from the Climate Breakthrough Project to fund her efforts to limit new oil and gas development globally to align with the United Nations Paris Agreement goals of a safe climate. The project will be housed within Stand.Earth.

Shelley Stein-Wotten is a freelance journalist and comedy writer. She has won awards for her creative non-fiction and screenwriting and enjoys writing about the arts and environmental issues. She is based on Vancouver Island.

Working to save our oceans

Chatting surf, water refill stations and plastic pollution at Ocean Heroes Bootcamp, left to right: Enzo Ackermann (Ocean Hero), Rob Machado (professional surfer/environmentalist) and Sondra Weiss (art educator). (photo from Sondra Weiss, Founder, Lost Art of Love Letters)

Organized and led by Captain Planet Foundation and Lonely Whale, Vancouver’s Ocean Heroes Bootcamp has a singular purpose – finding ways to save our oceans from plastic pollution.

One of the bootcamp presenters is Sondra Weiss. She offers participants a unique way to inspire action.

Having grown up in Connecticut, close enough to the ocean to fall in love with it, Weiss then went to the University of California. After graduating, she took an art museum educator position, a role she maintained for about two decades. Eventually, however, her love for the ocean drew her to start up the Lost Art of Love Letters.

“I launched this project about four years ago, thinking the world needs more love,” Weiss told the Independent. “As I listen to the news, or my students, or people in the world committing suicide, I just thought that love is a great antidote for everything happening in the world.”

Weiss lives in Santa Barbara, Calif., and was asked to come to Vancouver last year to help with the Ocean Heroes Bootcamp.

“Last year was the second year that they did Ocean Heroes, when I was in Vancouver,” said Weiss. “It brings together 250 local and international youth activists between the ages of 11 and 18, from 20 countries and 24 U.S. states, and the idea is to collaborate worldwide to fight plastic pollution.”

Based out of the University of British Columbia dorms and hosted by Ocean Wise and the Vancouver Aquarium, the next bootcamp is scheduled for June 26-29, though that may change depending on the progress made dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Weiss is to lead a part of it called Love Letters to the Sea.

“It is an art-integrative letter-writing project that promotes positive changes for the ocean,” said Weiss. “So, rather than feeling overwhelmed by environmental issues, community members can take action and promote innovation by using their voices to drive policy solutions.

photo - A lot of the letters are sent out to local businesses, council members and political figures to say either thank you for the work they do for the ocean environment, or to ask them to make changes — A lot of the letters are sent out to local businesses, council members and political figures to say either thank you for the work they do for the ocean environment, or to ask them to make changes. *(photo from Sondra Weiss, Founder, Lost Art of Love Letters)*

“Participants take pen to paper and brush to paint to express their sentiments, their solutions, for ocean love. And, a lot of the letters are sent out to local businesses, council members and political figures to say either thank you for the work they do for the ocean environment, or to ask them to make changes.”

Last year’s focus was on eliminating single-use plastic bottles. Participants were tasked with developing ideas to help the community achieve this goal.

“As mentors in bootcamp, in general, we come up with ideas and have the youth collaborate, come up with campaigns and talk to experts in different fields, figuring out how to create the most change, being creative and positive the whole time,” said Weiss.

Each Ocean Heroes Bootcamp draws many different people from all around the world, she said, including youth who have created changes in their community or on a wider scale.

“There are experts leading panels, workshops and group activities … and Love Letters to the Sea, my personal activity, is more artistic-based,” she said. “So, there are writing prompts for writing, but there are also images to inspire art. There are watercolours, crayons and coloured pencils for campers to express themselves in various ways.”

While there are age gaps, some of the younger kids have inspired more change than some of the older ones. Regardless of age, all are passionate about the issues and put any age-related ego aside to learn from and with one another, said Weiss.

“One of the beautiful things is that youth from all around the world are working together toward the one topic – and the topic is plastic pollution, what plastic pollution and consumerism is doing to affect the planet as a whole,” she said.

Weiss hopes that the letters “help motivate the people doing good work and also helps the community to remain civically engaged … and be part of society, knowing we can make change and, as an educator, working with youth shows them to use their voice for change.

“We can use that same thing – the letter writing, it has been tried and true throughout the years. When someone wants to try and make a decree, the people will use a letter. Or, to really express something to a friend going through a hard time, or a family member, a lot of times, we’ll take pen to paper and write it down. It’s a great way to slow down. We live in such a fast-paced society. We need to slow down and really think about what’s in our hearts.”

Still, Weiss is well aware of the power of technology when well-used. She has worked with Jack Johnson’s band to create a song written by middle school kids who wrote love letters to the sea.

“They took lines from the letters, which became lyrics for a song,” said Weiss. “Letters are personal, but the way to reach the masses is through music and video. And, we created it into love letters, which are strong and powerful.”

Some of the lyrics produced include: “Water can’t be broken, but we can make her cry / Going to write a love letter to the ocean, let her know we are always going to try.”

“It was phenomenal that the students got to express themselves and sing it out,” said Weiss. “They wrote the notes and the music, and then we went into a recording studio and recorded a different version.

photo - Love Letters to the Sea works to create positive changes for the ocean and environment — Love Letters to the Sea works to create positive changes for the ocean and environment. *(photo from Sondra Weiss, Founder, Lost Art of Love Letters)*

“Letter writing is such a great way to get ideas onto paper and out of your mind and heart. The next stage is to bring music and video to a larger global audience.”

Weiss sees artistic letters as a gateway to reaching people on a different level, touching people’s minds in a different way to promote change.

“Images or music definitely help ignite that,” said Weiss. “For me, when you are talking to them and you see the light in their eyes go up, you see them drawn into the conversation.

“So, what does it takes to ignite someone to care? That’s what I ask at the bootcamp. I ask the youth if they are going to write an organization and ask them to limit their plastic packaging. And I ask them what they think would get them to consider the financial cost … and think more about the overall cost, the environmental cost. We learn so much from the kids and they inspire us as much as we inspire them – and the relationships maintain year-round.”

While Ocean Heroes Bootcamp is free to attend for accepted youth and their chaperones, including room and board, there is a $100 reservation fee and travel costs that may be waived via scholarship. All applications to attend the bootcamp are reviewed by Captain Planet Foundation and Lonely Whale. Qualified candidates are contacted by the Ocean Heroes headquarters team to complete registration.

The Ocean Heroes HQ team accepts a maximum of 300 youth leaders each bootcamp. Each attendee is paired up with a team of squad leaders, peers who guide them through the program and ensure they have the tools, support and information they need to graduate from the camp with a successful campaign plan to eliminate plastic pollution. For more information, visit oceanheroes.blue.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Beauty of spring in Israel

Spring. Every year, it returns like a miracle and Israel is carpeted with wildflowers. There are nearly 3,000 types of wild plants in this tiny land, a wonderful profusion, among the most abundant on earth. Israel boasts a variety of different ecological systems – deserts and marshes, high mountains, dense forests and open fields, with wildflowers to suit each habitat.

Wildflowers are protected in Israel and nature reserves prohibit the picking of any flowers, even the most common, which helps them to propagate over wider areas. In turn, this brings the sunbirds, which feast on their nectar.

The Song of Songs, which we read every Passover, is a most beautiful love poem. King Solomon wrote it as a dialogue between a young shepherd and his beloved: “Rise up, my love, my fair one and come away / For lo, the winter is past / The rain is over and gone / The flowers appear on the earth / The time of singing is come / And the voice of the turtle is heard in the land.”

The flowers he refers to, nitzanim, still carpet the fields – shiny red poppies flaunting scarlet beauty in the grass.

In Jerusalem Forest, delicate cyclamens bloom in the crevices between the rocks. Called Solomon’s Crown (in Hebrew), they lift their pink, cream or lilac heads on slender stalks. Clumps of wild violets, the dew shimmering like diamonds, add their touch of magic.

Israel’s rainy season, mid-October to late March, leaves a bequest of green. Sharon Valley is dotted with tulips and narcissus. “I am the rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys” – it is believed that King Solomon was referring to the magnificent black tulips of the Galilee.

In spring, even the weeds in Israel are pretty – the milk vetch, which is a thistle, adds purple blooms to the roadside. The rockrose is abundant in forest glades and the orange ranunculus bursts into bloom. Like its velvety cousin, the anemone, it is a protected wildflower in Israel.

The perfume of daffodils – which suffused the winter – still wafts on the breeze and the white, cream, yellow and blue noses of lupins are pushing through the soil. Oleanders are in bud, growing wild by the banks of the River Jordan and near streams in Galilee, promising a burst of summer beauty. And the blue statica reminds us that we, too, have a Mediterranean coast like the famed Riviera. This lovely sea plant flowers from mid-spring to mid-summer, when its corolla drops off and only the sepal remains.

Who says Israel has almost no natural resources? When you see the splendour in the grass of the land’s spring glory, the wildflowers glowing like jewels, you’ll echo the poet’s words: “Had I but two loaves of bread / I would sell one of them / And buy white hyacinths to feed my soul.”

Dvora Waysman is a Jerusalem-based author. She has written 14 books, including The Pomegranate Pendant, which was made into a movie, and her latest novella, Searching for Sarah. She can be contacted at [email protected] or through her blog dvorawaysman.com.

A focus on the environment

Transportation and sustainability consultant Tanya Paz, centre, participates in Tu b’Shevat Circle: Teachings from the Earth, an event spearheaded by Or Shalom Synagogue in partnership with Jewish Family Services, JQT Vancouver and UNIT/PITT Society for Art and Critical Awareness. Or Shalom’s Rabbi Hannah Dresner is seated on the stool to Paz’s right. (photo by Matt Hanns Schroeter)

More than two dozen individuals whose work involves food security and climate change issues met on Feb. 9 for Tu b’Shevat Circle: Teachings from the Earth, an event spearheaded by Or Shalom Synagogue in partnership with Jewish Family Services, JQT Vancouver and UNIT/PITT Society for Art and Critical Awareness.

Those who gathered work or devote time to such organizations as Grandview Woodland Food Connection, Sustainabiliteens, Coquitlam Farmers Market and Extinction Rebellion. They came together to explore various topics, including how their Jewishness intersects with their work in secular organizations, envisioning a sustainable world and the Jewish community’s role in social justice.

“I noticed that so many of these organizations are spearheaded by young Jews and felt it important to create an opportunity for them to see one another and recognize this aspect of kinship in their work … and whether this commonality enhances the work, draws them into kinship or stimulates any collaboration,” said Or Shalom’s Rabbi Hannah Dresner.

Or Shalom brought on Carmel Tanaka to organize a gathering. Through meetings with young adults and stakeholder groups, Tanaka met a number of people whose careers relate to food security and social justice, but most weren’t working for Jewish organizations nor were they connected to one another within a Jewish context. She and Dresner agreed it was worth bringing them together to see what conversations would blossom.

Tanja Demajo, chief executive officer of Jewish Family Services, said JFS provided funding for the event because they believed in the value of the project.

“There are a lot of Jewish and young Jewish people who are interested in food security and questions of accessibility, which is very interesting from a perspective of … whether this work is modulated by [Jewish] values and how this translates to day-to-day practice,” she said. “At the end of the day, it didn’t really matter if the different participants were working in a Jewish or non-Jewish community.”

Some attendees revealed that, for them, being Jewish is secondary to their focus on environmental issues.

“The room was full of people who identify in varying degrees with their Jewishness and, for some, it’s an important aspect of their identity and, for others, it isn’t integral,” Tanaka said.

Dresner spoke to the indelible connection between environmental action and Judaism. “In my understanding of Judaism, saving our world is at the heart of what it means to have a Jewish spiritual life,” she said. “Creative energy, or the vitality of spirit, is always flowing toward us. It’s what I’d call the ‘world that’s always coming,’ or the ongoing nature of creation. We can encourage and aid this vitality, helping to direct it where most needed, or we can impede the flow. When we are selfish and impede creative flow, the result is a deprivation of generative spirit, spirit denied to corners of creation, and we see results like species blinking into extinction.”

The rabbi wants to spend more time with young Jews working in social justice. “The Judaism I believe in mandates their work as the highest mitzvah of our moment,” she said. “It’s a misconception born of the compartmentalized Judaism in which many of us were raised not to understand that attention to the environment is a Jewish priority.”

Aaron Robinson, chair of Grow Local Society Tri-Cities, a food security group that runs the Coquitlam Farmers Market, said his work for the organization won’t ever have a Jewish mandate, but his Judaism is tied into what he does. “Personally, I can never underestimate the role that Jewish values play in the way I see the world, especially when it comes to tikkun olam,” he said, adding, “I guess it’s become engrained in me, but it was nice to bring it back to the surface to see, wow, there is this Jewish connection to all this work that we’re doing.”

Robinson appreciated the opportunity to connect with other Jews working in similar fields and hopes the conversations will continue.

Some people discussed not feeling supported by the Jewish community to undertake the work they do within a Jewish context. Tanaka said she believes the Vancouver Jewish community hasn’t focused attention on these issues until recently, citing the 2019 climate march and protests as a galvanizing factor, and said it’s time for the local community “to support young Jewish adults who are doing this kind of work … because these are Jewish issues at the end of the day.”

Some at the event suggested funding for environmental advocacy was needed. Dresner said there was also a desire for bridge building. “They seem to be asking for an arm of organized Jewish community to create some occasional containers for their gathering, just to share within the hybrid of their niche or to explore potential collaborations,” she said. “Or Shalom will be looking at finding funding to continue holding this group and its outgrowth in a loose, nurturing embrace.”

Demajo said the JFS food security program has already benefited from the event. “Being exposed to more city-wide programs and initiatives and being exposed to all different voices gives a different perspective to JFS,” she said, “because it opens up new ideas.”

Landscape better health

People who spend time gardening, doing yard work and have direct contact with soil feel more relaxed and happier. (photo by Brad Greenlee)

It’s natural to long for spring when it’s cold outside. But there’s a good reason why you may pine for green. Living landscapes are an important part of the outdoor lifestyle that North Americans enjoy, but the benefits go beyond the barbeque and backyard baseball. Green spaces are necessary for our health.

“The advantages of grass and landscaping surpass the usual physical benefits that result from outdoor activity,” said Kris Kiser, president and chief executive officer of the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute (OEPI). “Numerous studies have found that people who spend more time outside or are exposed to living landscapes are happier, healthier and smarter.”

Researchers have studied the impact of nature on human well-being for years, but recent studies have found a more direct correlation between human health, particularly related to stress, and the importance of people’s access to nature and managed landscapes.

Getting dirty is actually good for you. Soil is the new Prozac, according to Dr. Christopher Lowry, a neuroscientist at the University of Bristol in England. Mycobacterium vaccae in soil mirrors the effect on neurons the pharmaceutical provides. The bacterium stimulates serotonin production, which explains why people who spend time gardening, doing yard work and have direct contact with soil feel more relaxed and happier.

Children who are raised on farms, in a “dirtier” environment than an urban setting, not only have a stronger immune system but are also better able to manage social stress, according to the National Academy of Sciences.

photo - Studies have shown that people who spend more time outside or are exposed to living landscapes are happier, healthier and smarter — Studies have shown that people who spend more time outside or are exposed to living landscapes are happier, healthier and smarter. *(photo from pxhere.com)*

Living near living landscapes can improve your mental health.

Researchers in England found that people moving to greener areas experienced an immediate improvement in mental health that was sustained for at least three years after they moved. The study also showed that people relocating to a more developed area suffered a drop in mental health.

Greening of vacant urban areas in Philadelphia reduced feelings of depression by 41.5% and reduced poor mental health by 62.8% for those living near the vacant lots, according to one study.

According to Dutch researchers, people who live within a half mile of green space – such as parks, public gardens and greenways – were found to have a lower incidence of 15 diseases, including depression, anxiety, heart disease, diabetes, asthma and migraines.

A 2015 study found that people living in areas with more trees had a boost in heart and metabolic health. Other studies show that tasks conducted under the calming influence of nature are performed better and with greater accuracy, yielding a higher quality result. Spending time in gardens, for instance, can improve memory performance and attention span by 20%.

Living landscapes can also make you smarter. Children gain attention and working memory benefits when they are exposed to greenery, says a study led by Payam Dadvand of the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology in Barcelona. In addition, exposure to natural settings may be widely effective in reducing attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms in children.

Research has shown for adults, as well, that being around plants helps them concentrate better at home and at work. Charlie Hall, Ellison Chair in International Floriculture at Texas A&M, believes that spending time in gardens can improve attention span and memory performance by as much as 20%.

A National Institutes of Health study found that adults demonstrate significant cognitive gains after going on a nature walk. In addition, a Stanford University study found that walking in nature, rather than a concrete-oriented, urban environment, resulted in decreased anxiety, rumination and negative affect, and produced cognitive benefits, such as increased working memory performance.

Living landscapes also can help you heal faster. Multiple studies have discovered that plants in hospital recovery rooms or views of esthetically pleasing gardens help patients heal up to one day faster than those who are in more sterile or austere environments. Physicians are now prescribing time outdoors for some patients, according to recent reports, and Park Rx America is a nonprofit with a mission to encourage physicians to prescribe doses of nature.

All of these benefits reinforce the importance of maintaining our yards, parks and other community green spaces. Trees, shrubs, grass and flowering plants are integral to human health. Not only do they provide a place for people and pets to play, they directly contribute to our mental and physical well-being.

Desert not a wasteland

Monument Valley in Utah. (photo from CBC Radio)

Having always lived in and around rainforest, CBC Vancouver’s Matthew Lazin-Ryder said the desert is a place he still struggles to fully understand.

“The desert has always seemed to be an imaginary place,” said Lazin-Ryder, contributing producer of the radio-documentary What Happens in the Desert. “My only contact with the desert has been in movies, storybooks, religious metaphors and things like that. The closest I have ever gotten to the real desert is having spent a little time in New Mexico, but, even then, I don’t think I was in true, scientific desert. My impression of what the desert was in my imagination was different than reality.

“One thing I wasn’t prepared for in my time in New Mexico was how cold it got at night, because it can get really cold. The imaginary desert in my mind was always hot – nights are sweltering, empty spaces, desolation.”

photo - Matthew Lazin-Ryder, contributing producer of the CBC radio-documentary What Happens in the Desert — Matthew Lazin-Ryder, contributing producer of the CBC radio-documentary What Happens in the Desert. *(photo from CBC Radio)*

In the radio documentary, which is an episode of the CBC Radio show Ideas, Lazin-Ryder explores various perceptions of the desert, stemming from culture, such as movies, novels and poetry, which often only portray one aspect of the landscape.

“An example we use in the documentary is Monument Valley in Utah, which, if you’ve seen a western film, it’s in so many movies,” Lazin-Ryder, who is a member of the Jewish community, told the Independent. “So, Monument Valley is that part of Utah, with red sand and rock, with these big towers of rock jutting out of the middle of the desert. John Ford, legendary western director, shot over 10 movies there at Monument Valley and lots of other classic western movies have used the backdrop of this valley as the setting.”

However, while it may seem that many films are shot in Monument Valley, most are actually shot in less-known locations in states like Texas, California and Arizona.

“It’s never specifically that this movie or story is taking place in Monument Valley,” said Lazin-Ryder. “It just becomes a symbol of the desert, which is a stand-in for an alien place, an exotic place, a place that you’ve never been to.”

From a religious perspective, the experts Lazin-Ryder interviews often speak of duality, where the desert is both a place where God is absent and where God is felt the strongest.

“The desert, in the Old Testament, is a place of deep spirituality and is also, for the Israelites, the place where they encounter God, where God travels with them,” he explained. “In the Christian New Testament and Christian culture later on, the desert becomes a place, not of exile and separation from God, but a place you go to escape civilization and to connect with God. Simultaneously, it’s a place where there are dangers … and the devil lives there and there are poisonous creatures, and it’s a place of death, wasteland and absence of God. But, at the same time, the desert is the place, both for the Israelites and early Christians, a place to go to connect with God.

“In a sense,” he said, “the desert, through its absence, represents God, because you can’t fully describe God – you can’t fully describe absence. The desert represents this strange relationship that we have with God, in a religious metaphor – at the same time that God is everything, God is nothing, and indescribable.”

In the documentary, Lazin-Ryder talks about the way the desert is portrayed in science-related and apocalyptic movies – movies that portray the future world as a desert; that climate change, if it continues apace, will leave the whole earth a desert.

“The seas will dry up, the forests will die and everything will be desert waste … which is not particularly an ecologically valid prediction … but, it’s a helpful metaphor for people to think about the dangers of climate change,” he said.

“The other thing is that, when talking about climate change and things like switching to less carbon-intensive energy, the desert becomes a very easy thing for people to say … ‘Hey! You know what would be great? Let’s just put a whole bunch of solar panels and windmills and stuff in the desert, because that’s empty land and it gets a lot of sun.’ You can Google it – there are all kinds of plans that people have pushed, to put acres and acres of solar panels in the Mojave Desert, the Sonoran Desert or the Sahara Desert.

“It’s this kind of a science-fiction idea that, hey, we have these empty spaces on the earth – let’s absolutely fill them with solar panels and windmills. But, the problem with that is – it comes from this thinking about deserts as though they are empty, ownerless places, absent of life. And, the problem is that that’s not true. Deserts are full of life, of plants and of animals that have adapted in interesting ways. And, we also don’t quite understand the place that deserts have in the broader ecosystem, in terms of the carbon cycle.”

While we hear in the news about desertification, in actuality only some deserts may get bigger and others drier, he said. Very few reports talk about the fact that some deserts may get wetter and, in a sense, shrink.

Desert systems are intricate and delicate and we, as humans, often only notice a change when it is already too late. Lazin-Ryder gave the example of the Joshua trees in the Mojave Desert that are dying, and the efforts to preserve them.

“Those kinds of problems are expected to increase as climate change goes on,” he said. But, talking about the desert as merely land available to fix the problems that we have created, “neglects the fact that they are not absent, marginal places. They actually have a place in the world. Deserts are a natural thing that should exist on the earth,” he said. “And there will be increasing pressures to put things in the desert, to put people in the desert, to grow food in the desert – despite the fact that they are as important and as under threat as places like the rainforests and wetlands that we’re trying to preserve. So, on one hand, we’re afraid the future might become desert, but, on the other hand, we may want to think about how to preserve the deserts we already have, as there are many threats to the desert.”

Lazin-Ryder hopes listeners of the documentary will gain a better grasp of the nuances of the desert. For most people in the West, he said, “interaction with the desert is in an imaginary sense … either in religious texts, fiction or movies.” The show tries to get people to consider “what those metaphors and symbols do to our thinking – not just about the desert, but of all the natural world; in what places are worth preserving, celebrating, and what places we think of as marginal, empty, dead or inherently bad.

“We get lots of stories told to us all the time, about what parts of the earth are good or bad,” he said. “I think, ultimately, beyond whether we’re talking about deserts, dry land or wet land, my ultimate hope is that it helps people think about the stories that we tell ourselves about the natural world, versus trying to gain an understanding about how the natural world actually works.”

To listen to What Happens in the Desert, visit cbc.ca/radio/podcasts/documentaries/the-best-of-ideas.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Climate hot topic at Limmud

Dr. Larry Barzelai and Maayan Kreitzman will talk about environmental activism at Limmud on March 1. (photos from the interviewees)

Environmental activism is among Canada’s top news stories in recent days and the issue will be confronted from both a Jewish and a broader perspective by two leading voices at Limmud Vancouver next month.

Dr. Larry Barzelai, a Vancouver family doctor, assistant professor at the University of British Columbia’s faculty of medicine and B.C. chair of Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), will present alongside Maayan Kreitzman, a PhD candidate at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at UBC. The pair acknowledges that they come at the topic using different tactics, but aim for the same objective.

Kreitzman has been among those blockading the port and traffic.

“The actions happening in the streets right now are in response to this Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline construction on Wet’suwet’an land,” she said. But this is only one element of the much larger picture, which is that oil and gas development is “occurring unabated and greenhouse gas emissions and ecological destruction is continuing unabated throughout the world, when we know that these activities are threatening our life-support system and are putting billions of people at risk over the next decade. People are already being impacted today.”

The issue brings together a host of concerns, she said, including “indigenous rights and sovereignty, the Canadian government’s complicity in a climate-unsafe future … as well as the business side of that from the private sector.”

Kreitzman has heard the complaints that disruptive protests may turn off potential allies and anger the general public.

“I think people’s emotions are valid and there is a valid concern about disrupting ordinary people that need to make a living and need to take care of their families,” she told the Independent. “On the other hand, I think many of the people that sometimes make these kind of complaints aren’t really the people that are struggling to feed their families. People that come from a place of privilege need to recognize that these protests inconveniencing them is a small price to pay for the types of progressive changes that will benefit all of us, including their children.”

Kreitzman said she and Barzelai will “bring a concise summary of the latest science to people so that they really understand the magnitude of the situation that we’re in.”

She said, “We’ll be speaking to a spectrum of different actions, from the personal to the more conventional campaigning type of approaches, like report-writing, research, lobbying, letter-writing, to direct-action approaches, which is what I’m most interested in, where people that have privilege start putting their bodies on the line and breaking the law on purpose, using the message of nonviolent civil resistance, which has been successful in many movements throughout history.”

Barzelai takes a more conventional approach to advocacy, but shares Kreitzman’s sense of urgency.

“Climate change, which we’re calling a climate emergency, is upon us,” he told the Independent. “It’s dramatic and we have to take big steps to do something about it. Maayan is taking a bit more radical approach to this. Myself and my group are a bit more middle-of-the-road, shall we say, but I think we both have the same endpoint in mind – that things have to change dramatically.”

CAPE, which has been around for about 25 years, focuses on the health impacts of environmental decisions and climate change.

“We see diseases that are spreading, we see cancers that are becoming more rampant, we are seeing the floods and the wildfires and the temperature changes that are dramatically affecting people’s health and we figure it’s our responsibility as doctors to look at climate change from a health perspective and to inform people of what’s going to happen unless we make dramatic changes,” he said.

Fracking is one area where he thinks British Columbia is “really going down the wrong path.”

“They’ve bought this myth that natural gas is clean energy, which it is absolutely not, and they are doing their best to increase rather than decrease global warming, and we think that’s the crucial issue that needs to be discussed in Canada and especially in B.C.,” he said.

Kreitzman and Barzelai will speak at Limmud Vancouver on March 1.

Tickets and more information can be found at limmudvancouver.com.

Managing our potable water

Seth Siegel’s latest book is Troubled Water: What’s Wrong with What We Drink. (photo from Seth Siegel)

With approximately seven percent of the world’s renewable water resources within Canada’s borders, it would seem that we should have little to worry about when it comes to agriculture and potable needs. But our drinking water is at risk, said Seth Siegel, author of Troubled Water: What’s Wrong with What We Drink.

Siegel has spent the last half-decade studying the quality of drinking water. While his book focuses specifically on U.S. water sources, he said water quality is also a concern for Canadians and he worries that neither country is really prepared to address the threat of contaminants from our technological age: plastics, undetected chemicals and aging, inadequate infrastructure.

All of the issues that Siegel examines in his book regarding U.S. drinking water have been raised in recent years in Canada-based research. In many ways, Siegel’s exposé on the environmental impacts of toxic substances, chemicals and medication in the United States is a mirror into our own environmental dilemmas, as Canada is home to many of the same industries and technological challenges. It’s also home to its own significant problems with water purification in rural indigenous communities.

Lead in drinking water

The Flint, Mich., lead water crisis of 2014 may have faded from newspaper headlines, but researchers are still warning about the levels of lead in American and Canadian drinking water. While we are exposed to lead daily in minuscule amounts from the environment, both countries’ federal governments publish guidelines to stringently limit exposure – because lead is a neurotoxin. In Canada, old (pre-1970s or so) water pipes or solder were made with lead, while more recently made pipes do not contain the substance.

In March 2019, Health Canada tightened the guidelines for lead in potable water from a maximum of .01 micrograms (mcg) per litre to .0005 mcg/litre. The decision coincided with a yearlong investigation by Canadian journalists to determine how prevalent lead was in tap water. Some 300 homes in 11 cities were tested and, as expected, newer homes connected with updated water systems had acceptable readings but neighbourhoods with lead service lines or antiquated interior pipes had excessive lead in tap water. One older home in Whistler produced readings more than 12 times the maximum limit, and some 20 communities in Montreal were found to still have lead service lines.

What often makes things worse, Siegel told the Independent, is that updating service lines and interior water lines aren’t inexpensive undertakings and homeowners, who may not have the expertise to weigh the urgency of those changes, often have to bear the cost of upgrades.

Microplastics and more

Lead isn’t the only health risk homeowners face. Microplastic contamination, which has been traced, in part, to the use of plastic bottles, is a growing concern in Canada, home to a robust bottled water industry. Researchers at McGill University, the University of Toronto and several institutions in the United States are currently undertaking studies to determine the prevalence and effect of microplastics in the environment, including on local marine life.

While the World Health Organization states there isn’t enough evidence to confirm that ingesting microplastics is harmful to humans, Siegel and other researchers disagree. As he details in his book, there is now compelling research to suggest microplastics can actually “disrupt the human body’s hormone-related activity,” especially in children.

Becoming advocates

Still, Siegel cautions that his book isn’t an appeal to simply throw out the technology we use. “None of this is a call to ban plastic,” he said, noting that, “just more than 100 years since its first commercial use, plastic is the dominant material of our times. If one wanted to do so, it would be nearly impossible to go even a day without contact with it in some form.”

The answer, he said, is advocacy: educating ourselves and taking proactive approaches that steer both companies we invest in and the experts that oversee their products’ safety, so that materials are exhaustively tested and verified as safe for dependent, long-term use.

“Because your health and the health of your family rely upon your drinking water being of good quality, it’s important for you to get this right,” said Siegel, who said he hopes the data he has provided will help inspire a “citizen’s movement” to change the way drinking water is tested, approved and protected in the United States and elsewhere.

Troubled Water is Siegel’s second book on drinking water management. His New York Times bestseller, Let There Be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water Starved World, published in 2015, delved deeply into Israel’s national water management system and the mechanisms that have made the country a sought-after resource on drought management in an era of climate change.

A graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a successful entrepreneur and expert in patent law, Siegel said the book’s concept has been licensed in his name, but he is not charging royalties for its use. He said he wants to encourage other countries to use it as a template to inspire environmental change in their communities.

“[Every] country in the world is dealing with the same contaminants,” said Siegel. “They may have a different regulatory regime. Obviously, not everybody has the U.S. [Environmental Protection Agency] … but, whatever the local problems are, they are more similar than different.”

Both of Siegel’s books, as well as other resources, are available through his website, sethmsiegel.com.

Jan Lee’s articles and blog posts have been published in B’nai B’rith Magazine, Voices of Conservative and Masorti Judaism, Times of Israel, as well as a number of business, environmental and travel publications. Her blog can be found at multiculturaljew.polestarpassages.com.

Harpers at Lake Hula opening

Laureen and Stephen Harper, centre left, and Daniel Atar, KKL-JNF world chair, centre, were among those who cut the ribbon at the Nov. 6 official opening of the Stephen J. Harper Hula Valley Bird Sanctuary Visitor and Education Centre. (photo by Michael Huri)

Former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper was in Israel earlier this month for a four-day visit with a delegation from the Jewish National Fund of Canada, where he took part in the dedication of the new visitors centre at JNF Lake Hula Park in northern Israel, which is named in his honour.

Budgeted at $25 million Cdn, one-fifth of which was raised by the JNF of Canada, the Stephen J. Harper Hula Valley Bird Sanctuary Visitor and Education Centre south of Qiryat Shmona is seen as “the flagship project of Keren-Kayemet L’Yisrael (KKL),” the JNF’s Israel-based sister organization. Harper contributed to the cost of the project, and the auditorium is named for his wife, Laureen, in recognition of her service to Canada, friendship to Israel and dedication to the preservation of nature and wildlife.

Stephen Harper was honoured at the JNF of Canada’s 2013 Negev Dinner in Toronto. At the time, then-JNF chief executive officer Josh Cooper said: “Given his well-documented love of animals, we felt this would be an appropriate project to present to him.”

Now completed, six years after fundraising began, the facility promises to transform the experience of ornithologists and bird watchers who come to the Hula Valley. There, they can watch the twice-a-year seasonal migration of 500 million birds from more than 500 species, from Europe and Central Asia to Africa, and back.

The Hula Valley, located in the shadow of Mount Hermon, is considered the crown jewel of Israeli conservation efforts. Known in the Bible as Merom, up until the 1950s, it was full of swampland that was notorious for breeding malaria-carrying anopheles mosquitoes. In the 1950s, the wetlands were drained, with the hope that fertile farmland would result; instead, environmental devastation and the extinction of some indigenous species followed. Farming in the area was never successful and JNF ultimately decided to reflood part of the former lake.

Known in Hebrew as Agamon Hula (Little Lake Hula), the flat valley is filled with an array of birds, including cranes, pelicans and eagles. Visitors can observe the birds and also cycle around the site.

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At the gala dinner Nov. 5 in honour of Harper, which took place at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke about the danger Iran’s nuclear ambitions poses for Israel, the Middle East and the West.

“Iran expands its aggression everywhere. It seeks to envelop Israel. It seeks to threaten Israel. It seeks to destroy Israel. We fight back,” Netanyahu said. “I also want to say, given Iran’s efforts to expand its nuclear weapons program, expand its enrichment of uranium for making atomic bombs, I repeat here once again – we will never let Iran develop nuclear weapons. This is not only for our security and our future; it’s for the future of the Middle East and the world.”

Netanyahu was particularly concerned about Tehran’s plans to start injecting UF6 (uranium hexafluoride) gas into the centrifuges to enrich uranium to five percent at the heavily fortified underground Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, located inside a mountain 32 kilometres northeast of the Shi’ite holy city of Qom.

Earlier in the day, Iran’s nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi promised that his country would violate the element of the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which Tehran had worked out with the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States). The United States left the deal last year and has imposed sanctions on Iran in an attempt to force it to renegotiate the document. Tehran, in turn, has begun violating the deal in an attempt to pressure the United States to recall the sanctions.

Under the 2015 agreement between Iran and world powers, Iran agreed to turn Fordow into a “nuclear, physics and technology centre,” where 1,044 centrifuges would be used for purposes other than enrichment, such as producing stable isotopes, which have a variety of civil uses. The deal bans nuclear material from Fordow and, by injecting UF6 into centrifuges, the facility will become an active nuclear site rather than a research plant as permitted under the pact.

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Since leaving Parliament after the Conservative party was defeated in the 2015 federal election by the Liberals, Harper has become president of the Awz venture capital fund advisory committee. The fund, founded by managing partner Yaron Ashkenazi, specializes in investments in Israeli security and intelligence startups, and manages $100 million in assets. The fund has invested in 12 companies to date, according to the Israeli financial website Globes.

Harper, an enthusiastic supporter of Israel, has visited many times. On Jan. 20, 2014, he addressed the Knesset plenum, saying: “It is, thus, a Canadian tradition to stand for what is principled and just, regardless of whether it is convenient or popular. But, I would argue, support today for the Jewish state of Israel is more than a moral imperative, it is also of strategic importance, also a matter of our own, long-term interests…. For too many nations, it is still easier to scapegoat Israel than to emulate your success.”

About the education centre, he said in a statement, “This park is one of the greatest restoration stories, just like this country is to the Jewish people. It is a magnificent honour to have this centre named after my name, and I am grateful for this beautiful occasion.”

Gil Zohar is a writer and tour guide in Jerusalem, Israel.