Day 176 of our Green Year: Time To Vote Green!

Well, if you live in Canada then you know that today is election day. This is the time of year when the political parties decide to tell us a bunch of things they won't follow-up on, and we decide to just vote for the people who we voted for last time.

Well, for Layla and I, today was the day to vote Green. You may remember way back in the first couple days of Our Green Year, Layla and I joined the political arm of the Green Party, for whom Layla works as secretary.
For the federal election, we decided to continue our support of the Green Party and vote green. We know there is little chance for the Greens to win, and while we do support the green policy of the Liberal Party, we decided to stick with the plan of supporting the Green Party and voted green.
If it was not for the hectic move we went through, we were going to help volunteer for the Green candidate in our old riding, Andy Morel.

Well, we will see how the government turns out, and we hope Elizabeth May gets elected, but who knows. All we know is that come next election, we will continue our support of the Green Party, as long as they continue supporting the environment.

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In case you did not catch it, we have a video of our interview on CBC News on the previous blog. It is a good interview we feel, and it was really cool having CBC out here filming us yesterday!
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If you have any green ideas or suggestions, or want to tell us about your own green story, then e-mail us at craigbaird@wildmail.com. You can also send us photos of you going green to the same address!
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Some interesting news regarding a little thought of form of pollution; noise pollution. According to a recent study by SFGate.com found that noise pollution is putting 1 in 6 San Francisco residents at risk for heart disease, high blood pressure and other stress illnesses. When Layla and I hear this, we are glad to live in an area that is quiet and secluded. We only wish that everyone else had that option as well.

Day 7 of our Green Year: Volunteering The Green Way

The Green Party of British Columbia is a quickly rising provincial party that may get a seat or two in the next election, coming in the fall. In our second day of our Green Year, we joined the Green Party because they fit the green ideals that we hold dear. Well, Day 7 began with Layla taking on a position as the official Secretary of the BC Green Party. It is a pretty prominent position to hit only a few days after joining the party, and now she will be busy organizing meetings, the AGM, as well as taking notes during conference calls. We hope to inspire a few people within the party to start their own goal of going green every day.

It is a big step for both Layla and I to get so involved in a provincial party, but we both feel that the BC Green Party is a provincial party on the right track who are poised for a breakthrough in our area of British Columbia. Now, with Layla helping out in her position, I feel they just got a pretty significant boost on their road to provincial election success.

Here are some quick facts about the Green Party:
In 2005, the Green Party of BC ran in all 79 ridings and finished with nine percent of the total vote, down slightly from the 12 percent they had in the 2001 election. So far, across the world, Green Party members have been elected in over 60 nations around the world, including Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico and New Zealand.
These countries use a proportional voting system, which BC and Canada does not, if they did, the Green Party would have had several members in both provincial and federal levels of government.

Day 2 of Our Green Year: Snow and the Green Party

Well, we are onto Day 2 of our Green Year and we begin it by waking up to more snow. Yes, that is right, it is snowing on April 23. In fact, our yard still has snow in it, making this the longest period of time we have ever had continuous snow in the yard; November to April (and at least May).

Obviously, this means that things are out of whack for the environment. Scientists predict that places that are traditionally wet (where we are in the Pacific Northwest) and places that are dry, will get wetter and drier.
Temperatures have been below normal for at least 2 months, and they don't appear to be going up anytime soon.
Spring Snow and No Flowers, not a nice combination.

Layla and I joined the Green Party today as part of our Green Year. We thought that a good start to this year would be joining the most environmentally friendly political party in Canada.

The Journey Continues.....