Rain City Strategies Inc.

Let my people go surfing – the education of a reluctant businessman…

Colin — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 22:22:40 +0000

We are a fan of Yvon Chouinard, founder and owner of Patagonia Inc.. After reading his book, “Let my people go surfing – the education of a reluctant businessman” we were encourage to keep moving down the path of fostering Rain City’s style of responsible business.

Yvon lays out his alternative vision of business, detailing eco and people-conscious philosophies on aspects of the supply chain from product design and production to human resources and management. He has backed up his rhetoric with action: Patagonia pursues sustainability, gives 1% of annual net sales to environmental groups and has set benchmarks with its employee-friendly policies.

The timing for reading this book was perfect and has helped to realign and focus our efforts over the next year.

Here are just a few of some favorite passages:

“In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.‎”
“Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality.‎”
“Who are businesses responsible to? Their customer? Shareholders? Employees? We would argue that it is none of the above. Fundamentally, businesses are responsible to their resource base. Without a healthy environment there are no shareholders, no employees, no customers and no business.”

Supporting My Arms Wide Open

Colin — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:59:25 +0000

Rain City is honoured to support the My Arms Wide Open Foundation. This is an great organization that is involved in a Donation Challenge at Global Giving Foundation. They need lots of donors to support the foundation’s current project and ask you to contribute if you can. To support them please visit the Global Giving site: www.globalgiving.org/projects/my-world-in-a-garden/

By supporting My Arms Wide Open in this challenge we have a chance to get MAWO as a permanent member of Global Giving. This means they will keep all their projects listed on their site and actively promote My Arms Wide Open themselves to raise funds. In order to be successful we need to raise a minimum of $4,000 dollars from at least 50 individual donors. This particular project requires $55,000 in funding to build two vertical food walls in Cradock, South Africa and in the Vancouver, Downtown East Side. The ultimate goal of each vertical garden is to turn it into a community enterprise, providing fresh fruit and vegetables at low cost to community members.

The benefits of the project include:

Addresses food security challenges in both communities by providing a sustainable fresh vegetable and fruit food source
Supports the children and youth in each community by engaging them directly in the projects. As a Food Security education and learning program, 12-20 students from the local schools and Ray-Cam will be involved working approximately 2 hours a day on the garden
Transfers skills around vegetable and fruit growing, business skills and community engagement and capacity building
Engages the community across generations
Creates a model and funding for community based enterprises built around food growing and harvesting
Creates an opportunity, over the long term, to employ 3-5 FTE positions in each community working with the youth in the community.

Rain City Presenting at the 2011 Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Colin — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 22:37:40 +0000

Both Rain City team members, Tyson Atleo and Colin Doylend, will presenting the 2011 Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference this October in Vancouver. They will be presenting an oral presentation on “Tsawalk: Connecting the Nuu-chah-nulth World View to New Directions in management of the Salish Sea” during Session 28 – Knowledge translation and exchange: Improving ecosystem management through novel collaborations.

The conference is the largest, most comprehensive scientific research and policy conference in the region and presents the latest scientific research on the state of the ecosystem. Through these dialogues, the conference emphasizes the importance of collaboration among scientists and policymakers to solve complex environmental issues that cross political borders.

Please join us in furthering our collective understanding of the unique and precious ecosystem that is the Salish Sea. For more information, please visit the following link:

www.salishseaconference.org

Colin and Tyson we understand the necessity to bring indigenous concepts forward as foundational means to re-develop contemporary economic and environmental management models. Rooted in the worldviews of British Columbia’s coastal first nations lay what we believe are answers to the problems currently facing the Salish Sea ecosystem. In following lessons from the Nuu-chah-nulth of Western Vancouver Island we can draw on the successful experience of managing with respect, a process designed to ensure harmony in all relationships. From time immemorial to recent history the Nuu-chah-nulth had lived in accordance with the understanding of a constitutional worldview. Heshook-ish tsawalk as defined by Dr. Umeek Richard Atleo, hereditary Chief of the Ahousaht First Nation and chair of the former Clayoquot Sound Science Panel, is translated to pose the theoretical proposition that everything is one. In this abstract we will purposely acknowledge the connectivity of the ecosystem and the traditions of the region’s indigenous peoples to help further our collective understanding of the unique and precious ecosystem that is the Salish Sea.

The worldview heshook-ish tsawalk meaning everything is one – an ontology drawn from the Nuu-chah-nulth origin stories – views the nature of existence as an integrated and orderly whole, and thereby recognizes the intrinsic relationship between the physical and spiritual. We will take these lessons from the Nuu-chah-nulth and translation from Umeek, great-grandson of Kiista, father of A-in-chut, grandfather to Cha-kwas-sik-meek and offer the application of how heshook-ish tsawalk, or the theory of tsawalk, may provide a viable theoretical alternative that both compliments and expands the view of reality presented by Western science. In the spirit of novel collaborations a simple request is proposed; we ask you to allow both Western and indigenous views be combined in order to advance our understanding of this world – asking you to walk with us among two worlds so that we may accept teachings from both.

We would like to discuss why:

1. the sustainability of resources has never been more important;

And how;

2. the world’s dominate culture has screwed things up royally;

And what;

3. indigenous concepts can do to help.

These thoughts are interconnected as described by Dr. Fred Bunnell, former co-chair of the Clayoquot Sound Scientific Panel. Dr. Bunnell made it abundantly clear in a letter addressed to the intimate crowd at the recent Clayoquot Sound Science Symposium that our current economic models do not work and that it has become evident how important our natural resources are, how critical the idea of sustainability is.

What we harvest from the earth are natural gifts. The Nuu-chah-nulth, or people residing all along the mountains and sea, were challenged by the creator to manage these gifts with respect. Adhering to heshook-ish tsawalk they prevailed for millennia. Contemporary society now faces a similar challenge, one in accepting these gifts gently and ensuring renewal.

Dr. Bunnell goes on further in his letter to explain how the pursuit of perpetual growth on a finite plant is the basis of current economic models and that this practice is to engage the societies of this world in a slow collective suicide. If we all shed the veil of fear we can clearly see the costs of violating the earth’s natural systems and how it will affect our children for generations to come. We are faced with an immediate and disturbing reality. Our economic models must become circles, rather than upward ramps and arrows. To correct this we must learn from Son of Raven and from Bear as the Nuu-chah-nulth had learnt.

This submission, like the conference itself, emphasizes the importance of collaboration among indigenous cultures, scientists and policymakers to solve complex environmental issues that cross political and cultural borders. By understanding the teachings from the Nuu-chah-nulth, by sharing and analyzing the origin stories of Son of Raven and Son of Mucus, we hope to share additional insight on recent management actions and best practices to protect and restore the Salish Sea Ecosystem.

Aboriginal Economic Development Certification

Colin — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 22:05:45 +0000

We are pleased to announce that Rain City’s team member, Colin Doylend, has just received the Professional Level Aboriginal Economic Development Certification from the Council for the Advancement of Native Development Officers.

Economic Development Officers need to be thoroughly trained, highly skilled and committed to building economic capacity in order to provide professional support and technical advice to their communities and organizations.
In 1990, EDOs from across Canada founded and mandated the CANDO to provide a national body to focus on the training, education and networking opportunities necessary to serve their communities and/or organizations as professionals.

CANDO is a federally registered, non-profit society that is Aboriginal controlled, community based, and membership driven. CANDO is directed by a national regionally represented volunteer board of elected EDOs representing region of Canada.

CANDO has been instrumental in facilitating partnerships with EDOs, academics, Aboriginal leaders and senior corporate and government representatives. CANDO is unique because it is the only national organization that focuses on education and professional development for EDOs working in Aboriginal communities or organizations.

We are also looking forward to participating in the 18th Annual CANDO National Conference to be held November 7th -10th, 2011 in Richmond, BC.

For more information and to register for the conference, please visit the following webiste:

http://www.edo.ca/conference/2011

If You’re Not Making Mistakes, then You’re Not Doing Anything

Colin — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 16:42:29 +0000

“If You’re Not Making Mistakes, then You’re Not Doing Anything.”

This quote belongs to Hall of Fame basketball player/coach John Wooden, who was not only well aware that it’s okay to regularly make mistakes but that you’re doing something wrong if you don’t. It’s easy to expect perfection from ourselves and/or fear the judgment that comes with screwing things up, but even at its worst we learn from those errors. That’s not a new concept by any means, but it’s one often forgotten. Each member of our team is encouraged to move forward and supported through the process, even when mistakes are made. They are an indicator that you’re actually trying to succeed, so without them you’re not doing much of anything at all (and probably making yourself much less happy in the process).

Rain City Team Members Join the Vancouver Tool Library

Colin — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 22:17:01 +0000

The Vancouver Tool Library (VTL) is a cooperative tool lending library. Perfect for the our team at Rain City when installing wind and solar measurement devices – they carry a wide variety of tools for home repair, gardening, and bicycle maintenance, which is loaned to members free of charge. This is perfect for us by offering the tools we need without the costs of renting or buying them.

The folks at VTL share an incredible motivation that is empowered by a vision of our community empowered by the tools and skills needed to transform their homes and communities into vibrant spaces that reflect a commitment to sustainability. To get there, they are creating a community resource that will reduce the costs of improving and greening the places in which we live, work, and play.

Find out how to become a member under by visiting their website.

Human Intelligence and the Environment by Noam Chomsky

Colin — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:30:30 +0000

Human Intelligence and the Environment

May 07, 2011

By Noam Chomsky
Source: International Socialist Review

I’LL BEGIN with an interesting debate that took place some years ago between Carl Sagan, the well-known astrophysicist, and Ernst Mayr, the grand old man of American biology. They were debating the possibility of finding intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. And Sagan, speaking from the point of view of an astrophysicist, pointed out that there are innumerable planets just like ours. There is no reason they shouldn’t have developed intelligent life. Mayr, from the point of view of a biologist, argued that it’s very unlikely that we’ll find any. And his reason was, he said, we have exactly one example: Earth. So let’s take a look at Earth.

And what he basically argued is that intelligence is a kind of lethal mutation. And he had a good argument. He pointed out that if you take a look at biological success, which is essentially measured by how many of us are there, the organisms that do quite well are those that mutate very quickly, like bacteria, or those that are stuck in a fixed ecological niche, like beetles. They do fine. And they may survive the environmental crisis. But as you go up the scale of what we call intelligence, they are less and less successful. By the time you get to mammals, there are very few of them as compared with, say, insects. By the time you get to humans, the origin of humans may be 100,000 years ago, there is a very small group. We are kind of misled now because there are a lot of humans around, but that’s a matter of a few thousand years, which is meaningless from an evolutionary point of view. His argument was, you’re just not going to find intelligent life elsewhere, and you probably won’t find it here for very long either because it’s just a lethal mutation. He also added, a little bit ominously, that the average life span of a species, of the billions that have existed, is about 100,000 years, which is roughly the length of time that modern humans have existed.

With the environmental crisis, we’re now in a situation where we can decide whether Mayr was right or not. If nothing significant is done about it, and pretty quickly, then he will have been correct: human intelligence is indeed a lethal mutation. Maybe some humans will survive, but it will be scattered and nothing like a decent existence, and we’ll take a lot of the rest of the living world along with us.

So is anything going to be done about it? The prospects are not very auspicious. As you know, there was an international conference on this last December. A total disaster. Nothing came out of it. The emerging economies, China, India, and others, argued that it’s unfair for them to bear the burden of a couple hundred years of environmental destruction by the currently rich and developed societies. That’s a credible argument. But it’s one of these cases where you can win the battle and lose the war. The argument isn’t going to be very helpful to them if, in fact, the environmental crisis advances and a viable society goes with it. And, of course, the poor countries, for whom they’re speaking, will be the worst hit. In fact, they already are the worst hit. That will continue. The rich and developed societies, they split a little bit. Europe is actually doing something about it; it’s done some things to level off emissions. The United States has not.

In fact, there is a well-known environmentalist writer, George Monbiot, who wrote after the Copenhagen conference that “the failure of the conference can be explained in two words: Barack Obama.” And he’s correct. Obama’s intervention in the conference was, of course, very significant, given the power and the role of the United States in any international event. And he basically killed it. No restrictions, Kyoto Protocols die. The United States never participated in it. Emissions have very sharply increased in the United States since, and nothing is being done to curb them. A few Band-Aids here and there, but basically nothing. Of course, it’s not just Barack Obama. It’s our whole society and culture. Our institutions are constructed in such a way that trying to achieve anything is going to be extremely difficult.

Public attitudes are a little hard to judge. There are a lot of polls, and they have what look like varying results, depending on exactly how you interpret the questions and the answers. But a very substantial part of the population, maybe a big majority, is inclined to dismiss this as just kind of a liberal hoax. What’s particularly interesting is the role of the corporate sector, which pretty much runs the country and the political system. They’re very explicit. The big business lobbies, like the Chamber of Commerce, American Petroleum Institute, and others, have been very clear and explicit. A couple of years ago they said they are going to carry out—they since have been carrying out—a major publicity campaign to convince people that it’s not real, that it’s a liberal hoax. Judging by polls, that’s had an effect.

It’s particularly interesting to take a look at the people who are running these campaigns, say, the CEOs of big corporations. They know as well as you and I do that it’s very real and that the threats are very dire, and that they’re threatening the lives of their grandchildren. In fact, they’re threatening what they own, they own the world, and they’re threatening its survival. Which seems irrational, and it is, from a certain perspective. But from another perspective it’s highly rational. They’re acting within the structure of the institutions of which they are a part. They are functioning within something like market systems—not quite, but partially—market systems. To the extent that you participate in a market system, you disregard necessarily what economists call “externalities,” the effect of a transaction upon others. So, for example, if one of you sells me a car, we may try to make a good deal for ourselves, but we don’t take into account in that transaction the effect of the transaction on others. Of course, there is an effect. It may feel like a small effect, but if it multiplies over a lot of people, it’s a huge effect: pollution, congestion, wasting time in traffic jams, all sorts of things. Those you don’t take into account—necessarily. That’s part of the market system.

We’ve just been through a major illustration of this. The financial crisis has a lot of roots, but the fundamental root of it has been known for a long time. It was talked about decades before the crisis. In fact, there have been repeated crises. This is just the worst of them. The fundamental reason, it just is rooted in market systems. If Goldman Sachs, say, makes a transaction, if they’re doing their job, if the managers are up to speed they are paying attention to what they get out of it and the institution or person at the other end of the transaction, say, a borrower, does the same thing. They don’t take into account what’s called systemic risk, that is, the chance that the transaction that they’re carrying out will contribute to crashing the whole system. They don’t take that into account. In fact, that’s a large part of what just happened. The systemic risk turned out to be huge, enough to crash the system, even though the original transactions are perfectly rational within the system.

It’s not because they’re bad people or anything. If they don’t do it—suppose some CEO says, “Okay, I’m going to take into account externalities”—then he’s out. He’s out and somebody else is in who will play by the rules. That’s the nature of the institution. You can be a perfectly nice guy in your personal life. You can sign up for the Sierra Club and give speeches about the environmental crisis or whatever, but in the role of corporate manager, you’re fixed. You have to try to maximize short-term profit and market share—in fact, that’s a legal requirement in Anglo-American corporate law—just because if you don’t do it, either your business will disappear because somebody else will outperform it in the short run, or you will just be out because you’re not doing your job and somebody else will be in. So there is an institutional irrationality. Within the institution the behavior is perfectly rational, but the institutions themselves are so totally irrational that they are designed to crash.

If you look, say, at the financial system, it’s extremely dramatic what happened. There was a crash in the 1920s, and in the 1930s, a huge depression. But then regulatory mechanisms were introduced. They were introduced as a result of massive popular pressure, but they were introduced. And throughout the whole period of very rapid and pretty egalitarian economic growth of the next couple of decades, there were no financial crises, because the regulatory mechanisms interfered with the market and prevented the market principles from operating. So therefore you could take account of externalities. That’s what the regulatory system does. It’s been systematically dismantled since the 1970s.

Meanwhile, the role of finance in the economy has exploded. The share of corporate profit by financial institutions has just zoomed since the 1970s. Kind of a corollary of that is the hollowing out of industrial production, sending it abroad. This all happened under the impact of a kind of fanatic religious ideology called economics—and that’s not a joke—based on hypotheses that have no theoretical grounds and no empirical support but are very attractive because you can prove theorems if you adopt them: the efficient market hypothesis, rational expectations hypothesis, and so on. The spread of these ideologies, which is very attractive to concentrated wealth and privilege, hence their success, was epitomized in Alan Greenspan, who at least had the decency to say it was all wrong when it collapsed. I don’t think there has ever been a collapse of an intellectual edifice comparable to this, maybe, in history, at least I can’t remember one. Interestingly, it has no effect. It just continues. Which tells you that it’s serviceable to power systems.

Under the impact of these ideologies, the regulatory system was dismantled by Reagan and Clinton and Bush. Throughout this whole period, there have been repeated financial crises, unlike the 1950s and 1960s. During the Reagan years, there were some really extreme ones. Clinton left office with another huge one, the burst of the tech bubble. Then the one we’re in the middle of. Worse and worse each time. The system is instantly being reconstructed, so the next one will very likely be even worse. One of the causes, not the only one, is simply the fact that in market systems you just don’t take into account externalities, in this case systemic risk.

That’s not lethal in the case of financial crises. A financial crisis can be terrible. It can put many millions of people out of work, their lives destroyed. But there is a way out of it. The taxpayer can come in and rescue you. That’s exactly what happened. We saw it dramatically in the last couple of years. The financial system tanked. The government, namely, the taxpayer, came in and bailed them out.

Let’s go to the environmental crisis. There’s nobody around to bail you out. The externalities in this case are the fate of the species. If that’s disregarded in the operations of the market system, there’s nobody around who is going to bail you out from that. So this is a lethal externality. And the fact that it’s proceeding with no significant action being taken to do anything about it does suggest that Ernst Mayr actually had a point. It seems that there is something about us, our intelligence, which entails that we’re capable of acting in ways that are rational within a narrow framework but are irrational in terms of other long-term goals, like do we care what kind of a world our grandchildren will live in. And it’s hard to see much in the way of prospects for overcoming this right now, particularly in the United States. We are the most powerful state in the world, and what we do is vastly important. We have one of the worst records in this regard.

There are things that could be done. It’s not hard to list them. One of the main things that could be done is actually low-tech, for example, the weatherization of homes. There was a big building boom in the post–Second World War period, which from the point of view of the environment was done extremely irrationally. Again, it was done rationally from a market point of view. There were models for home building, for mass-produced homes, which were used all over the country, under different conditions. So maybe it would make sense in Arizona, but not in Massachusetts. Those homes are there. They’re extremely energy-inefficient. They can be fixed. It’s construction work, basically. It would make a big difference. It would also have the effect of reviving one of the main collapsing industries, construction, and overcoming a substantial part of the employment crisis. It will take inputs. It will take money from, ultimately, the taxpayer. We call it the government, but it means the taxpayer. But it is a way of stimulating the economy, of increasing jobs, also with a substantial multiplier effect (unlike bailing out bankers and investors), and also making a significant impact on the destruction of the environment. But there’s barely a proposal for this, almost nothing.

Another example, which is kind of a scandal in the United States—if any of you have traveled abroad, you’re perfectly aware of it—when you come back from almost anywhere in the world to the United States, it looks like you’re coming to a Third World country, literally. The infrastructure is collapsing transportation that doesn’t work. Let’s just take trains. When I moved to Boston around 1950, there was a train that went from Boston to New York. It took four hours. There’s now a highly heralded train called the Acela, the supertrain. It takes three hours and forty minutes (if there’s no breakdown—as there can be, I’ve discovered). If you were in Japan, Germany, China, almost anywhere, it would take maybe an hour and a half, two hours or something. And that’s general.

It didn’t happen by accident. It happened by a huge social engineering project carried out by the government and by the corporations beginning in the 1940s. It was a very systematic effort to redesign the society so as to maximize the use of fossil fuels. One part of it was eliminating quite efficient rail systems. New England, for example, did have a pretty efficient electric rail system all the way through New England. If you read E. L. Doctorow’s novel Ragtime, the first chapter describes its hero going through New England on the electric rail system. That was all dismantled in favor of cars and trucks. Los Angeles, which is now a total horror story—I don’t know if any of you have been there—had an efficient electric public transportation system. It was dismantled. It was bought up in the 1940s by General Motors, Firestone Rubber, and Standard Oil of California. The purpose of their buying it up was to dismantle it so as to shift everything to trucks and cars and buses. And it was done. It was technically a conspiracy. Actually, they were brought to court on a charge of conspiracy and sentenced. I think the sentence was $5,000 or something, enough to pay for the victory dinner.

The federal government stepped in. We have something that is now called the interstate highway system. When it was built in the 1950s, it was called the national defense highway system because when you do anything in the United States you have to call it defense. That’s the only way you can fool the taxpayer into paying for it. In fact, there were stories back in the 1950s, those of you who are old enough to remember, about how we needed it because you had to move missiles around the country very quickly in case the Russians came or something. So taxpayers were bilked into paying for this system. Alongside of it was the destruction of railroads, which is why you have what I just described. Huge amounts of federal money and corporate money went into highways, airports, anything that wastes fuel. That’s basically the criterion.

Also, the country was suburbanized. Real estate interests, local interests, and others redesigned life so that it’s atomized and suburbanized. I’m not knocking the suburbs. I live in one and I like it. But it’s incredibly inefficient. It has all kinds of social effects which are probably deleterious. Anyway, it didn’t just happen; it was designed. Throughout the whole period, there has been a massive effort to create the most destructive possible society. And to try to redo that huge social engineering project is not going to be simple. It involves plenty of problems.

Another component of any reasonable approach—and everyone agrees with this on paper—is to develop sustainable energy, green technology. We all know and everyone talks a nice line about that. But if you look at what’s happening, green technology is being developed in Spain, in Germany, and primarily China. The United States is importing it. In fact, a lot of the innovation is here, but it’s done there. United States investors now are putting far more money into green technology in China than into the U.S. and Europe combined. There were complaints when Texas ordered solar panels and windmills from China: It’s undermining our industry. Actually, it wasn’t undermining us at all because we were out of the game. It was undermining Spain and Germany, which are way ahead of us.

Just to indicate how surreal this is, the Obama administration essentially took over the auto industry, meaning you took it over. You paid for it, bailed it out, and basically owned large parts of it. And they continued doing what the corporations had been doing pretty much, for example, closing down GM plants all over the place. Closing down a plant is not just putting the workers out of work, it’s also destroying the community. Take a look at the so-called rust belt. The communities were built by labor organizing; they developed around the plants. Now they’re dismantled. It has huge effects. At the same time that they’re dismantling the plants, meaning you and I are dismantling plants, because that’s where the money comes from, and it’s allegedly our representatives—it isn’t, in fact—at the very same time Obama was sending his Transportation Secretary to Spain to use federal stimulus money to get contracts for high-speed rail construction, which we really need and the world really needs. Those plants that are being dismantled and the skilled workers in them, all that could be reconverted to producing high-speed rail right here. They have the technology, they have the knowledge, they have the skills. But it’s not good for the bottom line for banks, so we’ll buy it from Spain. Just like green technology, it will be done in China.

Those are choices; those are not laws of nature. But, unfortunately, those are the choices that are being made. And there is little indication of any positive change. These are pretty serious problems. We can easily go on. I don’t want to continue. But the general picture is very much like this. I don’t think this is an unfair selection of—it’s a selection, of course, but I think it’s a reasonably fair selection of what’s happening. The consequences are pretty dire.

The media contribute to this, too. So if you read, say, a typical story in the New York Times, it will tell you that there is a debate about global warming. If you look at the debate, on one side is maybe 98 percent of the relevant scientists in the world, on the other side are a couple of serious scientists who question it, a handful, and Jim Inhofe or some other senator. So it’s a debate. And the citizen has to kind of make a decision between these two sides. The Times had a comical front-page article maybe a couple months ago in which the headline said that meteorologists question global warming. It discussed a debate between meteorologists—the meteorologists are these pretty faces who read what somebody hands to them on television and says it’s going to rain tomorrow. That’s one side of the debate. The other side of the debate is practically every scientist who knows anything about it. Again, the citizen is supposed to decide. Do I trust these meteorologists? They tell me whether to wear a raincoat tomorrow. And what do I know about the scientists? They’re sitting in some laboratory somewhere with a computer model. So, yes, people are confused, and understandably.

It’s interesting that these debates leave out almost entirely a third part of the debate, namely, a very substantial number of scientists, competent scientists, who think that the scientific consensus is much too optimistic. A group of scientists at MIT came out with a report about a year ago describing what they called the most comprehensive modeling of the climate that had ever been done. Their conclusion, which was unreported in public media as far as I know, was that the major scientific consensus of the international commission is just way off, it’s much too optimistic; and if you add other factors that they didn’t count properly, the conclusion is much more dire. Their own conclusion was that unless we terminate use of fossil fuels almost immediately, it’s finished. We’ll never be able to overcome the consequences. That’s not part of the debate.

I could easily go on, but the only potential counterweight to all of this is some very substantial popular movement which is not just going to call for putting solar panels on your roof, though it’s a good thing to do, but it’s going to have to dismantle an entire sociological, cultural, economic, and ideological structure which is just driving us to disaster. It’s not a small task, but it’s a task that had better be undertaken, and probably pretty quickly, or it’s going to be too late.

Source: http://www.zcommunications.org/human-intelligence-and-the-environment-by-noam-chomsky

Indigenous peoples groups plan 50 MW project on NZ Northern Island

Colin — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 23:22:10 +0000

A Joint Venture of two indigenous peoples groups, KAwerau A8D Ahuwhenua Trust, Hawaiian-owned Innovations Development Group and Eastland Group, a local power operator, is planning a 50 MW geothermal power plant project, called Te Ahi O Maui in New Zealand.

Exterior of 100MW geothermal power plant of Mighty River Power at Kawerau, New Zealand

Reported from New Zeland, a international indigenous peoples project aims to develop a geothermal power plant of up to 50 MW in the Bay of Plenty, on the North Island of New Zealand.

“The development will be a joint venture between the Kawerau A8D Ahuwhenua Trust, Hawaiian-owned Innovations Development Group (IDG) and Eastland Group, operator of Gisborne’s electricity network, port and airport.

They have an exclusive development right for 170 hectares of land belonging to the trust, not far from the 9MW geothermal power station Eastland Group bought in early 2010.

The development is expected to be done over several stages, with the first likely to take about two years. The initial stage one project is potentially a 10-15MW plant costing $45-60 million, with Eastland Group brought in to provide the financial backing and technical expertise.

The power generated will be fed back into the Bay of Plenty community using local electricity lines, where possible.

“This is very much a three-way partnership,” says IDG founder Robbie Cabral. “IDG were brought on as development experts by the Kawerau A8D Ahuwhenua Trust, and Eastland became involved when they sought out financial backing and technical experts in power generation.”

The Kawerau project has been named Te Ahi O Maui, which loosely translated means “the fire of Maui” — capturing the essence of the ngawha’s (geothermal fluid) journey from Hawaii to Aotearoa, and the belief that the Chief Ngatoroirangi summoned the heat from his homeland Hawaii’iki. The demigod Maui sent it from Hawaii through another demigod Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire.

Eastland Group chief executive Matt Todd described the project as an exciting one for the group.

They were keen to expand further into the power generation sector, particularly renewable energy.

There was an existing commercially-viable geothermal well on the land, and an assessment of the area had shown a significant additional resource underneath the A8D block.

Innovations Development Group, established in 1998, is a strategic planning and development company that conducts business in a socially- responsible, globally-green manner that is respectful of native cultures. IDG is describing the project as the world’s first Native-to-Native trade deal.

They developed the Native-to-Native trade concept to help indigenous people who wanted to develop their lands and resources, but needed assistance to do so.

IDG principals work with both their investment partners and native counterparts, to bridge cultures and produce projects that yield returns to all stakeholders — while leveraging resources in a manner that preserves cultural traditions and respects sites of significant cultural interest.

This collaboration is aimed at forging intellectual and financial capital resources from strategic alliances and working with indigenous communities in non-traditional ways to create exceptional long-term opportunities.

A cultural consultation process will be worked through to ensure the right protocols are in place before any development on the trust land is started.

IDG’s senior adviser Robbie Le’a Kapi’olani Cabral says the structure used will ensure training, employment and substantive participation of the Maori people in the development of their resources.

“We structured the deal to protect those rights while delivering a generous return to investors and long-term energy diversification for the country.”

Source: The Gisborne Herald

Rain City’s Geoff de Ruiter takes top prize at the FortisBC Energy Challenge

Colin — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 16:30:15 +0000

On June 11th, 2011, one of our associates Geoff de Ruiter recently won the FortisBC Energy Challenge with his team “Team Synergy” at the International Student Energy Summit. After a very intense week of 5 individual challenges Team Synergy won the contest by proposed the most viable, versatile, and innovative district energy system to a panel of industry experts, as well as the former Premier of BC, Mike Harcourt, and a crowd over 300. For winning the challenge each of the four team members received $1000 and the admiration of their peers. More information on the challenge can be seen here and be sure to keep an eye out for the official news release.

Bolivia Set to Pass Historic ‘Law of Mother Earth’ Which Will Grant Nature Equal Rights to Humans

Colin — Sat, 21 May 2011 22:01:38 +0000

Written by Keph Senett
Source: PV Pulse

Evo Morales speaks at the UN

With the cooperation of politicians and grassroots organizations, Bolivia is set to pass the Law of Mother Earth, which will grant nature the same rights and protections as humans. The piece of legislation, called la Ley de Derechos de la Madre Tierra, is intended to encourage a radical shift in conservation attitudes and actions, to enforce new control measures on industry, and to reduce environmental destruction.
The law redefines natural resources as blessings and confers the same rights to nature as to human beings, including: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered. Perhaps the most controversial point is the right “to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities”.
In late 2005 Bolivia elected its first indigenous president, Evo Morales. Morales is an outspoken champion for environmental protection, petitioning for substantive change within his country and at the United Nations. Bolivia, one of South America’s poorest countries, has long had to contend with the consequences of destructive industrial practices and climate change, but despite the best efforts of Morales and members of his administration, their concerns have largely been ignored at the UN.

Just last year, in 2010, Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca expressed his distress “about the inadequacy of the greenhouse gas reduction commitments made by developed countries in the Copenhagen Accord.” His remarks were punctuated by the claim that some experts forecasted a temperature increase “as high as four degrees above pre-industrial levels.” “The situation is serious,” Choquehuanca asserted. “An increase of temperature of more than one degree above pre-industrial levels would result in the disappearance of our glaciers in the Andes, and the flooding of various islands and coastal zones.”
In 2009, directly following the resolution of the General Assembly to designate April 22 “International Mother Earth Day”, Morales addressed the press, stating “If we want to safeguard mankind, then we need to safeguard the planet. That is the next major task of the United Nations”. A change to Bolivia’s constitution in the same year resulted in an overhaul of the legal system – a shift from which this new law has sprung.

The Law of Mother Earth has as its foundation several of the tenets of indigenous belief, including that human are equal to all other entities. “Our grandparents taught us that we belong to a big family of plants and animals. We believe that everything in the planet forms part of a big family,” Choquehuanca said. “We indigenous people can contribute to solving the energy, climate, food and financial crises with our values.” The legislation will give the government new legal powers to monitor and control industry in the country.
“Existing laws are not strong enough,” said Undarico Pinto, leader of the 3.5m-strong Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia (a group that helped draft the law). “It will make industry more transparent. It will allow people to regulate industry at national, regional and local levels.”

Bolivia will be establishing a Ministry of Mother Earth, but beyond that there are few details about how the legislation will be implemented. What is clear is that Bolivia will have to balance these environmental imperatives against industries – like mining – that contribute to the country’s GDP.
Bolivia’s successes or failures with implementation may well inform the policies of countries around the world. “It’s going to have huge resonance around the world,” said Canadian activist Maude Barlow. “It’s going to start first with these southern countries trying to protect their land and their people from exploitation, but I think it will be grabbed onto by communities in our countries, for example, fighting the tarsands in Alberta.”

Ecuador has enshrined similar aims in its Constitution, and is among the countries that have already shown support for the Bolivian initiative. Other include Nicaragua, Venezuela, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda.
National opposition to the law is not anticipated, as Morales’ party – the Movement Towards Socialism – holds a majority in both houses of parliament. On April 20, two days before this year’s “International Mother Earth Day”, Morales will table a draft treaty with the UN, kicking off the debate with the international community.

Measuring the wind and solar resource in West Moberly…

Colin — Wed, 11 May 2011 04:00:32 +0000

Located at the west end of Moberly Lake, southwest of Fort. St. John, is the First Nations community of West Moberly. Rain City team members, David Isaac and Colin Doylend, had the honour and pleasure of visiting the Nation. West Moberly is already a solar community, having proven their leadership in renewable energy and energy efficiency through a SolarBC Community project that featured the installation of solar hot water heater.

Our team members installed two Power Predictors at separate locations to measure the overall resource within the bounds of the community.

David and Colin will be helping the Nation with training opportunities and community education about small renewable community energy projects. These efforts are all about developing 100% community owned energy projects that provide the electricity for the Nation.

Clear plans will be developed for implementation of additional wind and solar initiatives, by West Moberly in partnership with the team at Rain City, who are planning a demonstration project that will be the first wind and solar energy generation installations in the community.

Stay tuned for more!

Rain City helps coordinate a day at the Legislature for the Canadian Wind Energy Association…

Colin — Wed, 11 May 2011 01:29:12 +0000

May 31st is going to be a great day for the wind industry in Victoria. The Canadian Wind Energy Association has contracted our team at Rain City to help them organize a “day at the Legislature” to engage with Members of the Legislative Assembly and BC Government Ministry staff from a number of relevant departments.

CanWEA is a non-profit trade association that promotes the appropriate development and application of all aspects of wind energy in Canada, including the creation of a suitable policy environment.

They represent the wind energy community — those involved in the development and application of wind energy technology, products and services.

Like, BC’s very own wind turbine manufacturer, Endurance Wind Power, their members are Canada’s wind energy leaders. They are wind energy owners, operators, manufacturers, project developers, consultants, and service providers, and other organizations and individuals interested in supporting Canada’s wind energy industry.

CanWEA believes wind energy can satisfy
20 percent of Canada’s electricity demand by 2025.

Achieving this vision will generate investment, create jobs,
produce revenue for municipalities, stabilize electricity prices
and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

All this effort is leading up to CanWEA’s 27th Annual Conference and Exhibition that will be held October 3-6, 2011 in Vancouver. This premier wind energy event will bring together over 2,500 experts from all over the world to discuss the opportunities and latest developments in the Canadian wind energy industry.

Rain City’s Colin Doylend is appointed to the BC Policy Committee for the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association

Colin — Wed, 11 May 2011 00:31:22 +0000

The team at Rain City is proud to announce that one of their team members, Colin Doylend, has been BC Policy Committee for the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association.

Not only is Rain City involved in the initial steps to develop BC’s first utility scale geothermal energy development in the interior of the province by representing the interests of the three local First Nations involved, Rain City Team members, Troy Barrie and David Isaac, are now also working with Associated Engineering and the Nisga’a Lisims Government to confirm the potential for development in the Nass Valley. Much more to come on both projects and we look forward to sharing the latest news as it is appropriate.

Come walk the Wild Side…

Colin — Wed, 11 May 2011 00:04:42 +0000

The team at Rain City is proud to support the Wild Side Trail located within the beautiful traditional territory of the Ahousaht FIrst Nation on Flores Island – near Tofino.

Earlier this month we gave a small donation and look forward to traversing the trail later this summer.

We encourage yourself and anyone else you know who enjoys a good hike in some of the most pristine wilderness here in BC to come for a visit and support the Wild Side Trail.

Social Capital Foundation Joins the Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal Peoples

Colin — Tue, 10 May 2011 23:22:47 +0000

The Rain City Social Capital Foundation is proud to become a member of the The Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada. This is an open network to promote giving, sharing, and philanthropy in Aboriginal communities across the country.

What They Do

The goal of The Circle is to connect with and empower First Nations, Inuit and Métis nations, communities, and individuals in building a stronger, healthier future.

To bring this goal to life, they will gather from four directions to:

Strengthen the level, innovation, and community reach of financial and human investments in Aboriginal communities across the country.

Nurture conversations, connections, and relationships among Aboriginal communities and philanthropic organizations.

Recognize deeply rooted injustices and model respect for First Nation, Inuit, and Métis cultures, practices, and institutions.

Broaden and deepen public knowledge, including the history of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples.

Support the flourishing of Aboriginal models of philanthropy.

Promote and strengthen First Nations, Inuit, and Métis participation in the governance and decision-making of philanthropic organizations.

How They Do It

To realize their goals, they will honour our shared intentions while respecting differing values. Specifically, we will continuously and consciously strive to:

Strengthen Aboriginal voices, leadership, participation, and right to self-determination

Honour the obligations of historical treaties - “we are all treaty people”
Build trust

Uphold the principles of equality, reciprocity, and mutuality

Realize common goals by learning, listening, sharing knowledge, and building consensus

Embrace the language of opportunity and possibility while recognizing the challenges faced by Aboriginal peoples in Canada

Be open, inclusive, and flexible

Be adaptive and responsive

Bring participants directly into contact with the land and First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities

Rain City Joins the Canadian Aboriginal Minerals Association

Colin — Mon, 09 May 2011 15:58:07 +0000

Advocating and negotiating an equitable participation for First Nation communities, including land and resource development for the benefit of all in the mining industry is something our team strives for. That is why Rain City is proud to become a member of the Canadian Aboriginal Minerals Association.

Our team is actively involved in establishing relations, negotiating practical benefits agreements, jointly addressing mineral exploration and development issues, and mitigating negative impacts as partners with mining companies, Aboriginal communities advance to economic self-sufficiency through exerting the right and title to the land.

We are proud to act as an instrument for the advancement of Aboriginal community economic development, mineral resource management and environmental protection and look forward to the conference this coming Winter in Vancouver.

Please join us!

19th Annual Conference
“Meeting Minds, Making Mines” Aboriginal Community and Resource Development in a Growing Economy
Vancouver, B.C. November 6-8, 2011
www.aboriginalminerals.com/conference2011Logos.html

First Nations Carbon Collaborative – Indigenous Peoples And Carbon Markets

Colin — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 07:25:33 +0000

The annotated bibliography by Rosemary Dohan and Vivek Voora entitled “First Nations Carbon Collaborative — Indigenous Peoples And Carbon Markets” is a great resource that provides a significant insight into the emergence of carbon markets and the opportunities for opportunity for indigenous communities.

This annotated bibliography was written to support the First Nations Carbon Collaborative, an initiative spearheaded by the Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources and the International Institute for Sustainable Development in collaboration with the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, Poplar River First Nation and T’licho Nation. The goal of the project is to build capacity within the First Nations of Canada by providing unbiased information on carbon markets so that they can position themselves to take advantage of the economic opportunities offered by land-based existing and emerging carbon markets if they so choose to.

The emergence of carbon markets have created a unique opportunity for indigenous communities to develop an economic sector that can be aligned with traditional lifestyles and sustainable forest management goals. It is also an opportunity for governments and industry to build meaningful partnerships and develop relevant policies with indigenous peoples.

Globally, indigenous communities are concerned with a general lack of effort to involve them in carbon markets or to consider the social impacts that these markets, and related policies, can and have had on communities. Indigenous peoples require that their free, prior and informed consent be obtained as governments develop carbon market policies and regulations.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples provides a framework for meeting minimum international standards for the protection and inclusion of indigenous peoples’ rights in government-led carbon policy development; ensuring indigenous land and carbon rights is the first step in meaningful joint planning and implementation of emissions cap-and-trade policies/regulations. Consequently, indigenous peoples should have equal and meaningful involvement in developing carbon markets that may impact their traditional and current territories.¹ It is also important to recognize the contributions that indigenous peoples have made and do make towards conserving forests and biodiversity.

The objective of this annotated bibliography is to provide an introduction to indigenous peoples’ land and carbon rights, carbon offset regimes and carbon accounting from a broad international perspective. The following reference categories are provided at the end of each section for the reader to access more information:

Peer-reviewed materials: This information comes from peer-reviewed journals and may be available online for free, or for a fee from a journal host.

“Grey” literature: This information comes from working papers, government publications, NGOs, books and technical reports that have not gone through an official peer-review and publishing process.

Media: This information was sourced primarily from newspapers and online news websites that have been written after 2004. Some of this literature may be biased based on the views of the organizations or authors.

These reference categories were selected to provide the reader with a spectrum of information sources ranging from academic to more popular and accessible resources. We hope that this annotated bibliography will help policy-makers, researchers and educators shed some light on the potential positive and negative impacts that carbon markets could have on indigenous peoples. To conclude, the literature surveyed revealed that, although there is a reasonable amount of information on indigenous peoples and carbon markets, there seems to be very little information on First Nations in Canada and carbon markets. This indicates that an information void may need to be filled for First Nations to become active participants in current and emerging carbon markets.

1. Indigenous peoples generally occupy certain areas that may or may not encompass their traditional territories. Their lands typically cover a greater area and are treated differently with regards to their resource rights.

An Open Letter to Premier Christy Clark on BC’s Climate Leadership

Colin — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 07:15:21 +0000

April 21, 2011
Premier Christy Clark

PO Box 9041, Stn Provincial Government

Victoria, British Columbia V8W 9E1

Dear Premier Clark,
Thank you for the leadership race commitments you made to aggressively establishBritish Columbia as a leader in clean energy. We appreciated the connection youmade between investments in clean energy and the ability to create jobs throughoutthe province.
We write to urge you to follow-through on those commitments, and give theclean energy economy a central role in your efforts to create jobs and help BritishColumbian families. According to the Globe Foundation, clean energy contributed $15.3 billion to B.C.’s GDP (10.2% of the total) and 166,000 jobs (7.2% of the total) in 2008. Those numbers are significant today, and they could double in the nextdecade.
B.C. has already built a strong foundation to achieve higher gains. The provincehas been rightly applauded for the leadership it has demonstrated by spurringinvestment in clean energy. We have punched above our weight and helped topositively influence the Canadian, continental and global debate on how to build a clean energy economy.
This is particularly true for the implementation of B.C.’s carbon tax and being one ofthe leading partners in the Western Climate Initiative. Continued progress presentsopportunity, and limits risk, on a number of fronts:

We can grow the market for B.C.’s clean energy companies

By tipping the economic scales in favour of clean energy, and helping ourneighbours do the same, B.C. can help open domestic and export markets for theprovince’s entrepreneurs. Whether it’s a wind farm being built in Dawson Creek, orcutting-edge fuel cell engines and biomass gasification technologies being sold to the world, those businesses bring investment to B.C. and employ British Columbians.

We can set the rules of the clean energy economy

The rules are set by the people that play the game first. We know there will beconstraints on carbon in the near future, so B.C. needs to be involved in settingthose constraints and demonstrating their potential. Doing so puts us in the driver’sseat to ensure the rules account for B.C.’s interests, which will give our economy a competitive advantage. Furthermore, just by setting the rules and participating, we give other jurisdictions the confidence to do the same. This will grow the size of theclean energy economy and increase the range and scale of opportunities available.

We can help families get ahead in a future where energy is going to cost more

As global oil prices rise, developing a robust clean energy sector in B.C. helpsprotect families by reducing their dependence on fossil fuels, and giving them realalternatives such as better public transit and neigbourhood heating systems. Thesame shift away from fossil fuels also benefits families by keeping energy prices lower than in other jurisdictions, providing long-term employment throughout theprovince, and building healthier more vibrant communities.

We can protect B.C.’s natural beauty for our children and grand children

If we fail to effectively build a clean energy economy, we will fail to effectively showleadership on climate change. If climate change persists, the B.C. we know and lovewill be dramatically different for our children and grand children. We’ve alreadyseen the devastation that pine beetles can cause on our forests and the way stormscan gut our parks. If the Fraser River gets much warmer, salmon won’t survive. B.C.can’t stop these threats on our own, but we can be a positive influence in findinglocal and global solutions.

We look forward to working with your government to secure the gains we havemade in recent years and affirm B.C.’s position in the clean energy economy.
Sincerely,

Over 150 business, academic and NGO leaders, including the team at Rain City Strategies Inc.

cc

Minister Lake

Minister Coleman

John Yap

Minister Lekstrom

Rain City is supporting We Canada and the United Nations Earth Summit 2012 in Rio de Janeiro

Colin — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 22:24:59 +0000

Rain City is proud to support We Canada, a nation-wide initiative for sustainability that brings the diversity of Canadian voices to the Earth Summit 2012, and to the attention of our government. The lead-up to this event is a chance for us to look at where we have come from, where we need to go, and how WE CAN create a sustainable future! We Canada is about talking, about sharing, about creating a community of engaged citizens around common ideas and concerns for our future.

We Canada is also about action, about telling our Canadian leaders that they must take a stand for sustainability. We want YOUR voice to be heard when Canada speaks up for YOU at the United Nations Earth Summit 2012 in Rio de Janeiro (UN Conference on Sustainable Development). Whether you see sustainable development as a health issue, an environment issue, a social issue, an equality issue, a political issue, or a global issue, YOU’RE RIGHT. Together, WE CAN address all of these challenges and make ourselves heard!

Rain City is now a member of the Social Venture Network

Colin — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 21:34:18 +0000

Our team is proud to announce that we are now an Associate Member of the Social Venture Network. We are looking forward to being a active member of the group that connects, supports and inspires business leaders and social entrepreneurs in expanding practices that build a just and sustainable economy.

Like SVN, we focus on building valuable peer-to-peer relationships among high-impact, innovative business leaders. We bring entrepreneurial thinking to everything we do and help develop sustainable business here in BC – specifically for First Nation communities. We foster active collaborations among our team and clients to create new ideas, partnerships and solutions, while also supporting each entire person and develop both personal and professional leadership.

Ultimately, we are excited to be better connected to a growing community of innovative business leaders and social entrepreneurs to help improve our business, enhance our leadership, and expand our impact.

Certified Sustainability Professional Designation

Colin — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 22:39:17 +0000

We are proud to announce that one of team members at Rain City, Colin Doylend, is now a Certified Sustainability Professional. This designation was granted by the Canadian Professional Sustainability Institute. It is focused on developing a common understanding of sustainability by forming a Canadian community of interest in the field of sustainability, establishing sustainability as a profession within Canada, and providing valuable networking opportunities to its members and sustainability practitioners across Canada.

Through the use of social media tools as our primary communication and networking method we help our members stay at the forefront of their profession and provide long-term value to the organizations they represent.

All Sustainability Professionals are required to obtain membership in the Institute prior to writing the credential examination. The membership application process requests information related to your work experience and education in the field of sustainability.

If you are interested in becoming a member, please click here to join today!

Join Rain City for the Kingcome Flood Relief Gala Fundraiser on March 12th starting for 6 PM at the River Rock

Colin — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 09:50:43 +0000

This fundraising extravaganza aims to assist the Dzawada’enuxw people of Kingcome Inlet in rebuilding their lives and community.

Saturday March 12, 2011

River Rock Casino Resort

Richmond, B.C.

Doors open at 6:00 pm

Reception 6:00 – 7:00 pm (includes Hors D’ Oeuvres)

Silent Auction 6pm – 10:00 pm

Live Auction – 8:30 pm

Emcee – Tewanee Joseph, CEO Four Host First Nations

Tickets: $175 per person

To RSVP and purchase tickets, please visit: http://kingcomefundraiser.eventbrite.com/

The evening will also include:

Fashion Show by House of Winchee (Denise Williams)

Stolo singing sensation, Inez Jasper

Dance the night away with Bitterly Divine

Invited guests – National Chief A-in-chut Shawn Atleo, Miss Indian World Dakota Brant, Rick Hansen and more…..

Kwakwaka‘wakw Cultural performance

Sponsorship Opportunity:

Corporate Sponsors: Table reservations are available for $500 per ticket when 10 tickets are purchased (limited tables available).

To inquire about the benefits of sponsoring the gala as an Event Patron, donating items for the live or silent auction, please contact:

Vina Robinson at 1-250-729-1314 or kingcomefundraiser@gmail.com

To make a donation:

Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund, in affiliation with the Anglican Church, has established a Kingcome Relief Fund, which will ultimately forward donations to Dzawada’enuxw First Nation’s fundraising account. Their organization is a registered charity, Charity #8664 34640 RR 0001.

Please make cheques payable to PWRDF, BC (Kingcome Inlet) Flood Relief and send to:

The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund
The Anglican Church of Canada
80 Hayden Street
Toronto, Ontario M4Y 3G2

To donate using your credit card online, please go to CanadaHelps.org at:

http://www.canadahelps.org/CharityProfilePage.aspx?CharityID=s50860

Sponsors:

River Rock Casino Resort

Royal Bank of Canada

Rain City Strategies Inc.

Salmon and Bannock

The Tsleil-Waututh Nation puts $2 million behind wind power…

Colin — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 08:16:29 +0000

Everyone at Rain City is so incredibly proud of last week’s announcement and public launch of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation‘s new wind power company – TWN Wind Power Inc. Simply, the Tsleil-Waututh Nation people believe in a sacred trust – a responsibility to care for their traditional territory and engage in sustainable development. Sustainable, community-based economic development is at the heart of their vision moving the Nation forward. With that in mind, our team at Rain City are so very pleased to see the Tsleil-Waututh Nation announce last week that they made a $2-million equity investment in Surrey-based wind turbine manufacturer Endurance Wind Power.

This partnership between the Tsleil-Waututh Nation and Endurance Wind Power, is something we have been developing for over a year now. As the first partnership of its kind in Canada, we look forward to helping to create a number of similar ventures for First Nation communities.

As part of the partnership, their new business venture TWN Wind Power will become the distributor of Endurance’s 5kW and 50kW community-based wind turbines to First Nations and Indigenous groups in both Canada and the United States.

Please find the full press release in a PDF version linked here.

Check out the article from the front page of the Business Section of the Vancouver Sun from last week as well here.

If you are you know of a person or a community that would like to install a small community wind power development, please drop us a line anytime. We look forward to working with you.

First Nations Renewable Energy Roadmap

Colin — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 01:49:58 +0000

Rain City was pleased to assist with the development of “First Nations Renewable Energy Roadmap“, an information bulletin commissioned by Coast Opportunity Funds, paid for by The Nature Conservancy and developed by ISIS at the Sauder School of Business.

Energy is a resource that every individual, community, business and government utilizes on a daily basis. However, choices with respect to energy production and its use are often based on short-term needs, rather than taking a holistic and sustainable look over longer timelines. Access, cost and convenience have become the principal motivators of energy policy development within the world today, especially within First Nations communities. Our team at Rain City, is very impressed by the work done at ISIS and looks forward to assisting with future efforts.

Please take the time to review this resource, as it has been developed based on feedback within communities along the central/north coasts and Haida Gwaii and therefore is intended to provide communities with strategic information and linkages specific to renewable energy and the potential it has to support the values and traditions of First Nations communities.

If you have any questions, please drop us a line anytime.

Culturally Responsive Approaches to Aboriginal Homelessness

Colin — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:23:44 +0000

Rain City’s David Isaac is working with the Centre for Native Policy & Research (CNPR) / Social Planning and Research Council of BC (SPARC BC) on a research project titled “Feeling Home: Culturally Responsive Approaches to Aboriginal Homelessness.” The joint-study is about Aboriginal homelessness in Western Canada and is funded by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, through the Homelessness Partnering Strategy (HPS). Working together with the Social Planning and Research Council of BC, the work aims to identify active practices that demonstrate good cultural responsiveness to shelter and support services for Aboriginal people who are homeless in Western Canada.

We hope that you will participate by being part of an interview for key service providers. We will talk about homelessness in your community, you and/or your organization’s role, culturally responsive services and active practices.

If you are a key service provider working with the members of the homeless society in Western Canada and would like to contribute, please contact David directly at 1-604-315-5630 or david@raincitystrategies.com.