We devoted the whole of Royal City Rag on November 7 to environmental issues.
In the first hour we talked to Brenlee Robinson from The Ontario Urban Forest Council and Sean Fox, horticulturist at The Arboretum, University of Guelph about the importance of Guelph’s urban forest.
Trees are increasingly regarded as beautiful and effective tonics to our polluted planet, with a long list of social, environmental and economic benefits. Sadly, preserving trees or allocating adequate space for future planting is rarely considered in the development process.
The Ontario Urban Forest Council (OUFC) will be holding their annual conference in Guelph this year. The conference takes place on Thursday, November 12 at the University of Guelph Arboretum. The theme of this year’s conference is “Tree Preservation and the Planning Process –Moving Ahead”. Speakers will include city planners, environmental planners, politicians, development consultants and educators who will bring their professional experience and municipal perspectives to share ideas. The City of Guelph and some of its real planning issues will be showcased to stimulate discussion of how best to protect our urban forests.
Later in the first hour we aired a special commentary from mother, grandmother, citizen of Guelph and taxpayer Eileen LaBerge about the by invitation only sod-turning for the Hanlon Creek Business Park held by the City of Guelph. The commentary had to be cut short because of time constraints. We are including the whole commentary here.
Listen to Hour 1:
Listen to Eileen LaBerge’s Commentary:
In the second half of the show, Sally and Chris from Transition Guelph joined us to chat about Pat Murphy and Faith Morgan’s visit to Guelph on Monday November 9.
Pat Murphy is executive director of the Institute for Community Solutions at Yellow Springs, Ohio, a nonprofit organization in devoted to small community living, and is also the author of Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change. He lectures widely across North America on energy, Peak Oil, geopolitics and lifestyle solutions, and on community resilience and long-term sustainability. His main interest is on the techniques and strategies for a steady reduction in the per capita use of fossil fuels in the years to come. Pat has been involved in community much of his life and sees it as the context within which sustainability can be reached.
Murphy is also a co-writer and co-producer of the award-winning documentary, The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil.
Faith Morgan is the Director of The Power of Community, and also a co-writer.
An Evening with Pat Murphy and Faith Morgan takes place at St. Matthias Church, 171 Kortright Road West on Monday, November 9, beginning at 7 p.m. Musical guest Larry Nusbaum will open the evening.
Advance tickets are $10 waged and $5 student/senior/unwaged, available at Ground Floor Music, The Bookshelf, and The University of Guelph Landscape Architecture Building. Admission at the door is $15 and $7.
Music:
Lindisfarne, Think from Elvis Lives On The Moon
Platters, Trees from Magic Touch, Anthology
Pope High School, Marietta, Georgia, Trees from Songs From The Greyhound Greenhouse
James Gordon, How? from Youtube
Martyn Joseph, How did we end up here? from Deep Blue (Live version)
Bruce Cockburn, Beautiful Creatures from Life Short Call Now
And the song suggested by Chris we didn’t get time to play but with an inspiring video you really need to see…
Listen to Hour 2:
