Hello dear readers - it is that time of year when (in our part of the world anyway) we focus on the Christmas season, the holidays, and the new year. I have a cousin in France who, though now retired, spent most of his career working around the world as a senior bureaucrat with both the International Red Cross and the United Nations. As his contribution to Christmas 2009, he "did a number" on the ubiquitous poem "Twas the Night Before Christmas". With his permission, I share it here because, in my mind, it says so much:
I had a dream…
‘Twas the night before Christmas and all ‘round the Earth
the cannons were silent, the smog had dispersed.
The writers and activists were leaving their jails
and liberated women had cast off their veils.
The curates, the imams, the monks and the priests
were embracing the godless as they joined in their feasts
while windmills rivalled with minarets and steeples
to bring a message of light to the peoples.
All the world’s politicians had unanimously agreed
to promote the Declaration of Human Rights as their creed,
to ban racism, intolerance, torture and war
and live peacefully together forever more…
So I snuggled while sugarplums danced in my head
…and then I woke up and it was all still ahead.
George Gordon-Lennox
The best to everyone this year!
Peter
Monday, December 28, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Kermit was right. It’s not easy being green.
Seems like no matter how hard we try, some days we can’t win for losing. Three major industrial fires over a ten-day period, and "poof", our sparsely-populated little province has just blown off more greenhouse gases than the sum of emissions from every farm tractor in Saskatchewan for 3.5 years, and laden the atmosphere with enough carcinogens to outweigh the health benefits of smoke-free workplaces for at least a decade.
Or perhaps not. Or maybe it’s even worse than that; I don’t pretend to have a handle on the numbers, but I do know bad things happen despite all the regulations. It is a bit discouraging, though, when you consider that – regulations or not - some folks are making every effort to ensure the total impacts of their personal and business activities contribute as little damage to our world as possible.
But it’s an uphill battle. Just the simple (and involuntary) act of breathing adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, let alone all the other pollutants generated by simply going through a human lifecycle. When we were all hunter-gatherers, sustainable food harvesting consisted of being where the food was already growing, and sustainable tourism was the process of getting to that place - on foot, of course. Things are a little more complicated now; we all seem to want to live in cities and have the food delivered to us on demand, and we are apparently enthusiastic about embracing the concept of a forever-growing worldwide population (presumably because we need more markets and bigger tax revenues to support this new-found lifestyle of ours.)
There is yet another disconnect in our cultural logic: travel has become the latest in a string of new "human rights". Remember that bit about our hunter-gatherer ancestors having to travel for food? Nowadays we not only expect our food and water delivered, but we think we are entitled to travel anywhere we want, anytime we want, just for the hell of it. And we seem unwilling to include walking in our travel plans; how many people do you know who crank up that new hybrid car engine and drive over to the walking-jogging-cycling paths so they can feel good about exercising? I know some, and I see lot’s of ‘em!
So how is a person in the tourism business supposed to respond? To carry on with hope and faith may be an appealing option, although without action, hope and faith are no better solutions than doing nothing while harbouring an abiding cynicism. Maybe, just maybe, our clients (despite themselves) may prod us to move in the right direction. There are signs of a new consumer maturity moving forward along with that sense of "travel entitlement"; it appears this new entitlement may include an expectation that the tourism and travel industries will actually deliver a more responsible product, rather than simply fill brochures with "greenwash". Industry leaders – and ultimately industry survivors - will do so because it is the new business imperative.
That is the thinking behind the Canadian Sustainable Tourism Advisory Council, (CSTAC), an initiative of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada. CSTAC is calling on input from a number of professionals in the tourism industry to develop sustainable tourism business criteria and – ultimately – a certification process which will principally function as an instructive tool for tourism practitioners to help their businesses meet global expectations.
PGK
Seems like no matter how hard we try, some days we can’t win for losing. Three major industrial fires over a ten-day period, and "poof", our sparsely-populated little province has just blown off more greenhouse gases than the sum of emissions from every farm tractor in Saskatchewan for 3.5 years, and laden the atmosphere with enough carcinogens to outweigh the health benefits of smoke-free workplaces for at least a decade.
Or perhaps not. Or maybe it’s even worse than that; I don’t pretend to have a handle on the numbers, but I do know bad things happen despite all the regulations. It is a bit discouraging, though, when you consider that – regulations or not - some folks are making every effort to ensure the total impacts of their personal and business activities contribute as little damage to our world as possible.
But it’s an uphill battle. Just the simple (and involuntary) act of breathing adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, let alone all the other pollutants generated by simply going through a human lifecycle. When we were all hunter-gatherers, sustainable food harvesting consisted of being where the food was already growing, and sustainable tourism was the process of getting to that place - on foot, of course. Things are a little more complicated now; we all seem to want to live in cities and have the food delivered to us on demand, and we are apparently enthusiastic about embracing the concept of a forever-growing worldwide population (presumably because we need more markets and bigger tax revenues to support this new-found lifestyle of ours.)
There is yet another disconnect in our cultural logic: travel has become the latest in a string of new "human rights". Remember that bit about our hunter-gatherer ancestors having to travel for food? Nowadays we not only expect our food and water delivered, but we think we are entitled to travel anywhere we want, anytime we want, just for the hell of it. And we seem unwilling to include walking in our travel plans; how many people do you know who crank up that new hybrid car engine and drive over to the walking-jogging-cycling paths so they can feel good about exercising? I know some, and I see lot’s of ‘em!
So how is a person in the tourism business supposed to respond? To carry on with hope and faith may be an appealing option, although without action, hope and faith are no better solutions than doing nothing while harbouring an abiding cynicism. Maybe, just maybe, our clients (despite themselves) may prod us to move in the right direction. There are signs of a new consumer maturity moving forward along with that sense of "travel entitlement"; it appears this new entitlement may include an expectation that the tourism and travel industries will actually deliver a more responsible product, rather than simply fill brochures with "greenwash". Industry leaders – and ultimately industry survivors - will do so because it is the new business imperative.
That is the thinking behind the Canadian Sustainable Tourism Advisory Council, (CSTAC), an initiative of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada. CSTAC is calling on input from a number of professionals in the tourism industry to develop sustainable tourism business criteria and – ultimately – a certification process which will principally function as an instructive tool for tourism practitioners to help their businesses meet global expectations.
PGK
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Casting off for the first time!
Hi folks:
As my wife and business partner Valerie, my children (AND grandchildren), staff, and municipal colleagues will readily attest, this particular blog author is seldom short of words. However, this evening – as I approach my first attempt at writing a blog – I find myself peculiarly short of things to say!
Operating a passenger boat service in a northern prairie city like Saskatoon is most certainly a seasonal affair, and at this time of writing, our little motorships Saskatoon Princess and Meewasin Queen are safely up on blocks in our boatyard outside the city in a small town named Hafford, which I happen to think is just the best place in the world to live. We currently have unseasonably warm weather (like gosh, it only went down to –6 degrees Celsius last night, and there is no snow on the ground just yet!) And today was sunny and a balmy 7 degrees above zero (that’s 20 degrees for our American friends); furthermore, our province’s source of common passion – the Saskatchewan Roughriders – won the western football final this afternoon and the team is headed to the Grey Cup next week in Calgary. Ah, so many reasons to rejoice!
I hope this blog will be informative and fun for its readers, and for me as its author and moderator. I look forward to receiving readers’ comments about what is on these pages, as well as pictures that are relevant to the marine industry, our company, our City of Saskatoon, and tourism in general. That is, after all, the business we are in.
May the nighttime find you everywhere at home!
PGK
As my wife and business partner Valerie, my children (AND grandchildren), staff, and municipal colleagues will readily attest, this particular blog author is seldom short of words. However, this evening – as I approach my first attempt at writing a blog – I find myself peculiarly short of things to say!
Operating a passenger boat service in a northern prairie city like Saskatoon is most certainly a seasonal affair, and at this time of writing, our little motorships Saskatoon Princess and Meewasin Queen are safely up on blocks in our boatyard outside the city in a small town named Hafford, which I happen to think is just the best place in the world to live. We currently have unseasonably warm weather (like gosh, it only went down to –6 degrees Celsius last night, and there is no snow on the ground just yet!) And today was sunny and a balmy 7 degrees above zero (that’s 20 degrees for our American friends); furthermore, our province’s source of common passion – the Saskatchewan Roughriders – won the western football final this afternoon and the team is headed to the Grey Cup next week in Calgary. Ah, so many reasons to rejoice!
I hope this blog will be informative and fun for its readers, and for me as its author and moderator. I look forward to receiving readers’ comments about what is on these pages, as well as pictures that are relevant to the marine industry, our company, our City of Saskatoon, and tourism in general. That is, after all, the business we are in.
May the nighttime find you everywhere at home!
PGK
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