As the Copenhagen environmental summit threatens to fall apart, the main area of contention appears to be the willingness of developed nations to pay emerging nations to not pollute. Emerging nations on the other hand appear unwilling to submit to external third-party validation of their efforts to clean up the environment, even if they are being paid by us to do so. So let me get this straight:

We’re going to pay you with tax dollars to not pollute. But with a nod and a wink you can continue to pollute in order to keep supplying us with all the low-cost shit you make on behalf of North American companies. In the meantime, we no longer make anything because we can no longer do so profitably enough for those same companies. So we will continue to create jobs and profits for you and a handful of corporate shareholders, while at the same time paying you with public money to not kill us with your products. Huh? So I buy your low-cost shit and then pay you extra to not pollute. So in reality, the low-cost shit is really high-cost shit that we could just as well have made here with local jobs????? Am I missing something? No. Just follow the money…it will always tell the real story.

I’m sore in places I didn’t know I had places. Six hours wading the rocky-bottomed Chateauguay and Trout rivers in search of the elusive trout. Mercifully, the water levels were pretty low (2-3 ft. deep), making the wading slightly less treacherous, but the trout slightly more elusive. Wading a rocky-bottomed river is fantastic exercise because it makes you use an infinitesimal number of rarely-used small muscles in your legs, back, abdomen, etc. for balance.

My son and I have been looking for a good trout fishing river close to home, and had heard about the Chateauguay and Trout rivers about an hour from Montreal and without the need to cross the US border. As usual, we hired a fishing guide for the day, a great investment in that you can benefit from his years of familiarity with the place.

We caught a half-dozen small fish, one 12-14 incher, and a massive brown trout (about 5 lbs. according to the guide), who managed to snap the leader with a huge leap into the air. Catch-and-release of course. Fishing is a terrific activity: Fresh air, camaraderie, good exercise, and the chance to reconnect to the primordial need to catch your own food.

After the announcement of the Leica M9 a couple of days ago I posted a “rant” on one of the photography bulletin boards about how unfair it was for companies to introduce major new technology without some warning to prospective buyers, in order to avoid screwing the ones who buy the current model just before the new one is launched.

There was quite a response to that post and none of it particularly sympathetic. One offered a lollipop to soothe my pain. Almost all insisted that this was the way of the new digital world and I should “get with the program”. Let’s put this in perspective, we’re not talking a a pair of running shoes here, nor even a flat-screen TV. A digital Leica M runs in the $8-10K range (body only) depending on configuration. So what these guys are saying is that it is perfectly normal and O.K. to invest close to 10 grand in something that is usurped within 4 months and will no longer be supported from a software perspective!!!

I posted that rant with a specific purpose: To test just how much this new ethos had managed to pervade the modern consumer psyche. The decision to float this little trial balloon was driven by the fact that I had seen virtually no backlash on any of the discussion boards.

Think about the major paradigm shift in consumer attitudes that has occurred in just one generation. We have gone from a world where “big” things were bought in expectation of a life-span of say 10-20 years depending on the item, to one where we expect the new model almost as soon as we buy the current one. Wow! What is ultimately ironic however, is that while we talk incessantly about our impact on the environment, our buying ethos is moving to one of greater and greater consumption and disposability. Talk about schizophrenia!

I’ve been having this conversation with Mr. Italo and our inveterate New York correspondent, Mr. Dario. There is a way out of the morass. Call it the “reverse purchase” model. Just as the new one comes out and the prices for the old one plummet, you buy the old one and use it until the “new” new one comes out. Then you either buy the now “old” new one or wait for the new new new one before buying the “old” new new one. Confused?  So am I.

Righteousness is in…and it has nothing to do with morality! I was speaking to the boys over at Paul’s Cycle a few days ago, asking how their new Electra franchise was doing since they had taken on the line at the beginning of the season (at my urging and recommendation I may add). Apparently these old-style upright bikes are selling like hot cakes to the legions of aging boomers with sore asses from their Treks and Gary Fishers. Chronic readers of this blog may remember my own epiphany after buying an Electra Amsterdam at my daughter’s behest, after her two-year sojourn in Holland and 40 lb. weight-loss riding one of those Dutch beasts of steel.

This year, while I got a pretty early start on the biking season, it was nevertheless with my Gary Fisher Sugar 2 mountain bike in its new “road” configuration (more upright bars and slim road tires instead of knobbies). The Electra lay dormant in my basement, too lazy to haul it out and get the recall done on it (we had received a letter asking us to bring it in to the shop for a safety-related modification). At my wife’s insistence, we brought the bikes in and a few days later, after the repairs were done, we walked to the Village and rode the bikes home. Wow! What absolute fun to be able to ride and see the world at the same time rather than be hunched over the handlebars.

And here’s a funny item. I installed a new iPhone app that uses the built-in GPS to track speed, distance, elevation gain, calories burned, etc. So I did my usual workout ride with each of the bikes (MTB and Electra) and while the rides felt dramatically different, the Electra was only about a minute behind the Gary Fisher in overall performance (and actually burned more calories because of its weight). So there you go…riding for fun isn’t significantly less exercise than riding with more narcissistic aims.

In 2005, Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon began a one-year experiment in local eating. which culminated in the publication of their eponymous book. This year the Food Network has created the 100 Mile Diet Challenge reality show, chronicling the struggles of a number of families in Mission, B.C. as they try to live on a pretty strict regimen of foods collected from no further than 100 miles.

There are strange shows on T.V., most of them in the “reality” genre, but this is one of the weirdest. The whole exercise reminded me of the new psychological disorder proposed by Steven Bratman, M.D., which he called “orthorexia” and defined as “an unhealthy obsession with what the sufferer considers to be healthy eating”. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of eating locally as much as possible….stuff is always fresher, tastier, and there’s some comfort in being able to see where its grown and by whom.

The 100-mile diet wouldn’t be such a bad idea for a week or so (because that’s about all it takes to realize just how dependent we are on imports), but beyond a week and into the 90 days of the Challenge, it becomes an exercise in futile obsession for the simple reason that you know its not going to be sustainable beyond that point. No sugar? No coffee? For Heaven’s sake….why?? We are too globally interdependent in the new world order – and its not necessarily a bad thing either – how else will emerging economies ever prosper if we don’t buy from them…or should we go back to the “old days” of foreign handouts to buy peace? And the 100-mile diet doesn’t address the more serious issue….growing food locally, especially in Northern climes, isn’t always the best environmental solution. The carbon footprint of growing tomatoes hydroponically in Canada in the middle of Winter, is I’m sure, much larger than buying those same tomatoes from Mexico and trucking them here. Are they as tasty or fresh? Surely not. But they’re not much worse either.

The problem with the 100-mile diet is that it makes distance the issue rather than environmental impact, sustainability, and the spread of wealth across the spectrum of humanity.

Leisureguy has frequent links to Marion Nestle’s web site and blog, and after a number of visits I’ve become hooked. Marion Nestle is a reknown nutritionist and food writer with a number of books to her credit. As a scientist she also brings a critical eye to most of the mis and dis-information most of us get on the topic from food companies, the media, and even other scientists with particular funding links to the food industry. A great site that you can link through here.

Its lucky I don’t live in Westmount. No, not because of the astronomical taxes on those multi-million dollar mansions…”if you have to ask how much, you can’t afford it” seems to be the operative order-of-the-day in the rarefied air of this snooty enclave of the rich and famous (Envious? Bitter? you might ask…Damn right I say!). No, its because I would by now be in jail for all the birdseed lying on my walkways, in violation of that municipality’s by-law against all feeding of wild animals.

This post is sure to kill my cousin George, an expat Canadian working and living for the last few years in Greece. Every time I post something about yet another government incursion into personal freedom, he grows increasingly ballistic and effusive in his barrage of expletives. Well, George, read-em and weep. Full story here. Just take a Valium beforehand.

Which reminds me….last night I got a call from my son working on his car in our garage. “Can’t you hear the raccoon orgy on our front lawn?” he said. Apparently a group of four raccoons were having some kind of beach-blanket bingo out there. Hmmm…..maybe over some birdseed? I wonder.

Earlier this Winter I wrote about how we had decided to use birdseed as the abrasive on our walkways, instead of salt or crushed stone. Salt destroys cement, and the crushed stone makes for a messy cleanup in the Spring. The beauty of birdseed is that it not only actually works as an abrasive, but the cleanup is a breeze with lots of free labor! Our walkways are teeming with squirrels, and birds of every variety, eagerly reducing the load of seeds to nothing. As I write this there are two squirrels, a dove, and a half-dozen blackbirds working away at the cleanup.

Well, there goes another sacred cow! Leisureguy has a post about how orange juice isn’t what most of us thought it was, but rather a stale nasty brew that sits in vats for up to a year and has to have its taste “enhanced” with flavor concentrates before it can be sold.

It seems that every day a little more pleasure is discretely sucked away from our existence. This month the City of Montreal has banned the installation of new wood-burning fireplaces and wood stoves in its territory because of their contribution to Winter air pollution. And you won’t be allowed to replace your old stove when it breaks down. Other municipalities are quickly following suit. If you want a cozy fire in your living room in the Winter, well, flick that electric fireplace switch and bask in its warm glow.

And if the shit hits the fan, well don’t reach for toilet paper…at least not the soft kind. The Gazette reported today that there is a movement afoot to ban soft toilet paper (I kid you not) because its manufacture is environmentally destructive. Instead we should use toilet paper made from recycled paper because its “friendlier”. Most readers know that I have green tendencies, so toilet paper from recycled fibers (note I didn’t fall for “recycled toilet paper” which I know would have given you all a snicker!), would be an interesting option. So I bought a 32 pack at Costco a few months ago. The problem? Its so thin you use up three times as much as the soft commercial kind. And worse (I don’t know how to not be indelicate here), once the paper is moist from its first contact with the waste-matter, your fingers have a tendency to pierce the paper and come in contact with places “where the sun don’t shine”!

And as for “sucking the marrow”….. forget it…..its got way too much cholesterol, not to mention Mad Cow prions.