Over the Edge + September 16, 2009 Opinions 11 BEMIFALL CAREER FAIR - OCTOBER 6, 200910 MARIA TRUJILLO COORDINATOR, STUDENT CAREER CENTRE Our Fall Career Fair features some of the best local, regional, and national employ- ers. Make sure you're on campus so you can benefit! Come mix with potential employ- ers, asking relevant questions about your future in today’s and tomorrow’s job markets Strategize your career plans Learn about companies you are (or might be) interested in working for Understand the range of jobs your education will prepare you for Apply for interesting jobs Network with interesting employ- ers, and get to know other students in your discipline There are a wealth of opportun- ities in the job market today. Show up and get a jump on your future! Alumni Connections Networking Series These five events are designed as a way to introduce UNBC students to local and successful UNBC alumni. At each event, an alumni- populated career panel will talk about their own career, the choices they have faced, and their working, professional experiences. Connect with UNBC Alumni from your discipline as they discuss their experi- ences of the following: The skills and experience required for professional placement The variety of relevant and related career opportunities to consider How to obtain employment Networking with industry profes- sionals Alumni Connections, #1 Arts and Humanities For students studying: Anthropology, English, Fine Arts, First Nations, Gen- eral Arts, History & Women Studies This 15 event is held on Wednesday, September 23" 6:00pm — 8:00pm Room: 6-250 NUGSS Event Space There will also be a light reception, a Q&A session, and general ming- ling. Register at the Student Career Centre by email at hirestudents@ unbc.ca or by phone 960-6598 This new event series is brought to you by the Student Career Centre and the Alumni Association of UNBC Tomorrow's Professionals Apply Today! Apply Online! | OMSAS online applications Www.ouac.on.ca/olsas/ Ontario Law School Application Service November 2, 2009: Application deadline for first-year English programs May 3, 2010: Application deadline for upper-year programs TEAS oe Www.ouac.on.ca/omsas/ Ontario Medical School Application Service September 15, 2009: Last day to register for / October 1, 2009: Application deadline OLSAS Www.ouac.on.ca/teas/ Teacher Education Application Service December 1, 2009: Application deadline for English programs March 1, 2010: Application deadline for French programs Www.ouac.on.ca/orpas/ Ontario Rehabilitation Sciences Programs Application Service (Audiology, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy/Physiotherapy, Speech-Language Pathology) January 8, 2010: Application deadline ONTARIO UNIVERSITIES’ APPLICATION CENTRE CENTRE DE DEMANDE D’ADMISSION AUX UNIVERSITES DE L'ONTARIO ORPAS 170 Research Lane Guelph ON N1G 5E2 WWW.OuUaC.on.ca to sustain salmon and other st populations: Protect Preventit pate to streams, thers and estaares eesieysrs and rebuider brim foe habitat - Stewardship for streams and = resheds for long-term health Pa Ips DVISING, STUERUITMENT '& CAMPUS TOURS Green Talk PHOTOS BY REZA AKBARI, CAREER FASIR MARCH 11, 2009 Local, Veggie or Organic? THOMAS CHENEY STAFF WRITER Local food has become a major issue in the environmental movement and within the broader society since Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon wrote the now famous 100 Mile Diet. I think that many of their comments are interesting and a shift to increased local produc- tion of food is a good thing. However, the puritanical rhetoric in regards local eating has become overblown; there are other equally important questions about the sustainability of the food system that needs to be asked. I am not saying don’t go to the Farm- ers’ Market. What I am saying is that like every human interaction with the environment, food is complex. The authors of the 100 Mile Diet main ras- sion de etre for local food is that the average 1500 miles that your food travels releases a lot of carbon dioxide which is the leading cause of climate change. However, moder agricul- ture in general is an energy intensive industry and the production of fertil- izer has a big impact on the climate due to the emission of Nitrous Oxide, a potent greenhouse gas which account for a third of emissions from food pro- duction, which would go against local but non-organic foods. On the other hand, a UK study found that when monetizing environmental impacts conventional local produce had a lower impact than foreign organic produce. I would argue that local is probably better than organic, with the exception of hothouse vegetables which require a significant amount of energy for heating and lighting during the win- ter. One study in Europe found that it would be better from an emissions perspective to airfreight tomatoes from southern Europe than to grow them in natural gas heated greenhouses in Hol- land. Both would be better, but local is probably better. Then there is the issue of lo- cal meat vs a plant based diet. Again the analysis is complex. In BC, we only produce enough food to feed approximately half of the population due to the scarcity of land suitable for agriculture. However, a purely veg- an or vegetarian diet is unlikely to be the most efficient as not all land can be used to grow crops according to a study from Cornell University. The only agricultural use that some land is suitable for is grazing livestock. Therefore if the goal is to maximize the total number of people that can be fed a pure vegetarian diet might not be the best way to go. However, the fact is that it takes about 5000 square meters or 1.25 acres to feed some one eating the average British Columbian diet whereas it only takes 700 square meters to feed a vegan. According to Wagernagel and Rees, the authors of the book Our Ecological Footprint, Vancouver and the Lower Fraser Val- ley could not support their population of their existing agricultural land with their current diet. One reason, but not the only one, why our food system is so dependant on long distance agri- culture is that our demand for food product inputs such as animal feed is so great that we have to import some. There are about 250,000 hectares of land in the ALR within 100 miles of Vancouver whereas there are 2.9 mil- lion people within Vancouver accord- ing to the 2001 census. If we were to consider the average BC diet, the area of Vancouver could only support about 500,000 people. If we were to move to amore a vegetarian diet we would support 1.25 million people in the area within 100 mile of Vancouver as- suming all land was culitivatable and suitable for vegetable and grain crops which is not a perfect assumption. If we were to move to the high-yield- ing, organic bio-intensive method, one could feed 2.5 million people on a vegan diet assuming that half the land could be cultivated. In terms of local, organic vs veggie one thing is clear: in densely-popu- lated regions such as the south coast of BC, cutting back on meat consumption while buying local is a huge step to assert food sovereignty. A localovore diet based on current levels of animal products consumption is only less bad and is not where we will need to be to have a sustainable, some animal prod- ucts consumption is likely sustainable but it is a matter of scale as much land is now used to feed livestock could support crops that could be directly fed to humans. Sarah deWeert of the WorldWatch Institute notes in the re- cent article Is Local Food Better? “in a paper published last year, Christo- pher Weber and H. Scott Matthews, of Carnegie Mellon University, wove together data from a variety of U.S. government sources into a comprehen- sive life-cycle analysis of the average American diet. According to their cal- culations, final delivery from producer or processor to the point of retail sale accounts for only 4 percent of the U.S. food system’s greenhouse gas emis- sions.”