Reduce the Juice

August 5, 2010

Hi all,

For the first time Reduce the Juice had a video conference with students in India as part of our weekly workshops.  We discussed our own perception of climate change and how it impacts our lives over an hour and a half. It passed so quickly!

We discussed many different subjects. One of them was drinking water, which is our project subject this year.  Can you believe that 70% of Mumbai’s population doesn’t have access to water? This equals 9 million people, which is almost the population of Ontario! They also told us even if they have access to tap water they have to boil it. I really ask myself why we complain here. In their case we could understand why they find efficient to buy bottled water. This is what we might think before we know it costs 5 dollars to buy one bottle!

We also learn they feel the climate change more drastically than we do here: they presently have to deal with floods and dryness in India. We also experienced those climate changes with the heat wave we felt in Ontario at the beginning of this summer, but we all handle it. Most people just turned their air conditioning on. What if in India they could just turn a button to make all their problems stop? But it doesn’t work this way, they have to find other solutions and so should we.

We had the chance to see their idea of Canada’s green policy. For example, they thought we didn’t produce that much waste. For sure, with our really big country and our relatively small population we don’t feel like we have to reduce our waste. They were also surprised that of people are unaware of how much garbage they produce. Refuse is definitely hidden here. We don’t have to deal with it daily compare to them.

They were also really impressed Reduce the Juice could exist as a climate change organization. They explained us that in India the government would never give founding or help. They can only change things by starting community initiatives. Again, aren’t we lucky here?

The students were really nice and had lots to say. It was definitely a fulfilling conversation. And our ending thought was: are we, as a developed country, responsible to help create ecological groups in needed country? What do you think?

Voltage Valérie
Student Campaigner

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July 26, 2010

Hey!

Well, it has been a busy summer so far and we are only halfway done! We have done public events, such as the Kitchener Farmers Market and Waterloo Town Square, as well as door to door work in several neighborhoods. The interest that people have shown in learning how they can reduce their juice is amazing! So many of the people we talked to were already trying to conserve energy and were excited to pledge to do more. Even people who weren’t doing anything to conserve energy before pledged to do their part in the preservation of the environment. When we set up for public events we are often approached by people asking: “who are you?”, “what do you do?” and “how can I help?” It is heartening to see that there is so much interest in conservation.  There is still one month left to go, can’t wait to see how it turns out!

Electrical Elliot
Student Campaigner

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July 10. 2010

Hey everyone,

We just finished training week and it was a blast. We learned so much from our guest speakers.Some of our awesome guests included Glen from CREW who came to talk to us about their Energy $aving kit that you can sign out from libraries around the region.  We also travelled to the REEP house/office to meet and talk with Julian and Levi. They talked to us about their company and the house energy audits that they do. They also took us around their house and showed us the improvements they had made to their 100 year old Victorian style house. We  had Colleen from the Waterloo Water Department come in to talk to us about water conservation and then went on a tour of the William Street Pump House. Our tour guide, Wayne, showed us around the historical pump house and showed us how it works. Our team leaders, Sara and Michelle did numerous very informative presentations, on topics such as Climate Change, Air Quality in Waterloo Region, and Efficient Driving Techniques. We finished off the week with a fun game of RTJ Jeopardy. Overall it was a very fun and interesting week!

Alternative Energy Adam
Student Campaigner

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June 3, 2010

Hi again folks!

So here we are, back for a third year in Waterloo Region. Of course, yours truly is back reducing the juice for a 5^th summer! However, I’m not the only returning employee – my climate change comrade “Megawatt Michelle” is back in action again this summer as well! Michelle has hooked us up with a Twitter account so you can follow all the action this summer. Find us on Twitter @reducethejuice

I can’t believe it’s already June – time flies when you’re busy! We’ve got the blue barrel painted with a fresh coat of varnish, a brand new display board (thanks Ben!), and even a completed bike generator to wheel around to events to produce some juice. We’re still designing our materials and coordinating events, but it’s really starting to come together. We’re heading out to WCI today to start recruiting a new crop of student auditors for the summer.  In just over a month, they’ll be pounding the pavement and knocking on doors!

As you can see, we’ve got a newly designed website by our new web designer Robin. Now it’s super easy for us to update, so we’ll be adding to it often – so keep checking back to stay in the loop!

To be continued…

Solar Sara
Team Leader