This site is run by Karen J. Cao (karenj.cao@utoronto.ca)
She likes mushrooms and bikes. She values all the world peace stuff, more specifically: social, environmental and economic justice. But they are all interrelated, environmental collapse -> economic collapse -> social collapse..

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This site is that of an undergraduate student expressing some thoughts and passing around some socially and environmentally cautious news. Quasi-blogs like this one is important as part of the expanding opportunities of the internet, however, we must recognize that over 85% of the actual news reporting, the interviewing, the door knocking, the rummaging through old records etc. are done by news reporters and newspapers, and it is something that blogs and online freelance journalism can only compliment, not replace. Our newspapers are being threatened, by government, by the profit motive, by entertainment competition, by funding cuts, and by the slumping public support etc. This quasi-press and blog wishes not to undermine their credibility and importance in questioning (not opinionated) the status quo.

It is more important to change leaders than change light bulbs, individual actions matter a tiny bit but when leaders change rules - you get large scale changes across the entire market… Individual actions are irrelevant in one sense to the collective inaction of 7 billion people, but individual action is relevant in another sense in that collectively, it can pressure government action.

“Government” is needed in order cooperate large populations of millions and billions, cities, nations, regions, to take on issues bigger than you and me individually, but not collectively. The environmental, social and economic challenges we face in the next century, require that level of cooperation.

Government (like unions) at its best can create mass-scale positive changes, needed to face the immense challenges of today, at its worst - it can produce the opposite.

Karen J. Cao, Rick Mercer
January 12th, 2008
at a magazine store in Toronto’s Danforth Ave community.

contact:
karenj.cao@utoronto.ca
karen_o18@msn.com