Re: A short summary of speech given by the former Mayor of Toronto, David Miller. Thanks, Peter Duerr

[Peter Duerr]

Hello everyone,

I wanted to share with you a short summary of the recent and excellent
lecture by the former Mayor of Toronto, David Miller, that was presented
on Thursday 22nd November 2012 in the Life Sciences Building. The
lecture was entitled "Nations Talk. Cities Act." and was jointed
organized by IRIS ( Institute for Research in Sustainability ) and the
Undergraduate Political Science Council. It was delivered to a packed  
house.

It was an inspiring and interesting talk. One of the main themes was as
more than half the world's citizens now live in cities, it will be
necessary to develop solutions to humanity's economic, social, political
and environmental/ sustainability problems in these urban areas. Mr.
Miller emphasized that this is in part due to cities responding more
speedily and more nimbly to present day challenges than many national
governments. He felt that by working together, cities would be able to
share their success stories in terms of projects that address persistent
and urgent issues like unemployment, decaying infrastructure and the
affects of climate change.

It was to this end that he worked to get Toronto involved in the C 40
Cities organization. It is a global network of world metropolises which
began in 2005. The organization is dedicated to implementing policies
and programs that result in the reduction of greenhouse gases and other
climate risks. These  results were to be shared among the members. Here
is the link to their website for further information:
http://www.c40cities.org/

Mr. Miller offered a case in point of how beneficial this sharing of
best practices can be. He mentioned that at one of the  C 40 meetings,
he was discussing landfills with the mayor of Sao Paulo, Brazil. In that
city, the city has harnessed and captured the gases from its enormous
landfill whereby the gases are burned to produce electricity. The city
uses this energy produced to cover 9 % of it electrical requirements;
simultaneously it greatly reduces the environmental damage caused by the
garbage site. While mayor, Mr. Miller began a similar project in Toronto
which will be completed in 2013.

Although there were numerous examples and subjects discussed in the
presentation, one of the most striking concerned the large number of
"concrete slab" high rises that can be found in the Toronto area. These
buildings will last 100 years due to the strength and durability of the
concrete but regrettably have almost no insulation qualities. This means
that their heating and cooling energy requirements are quite high.

In a innovation that nicely marries the diverse factors of social
justice, sustainability and job creation, he described the following
scenario.

City engineers uncovered that if you clad the two ends of these concrete
highrises and then add insulating materials between the cladding and the
concrete, you will vastly increase the heating and cooling efficiency of
those structures. It was estimated that it would require 30 workers to
complete this type of retrofitting over a one year period. As these
"concrete slab" buildings are often located in districts that have high
levels of unemployment or underemployment, programs could be instituted
to train the building residents to learn the necessary trades. There are
about 1000 of these buildings in the Toronto Area; a significant number
of qualified workers would be one result of these projects were such
training programs developed. The costs associated with this project
would be recouped by the energy savings in roughly seven years. As you
can see, there would be successful outcomes on several fronts.

In closing, it was very satisfying to attend a lecture by a former city
leader that outlined a variety of deliverable projects that address
pressing municipal issues, especially as Torontonians currently face a
tumultuous and unproductive City Hall.

Thank you,

Cheers,

Peter
On 18/12/2012 12:00 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
>
>     1. Re: CivicAccess-discuss Digest, Vol 65, Issue 17 (Peter Duerr)
>     2. G&M: Visualization - Gun control in America: A state-by-state
>        breakdown (Tracey P. Lauriault)
>     3. Re: G&M: Visualization - Gun control in America: A
>        state-by-state breakdown (Glen Newton)
>     4. Re: G&M: Visualization - Gun control in America: A
>        state-by-state breakdown (Tracey P. Lauriault)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 15:04:16 -0500
> From: Peter Duerr <[hidden email]>
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] CivicAccess-discuss Digest, Vol 65,
> Issue 17
> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Hi all,
>
> I contacted Ms. Grbic at IC because the new extension date was not
> updated on their website. The correct date  is now in place.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Have a good holiday season all,
>
> Peter Duerr
> York University
> On 17/12/2012 11:14 AM, [hidden email] wrote:
>> Send CivicAccess-discuss mailing list submissions to
>> [hidden email]
>>
>> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>> [hidden email]
>>
>> You can reach the person managing the list at
>> [hidden email]
>>
>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>> than "Re: Contents of CivicAccess-discuss digest..."
>>
>>
>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>      1. Re: An aside on word clouds.... (James McKinney)
>>      2. Re: An aside on word clouds.... (Glen Newton)
>>      3. Re: An aside on word clouds.... (Peder Jakobsen)
>>      4. Fwd: NOTICE OF EXTENSION: Canada's Information Commissioner
>>         Extends the Dialogue on the Access to Information Act / AVIS DE
>>         PROLONGATION : La commissaire ? l'information du Canada prolonge
>>         le dialogue sur la Loi sur l'acc?s ? l'information
>>         (Tracey P. Lauriault)
>>      5. Fwd: Bilan 2012 et joyeuses f?tes de Qu?bec Ouvert
>>         (Tracey P. Lauriault)
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2012 12:36:40 -0500
>> From: James McKinney <[hidden email]>
>> To: civicaccess discuss <[hidden email]>, Glen
>> Newton <[hidden email]>
>> Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] An aside on word clouds....
>> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>>
>> Second link should be http://www.zeldman.com/daily/0405d.shtml ?
>>
>> On 2012-12-16, at 4:28 AM, Glen Newton wrote:
>>
>>> As someone who works in the areas of text analysis and information
>>> visualization, I have seen a number of word clouds proudly associated
>>> with blogs, reports and even various importanty govermenty documents.
>>>
>>> Here are two articles that fairly accurately describe my view of word clouds:
>>> - 2011, "Word clouds considered harmful"
>>> http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/10/word-clouds-considered-harmful/
>>> "...Every time I see a word cloud presented as insight, I die a little
>>> inside..."
>>> - 2005, "Tag clouds are the new mullets", https://www.lytro.com/camera
>>>
>>> The former is from the New York Times senior software architect, and
>>> the latter I consider a gem of true foresight! :-)
>>>
>>> Enjoy,
>>> Glen
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> -
>>> http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/
>>> -
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
>>> [hidden email]
>>> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
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>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2012 15:35:46 -0500
>> From: Glen Newton <[hidden email]>
>> To: James McKinney <[hidden email]>
>> Cc: civicaccess discuss <[hidden email]>
>> Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] An aside on word clouds....
>> Message-ID:
>> <CANL2-4MYLH5FnkFzob=[hidden email]>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>>
>> Yes, apologies.
>>    The risks of sending multiple emails at 0430.  :-(
>>
>> -Glen  :-)
>>
>> On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 12:36 PM, James McKinney <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>> Second link should be http://www.zeldman.com/daily/0405d.shtml ?
>>>
>>> On 2012-12-16, at 4:28 AM, Glen Newton wrote:
>>>
>>> As someone who works in the areas of text analysis and information
>>> visualization, I have seen a number of word clouds proudly associated
>>> with blogs, reports and even various importanty govermenty documents.
>>>
>>> Here are two articles that fairly accurately describe my view of word
>>> clouds:
>>> - 2011, "Word clouds considered harmful"
>>> http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/10/word-clouds-considered-harmful/
>>> "...Every time I see a word cloud presented as insight, I die a little
>>> inside..."
>>> - 2005, "Tag clouds are the new mullets", https://www.lytro.com/camera
>>>
>>> The former is from the New York Times senior software architect, and
>>> the latter I consider a gem of true foresight! :-)
>>>
>>> Enjoy,
>>> Glen
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> -
>>> http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/
>>> -
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
>>> [hidden email]
>>> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2012 08:08:22 -0500
> From: "Tracey P. Lauriault" <[hidden email]>
> To: civicaccess discuss <[hidden email]>
> Subject: [CivicAccess-discuss] G&M: Visualization - Gun control in
> America: A state-by-state breakdown
> Message-ID:
> <CAPT_w+kgOXxM5yozLWwq-9YF3kJmJdMpftw=[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/gun-control-in-america-a-state-by-state-breakdown/article6465107/?from=6502328
>