Earth Day Celebration – Friday, April 22nd, 2011
On Friday, April 22nd, a historic Earth Day event took place in Vancouver!
Youth For Climate Justice Now is a group of East Vancouver high school students from Windermere Secondary. They organized this year’s Earth Day Parade and Celebration with great support from organizations such as the Wilderness Committee, Transformation Projects, Metro Vancouver, and the David Suzuki Foundation. This Earth Day event provided a great opportunity to increase youth participation in democracy, especially as environmental issues have been sorely missing from the discussion in the ongoing federal election campaign.
This youth-led Earth Day Parade started at 11:00 AM on the intersection of Commercial Drive and Grandview Highway. An estimated 3000 people from all around the Vancouver area paraded down Commercial Drive to Britannia Secondary School, where the Earth Day Celebration would later be held at. Guest speakers at the celebration included MP Libby Davies, MLA Jenny Kawn, and Melina Laboucan-Massimo, an advocate for indigenous rights with a focus on the impact of the tar sands. The event focused on the need to keep global temperatures from rising beyond 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Throughout the day, student volunteers circulated a petition urging governments to do 2 things that would significantly reduce the supply and demand for oil: redirecting money from highway expansion to public transit and banning oil tankers on the Pacific coast.
Although this year’s Earth Day had already gone by, Youth For Climate Justice Now is not going to stop there! They would like to continue to encourage more and more of their peers to learn, take action, and show everyone that the time to save the Earth is NOW!
Plush 3-Ply Butt-Wipers
By: Valerie Wong, Grade 11
It’s soft. It’s white. It’s like nothing you’ve ever touched. The contact of it against your skin is like a thousand tiny little beads sifting through the cracks between your fingers. It’s soooooo lush. It’s the softest thing you’ll ever wipe your butt with.
So, we all know what toilet paper is. It’s the thin paper layer that you clean yourself with after using the toilet. Most of us go through life without giving a second thought about what we use to wipe our bums. So why is it that big companies, like Kleenex or Scott, spend millions upon millions of dollars researching and advertising their softest toilet paper ever? They promote the image of disposable toilet paper that doesn’t leave behind bits (Ew, why bring that up at all?), leave your bottom soft and moisturized, and is the strongest blend of thin tree you will ever find.
Introducing Vancouver’s New Convention Centre
By Kaitlyn Fung, Grade 8
Four years of construction and a budget of $495 million. What does that add up to?
Recently, I had the chance to take a look into the new convention centre that Vancouver now boasts, or more specifically, the expansion of the convention centre. While the main (and rather obvious) purpose will be to host conventions, this massive building will be the hub for media activity concerning the 2010 Olympics.
Personally, I didn’t really find anything that grasped my interest immediately, but it’s an attractive place with big rooms and high ceilings. There were numerous little conference rooms and a huge ballroom that included a spectacular view, and the exhibition hall was very spacious as well. Even the escalators rides were extended. In short, everything was just kind of big. However, there was some hype about its green features as well, especially about the green roof.
