Go Go Go

In the spirit of PanAm now on in Toronto I am going to race through a few things I’ve been meaning to tell you about for the last couple of months. Ready. Set. Go Go Go….

I already told you about what Ed and I presented at CleanMed, but Robin Guenther was also there and had a few interesting things to say about why hospitals make us sick. This slide, I thought, captured the essence best.  Moving toward restorative design helps find solutions that start to heal.  By the way, the line in the middle is resilience. Something she added to her talk since this was presented at TEDMED 2014.

From there I saw a project drop roots – literately at our Lyndhurst Rumsey site. After many months of planning we saw the first 10 of 30 new native trees planted to provide shade, habitat, and beauty on the site. Many thanks to Raghad the green team volunteer who made sure we got it right. Thanks also go to the TRI facilities team who are caring for the new trees and LEAF who helped decide where and what to plant and did the actual planting. Can’t wait until the Eastern Redbud blooms…

Then we had a really special event at UHN to introduce and promote the magic of Behaviour Change to practitioners, energy managers, consultants, utilities, funders, evaluators, NGOs and academics.  Dr. Sea Rotmann wrote about the experience in her blog in June. But she didn’t have these awesome pictures of all the speakers. You should also know the videos of the workshop will be available shortly.

And the magnificent full rainbow that my Blackberry camera could not adequately capture when I took her down to Lake Ontario to see one of the finer features of Toronto which I thought would be the Lake but turned out to be this rainbow…thanks Toronto.

After that I spent a bunch of time pounding the pavement.  Looking at the TGH OR with our green team champion Shawn.  He collected a bunch of trash for me that only a green-ie could love. We spent a little time talking about what could be better but we spent most of the time talking about what an amazing job the OR does at recycling and taking extra care to protect the the environment even when things are busy and messy and really busy and really messy.

I helped the Family Health Team celebrate with the Golden Light Swtich.  Finding more ways to turn lights off, getting people excited about energy conservation and having fun! Go Team.

Toronto Medical Discovery Tower got the best new battery collection bins I have seen in a while. Scott the Facility Manager is here with one newly installed. Brings joy to my heart to know all that toxic battery gunk will be recycled properly – not go into the trash – not go into the drinking water – not go into our bodies.

I took a small tour of downtown Toronto with about 10,000 others to raise the profile of Climate Justice. I just happened to bump into a couple of climate change rockstars.  Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben.  High 5s are a resilience tool that should be used more often.

Phew – I am tired already.  But one last thought before I check my time and hope for a gold.  Jennifer at PMH is making a real difference in her role as Green Team Leader by celebrating what her colleagues are doing right! See the clever note she put on the wall “Nice blue bin full of perfectly recycled goods! Awesome!” That’s the spirit.  Go team. I am sure we can win this race.