Trees, plants, grass, animals, humans, limbs, nails, hair, relationships, personalities—these are all things that have the capacity to grow. We are always in the game of growing. Yet, there are limits to how much we grow within a finite world. This is part of the reason why climate change is such a catastrophic global issue we are facing right now.
The fossil fuel industry’s growth has been putting pressure on our global system and we are now, as the human species, put in a position where we must take action to adapt. It is no longer enough to prevent; climate change is already happening. The global goal is to restrict warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, however, we are far from reaching this goal.
At Cabot Shores, this is a problem we are constantly working through. Over the years we have been expanding—more yurts, more domes, more guests, more staff. This means we must be diligent and conscious of our environmental impact and our carbon footprint. Although we are not going to individually solve climate change and are aware that this problem expands beyond our resort and into the political, economic, and social systems, we know that grassroots movements and initiatives have their value. As such, let me tell about you our sustainable projects:
Photovoltaic Solar Panels
We produce approximately a third of our electricity. We offset our electricity usage with Nova Scotia Power, so the electricity we produce using solar panels will be offset in our total energy use. This means that electricity is not wasted when we do not have the ability to store power that we are not using; it maximizes the the amount of electricity the solar panels produce.
Cansolair and Solar Hot Water
Whiff’s Lodge is by far our pride in sustainable energy usage. We use Cansolair to heat part of the lodge. By taking old aluminum cans and painting them black and allowing cold air to pass through these we can heat up our rooms. Drinking beer has never been more sustainable. On top of that, take a hot shower or bath you’ll be feeling the warmth of the sun. Our solar hot water uses photovoltaics to pump cold water form our lodge and uses the heat from the sun to heat as much water as it can, and whatever can’t be done by the sun is done by electric heating (offset by our photovoltaic solar panels).
Food and our Bistro
Delicious, beautiful, and literally growing. Cabot Shores Bistro is always trying to use fresh vegetables and herbs out of our garden. This means that we can all feel great about the delicious food that we’re eating. It is not travelling thousands of miles to get to us; the gardeners are treated properly and given the treatment they deserve; we can be confident in what chemicals and pesticides our bodies are ingesting. Although this is based on seasonability, we take pride in supporting local food production by purchasing what we can from local sources—we even buy our lobsters directly off the boats of our local fisher people.
To reduce our waste, we grow our food with our own compost. Check out our Churt (Chicken Yurt) where we have a dedicated team of chickens who love the tasty treats from our food waste but also process it so that we put it right back into our gardens. It’s the closest we’ve ever been to closed system.
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We don’t plan to stop here. This is just the start for sustainably building our resort. We are currently looking into ways that we grow our sustainable efforts instead of growing our ecological footprint.
I invite you to look into your own ecological footprint or look into ways that you can work with your community, your government, yourself, family, and friends to mitigate climate change; Climate change mitigation demands cooperation of the people to hold our governments and industries accountable.
Even when making decisions like where to stay on your Cabot Trail adventure, keep this information in mind because it is always on our mind.
