OPINION

ANDREA SADOWSKI

I live and breathe all things social media. From MySpace to Tumblr to Facebook to YouTube to Instagram to TikTok, I’ve consumed content like no other. Information is power, and social media platforms give power back to the people (within the limits of community guidelines), as anyone can make a video, upload it, and share it with the world. Social media disseminates information, organizes revolutions, and shapes our culture.

These same platforms, however empowering they may be to the average creator, can also be polluted hellscapes of misinformation that scrollers passively absorb into their stream of consciousness. This is why it is so important to vet all the content we are reading, and especially all the content we are sharing.

Along with 42% of Canadians, social media is the primary way I learn about everything going on in the world, including news about our changing climate and tips for stewarding our environment. I’m going to give you four core questions you need to ask yourself when evaluating whether that hyperlink you clicked on holds its weight and is worth sharing to your followers, quoting in your next academic essay, or applying to your everyday life:

Is it reputable? The credentials of the author(s), their sources, and their publisher will tell you almost everything you need to know about whether a source is trustworthy. Credible new sources like The New York Times, The Narwhal, and The Cascade are all reputable sources that are thoroughly fact-checked. Peer-reviewed journals are another example of highly reliable sources of information, as these articles were written by experts in their field, and vetted by several other experts before they get published. If you’re looking for resources about which native plants would be best in your garden, getting information from organizations like the Fraser Valley Conservancy is a much better option than just some random person’s self-published gardening blog.

Another thing to consider is who is paying the salary of the journalists or researchers you are getting your information from. Steer towards sources that are independently funded (through readership fees), otherwise what they are saying (or not saying) becomes questionable.

Is it consistent with other sources? Don’t believe the first thing you read. Double and triple check with a few different reputable sources to see that this information is correct. If nine out of ten scientists say that the 2021 Fraser Valley floods were caused by a warming climate, and one source says it is just the natural rhythms of nature, take that into account.

Is it local? This is especially important if you are looking for information specific to caring for nature in the Fraser Valley. The more local the better. Say, for example, you wanted to add plants to your garden to help our local pollinators, so you do some research online about what kinds of plants would attract the most bees or butterflies or hummingbirds. You come across a few different sources about Canada’s declining monarch butterfly population and how we can help support them by planting milkweed. If you zoom in on where these sources are located, it is almost always in Eastern Canada, as monarchs migrate through parts of southern Quebec and Ontario. Not only do monarchs very rarely pass through the South Coast of B.C., but milkweed doesn’t like to grow in our Pacific Northwest rainforest climate. This is why it’s so important to get as local as possible, especially for advice on how to be good stewards of our natural world.

Is it recent? Always look for the most recent source possible. A journal article published ten years ago may have been disproven by now, or a newspaper article about a story that broke last year may no longer be relevant or applicable to the information you are trying to find. We are making new scientific discoveries and technological breakthroughs every day, and what we believed was true yesterday, may be disproven today. Take for example the types of materials each municipality accepts for recycling, starting Jan. 1 of this year, Recycle BC allows items plastics than ever before are accepted at recycling depots.

Next time you feel like sharing a tantalizing news story you found online with all your friends and family, run it through the filter of these four questions. When your opinionated Uncle Bob posts an oped article that denies basic scientific data and downplays the role that fossil fuel extraction plays in our warming climate, forward him this article. Reject apathy and encourage people who spread misinformation to take on the responsibility of vetting their sources before sharing them online.

If you’re looking for fun, applicable, and reliable information about how to connect with and protect nature in your local community, follow @steptoit on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok!

You can’t swing a cat in UFV without hitting a row of receptacles. You’ve got a place for your organics to keep that compostable goodness out of the landfills; recycling bins for your mixed plastics or refundable items; and a lowly trash bin for the few remaining items bound for the dump. Fuck you, trash can. We don’t need you anymore. I’m not convinced.

On numerous occasions, I’ve witnessed UFV’s hard-working custodial staff dump the contents of a recycling bin into the garbage and then take out the trash like it’s all the same. In their defence, it probably is. Recycling culture isn’t new, especially in the Pacific Northwest, and most of the student population has been raised in it. Everyone knows you can’t just discard your plastic poke bowl into your blue bin — you must rinse it so the recycling doesn’t become contaminated — but without convenient wash stations at school, what’s a student to do?

When I attended high school back in the ʼ90s, I turned my youthful exuberance toward noble ends. I joined a school organization called the Teen Environmental Awareness Movement (TEAM). The whole exercise was met with such derision by my peers that I fled the group of thrift-shop Planeteers after a year. Back then, it was a struggle to get people to not throw their Fruit Roll-Up wrappers on the ground, let alone dutifully sort their rubbish.

It took barely a generation for our recycling mindset to radically change.

We now expect to find recycling bins when we’re out and about. When I went to Kauai in 2016, I began to question my sanity when I failed to find a place in the airport to deposit my empty soda bottle and was eventually informed by staff that there was no such receptacle there. It was like going back in time. How could a tropical paradise be so behind the times, I thought! Maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were just honest. Canada’s federal government reports that only nine per cent of plastic is actually recycled each year. In the U.S. that number is five per cent — and falling. We think we’re doing the right things, which gives us license to consume more. It’s all a lie. Even if the first 99 people are careful and diligent about what they put in a UFV blue bin, all it takes is one half-drunk

Iced Capp to ruin the whole lot. Even UFV’s own 2019 waste audit shows that recycling contamination is greater than the district average for home pickups which is already too high. With that in mind, why would UFV’s janitorial staff not just assume everything is contaminated as they make their rounds to the hundreds of bins spread around the campus? Four options. One destination.

We want to do the right thing — and we want to be seen to be doing the right thing. I get why UFV has lined the corridors with bins. They provide the optics of sustainability the university surely desires — and we want to see it — but it’s all smoke and mirrors. It’s a performance of progress that’s done little more than litter the halls of education with empty gestures.