Alternatives Journal articles from December 1997

Alternatives Journal archives from December 1997

Watchdog just watches: environmental commission remains silent as NAFTA members deregulate. (North American Free Trade Agreement)
December 22, 1997... NAFTA's environmental watchdog is not challenging the wave of environmental deregulation occurring in Canada, the United States and Mexico since the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The Commission for Environmental...

Hybrid Turkeys love Green Office. (environmentally sound building)
December 22, 1997... New design pleases tenants with energy savings and health benefits Hybrid Turkeys Inc. is one of the tenants of the most environmentally sensitive office complexes in the country. Kitchener-Waterloo's Green on the Grand is Canada's first C-2000...

That sinking feeling. (creation of artificial reefs)
December 22, 1997... Do "artificial reefs" in BC waters increase biodiversity or waste? A British Columbia group that sinks decommissioned warships to increase undersea biodiversity and encourage diving tourism is being criticized by environmentalists who believe...

Writing it down and acting it up: green audits and community theater helps tenants get healthier housing.
December 22, 1997... In South Riverdale, Toronto, tenant activists are finding innovative ways to communicate the relationship between health and the home environment. The Don Mount Court Tenants' Association has made organized presentations to their landlord,...

Green on the screen. (availability of environmental information from computer disks and World Wide Web)
December 22, 1997... Computer disks and the World Wide Web are making environmental information much easier to come by for activists and researchers In 1995 Alternatives reported on recent happenings in progressive activism on the internet (21:3). More recently, E...

Three decades on the green beat. (25th anniversary of the 'Alternatives Journal') (includes related article on the past and future of the environmental protection movement)
December 22, 1997... For our 25th anniversary, we asked Canada's most prominent environment reporter to reflect on what the media have done and the prospects for effective environmental journalism in the years ahead. When I entered journalism in the 1960s, my dream...

Jock talk, goldfish, horse logging and star wars. (pulp mill's environmental policy)
December 22, 1997... [The media] may not always mold opinion, but they do not always have to. It is enough that they create opinion visibility, giving legitimacy to certain views an illegitimacy to others.(1) Industrial forestry is reinventing itself. The new pulp...

News and conflict: how adversarial news frames limit public understanding of environmental issues.
December 22, 1997... Most of us learn about environmental issues through the news, rather than by direct experience. Because of this, the news media, in environmental affairs as in other areas of public concern, is a "pervasive political and cultural force."(1)...

Telling stories about places: local knowledge and narratives can improve decisions about the environment.
December 22, 1997... The woman is almost 70 now. She has lived in Hamilton, "the Steel City," for most of her life. These days, weather permitting, she walks down to the bayfront to look around. From the shore of the new Bayfront Park - or "Land-fill Park" - she can...

Winning Back the Words: Confronting Experts in an Environmental Public Hearing.
December 22, 1997... In the three years since Winning Back the Words was published, much has changed in the world of environmental public hearings. Where in 1993 many of us had the luxury to criticize the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process for its...

Conservation and Environmentalism: An Encyclopedia.
December 22, 1997... Reviewed by mark meisner There are dozens of green reference books to choose from. They range from compact dictionaries with short definitions of key terms to multivolume, illustrated encyclopedias full of lengthy essays. They also vary from...

Protecting Canada's Endangered Spaces: An Owner's Manual
December 22, 1997... Reviewed by Maren Oelbermann In 1989 the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) launched a ten-year campaign to protect a network of Canada's natural regions. Protecting Canada's Endangered Spaces is a report on the campaign's accomplishments, failures and...

Finishing second: a tribute to almost-great moments in Canadian environmental history.
December 22, 1997... While the environmental movement hasn't exactly made the mainstream over the last twenty-five years, it has progressed well beyond the "lunatic environmental fringe" stage. I think that's a real shame. What we need is a little more...