Alternatives Journal articles from July 2006

Alternatives Journal archives from July 2006

Aid that empowers.(Editorial)(Editorial)
July 1, 2006... INFORMED participation in open, accountable and effective governance: that's a pretty good working definition of development. Governments have been using foreign aid for many purposes over the decades, and their first purpose is not always...

Dioxin Bath.(CANADIAN NEWS)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Plans by Lafarge Canada Inc. to burn tires and other imported materials at an old kiln in Bath, Ontario, have environmental groups concerned about increased levels of dangerous dioxins in Ontario and New York State. To ground these concerns,...

Green volts.(CANADIAN NEWS)(Caledon, Ontario source energy supply from Bullfrog Power, 100-percent alternative energy)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Caledon, Ontario, became the first municipal government in Ontario to source its energy supply entirely from Bullfrog Power, a supplier of 100-percent alternative energy. The purchase completely offsets power consumed by its municipal office by...

Cool Shops.(CANADIAN NEWS)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... The Clean Air Foundation's Cool Shops energy reduction program expanded into several Ontario cities this summer. The cities of Hamilton, St. Catherines, Kitchener, Cambridge, Waterloo, Woodstock and Sarnia are all taking part in the initiative...

Taking carbon down.
July 1, 2006... IMAGINE PARACHUTING crustaceans. Millions and millions of them. This is what scientists from the British Antarctic Survey and the Centre for Coastal Studies of the University of Hull illustrated in their recent study about krill's effects on...

The ghost of DDT.(Science Desk)
July 1, 2006... DESPITE DECADES-long attempts to ban or limit DDT use, the legacy of DDT is still with us and continues to threaten bird populations. University of California, Santa Cruz ecologist Myra Finkelstein and colleagues measured concentrations of DDT...

www.100milediet.org.(Hot Green Websites)(Website overview)
July 1, 2006... When Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon vowed in 2005 that, for one year, they would consume only food and drink from a 100-mile radius of their home in Vancouver, BC, they had no idea they were starting a movement. Their story has been picked up...

www.greenyourlife.com.(Hot Green Websites)(Website overview)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Can a website change the world? The staff at GreenYourLife.com think so. Their mission is to bring green to the mainstream by making affordable alternative products and services locally accessible to Canadian consumers. The listings also...

detox.panda.org/quiz.(Hot Green Websites)(Website overview)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... WWF's toxic quiz rates your toxicity level based on your lifestyle choices. Sounds serious, but its quirky approach makes it fun, whether your rating is "toxic", or merely "tainted". There is a more detailed survey for viewers who are...

On the brink.(GLOBAL)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Extinction now threatens over 16,000 species out of the roughly 40,000 being studied by the World Conservation Union. The 2006 Red List of Endangered Species notes habitat degradation and loss as the overwhelming cause, but issues such as...

Clinton on climate.(GLOBAL)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... While former Vice-President Al Gore focuses on education with his film, An Inconvenient Truth, Bill Clinton has launched the Clinton Climate Initiative and is hooking up with 22 of the world's largest cities to form strategies for reducing...

Debt-for-nature.(GLOBAL)(Cameroon and France signed agreement from the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries )(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Cameroon and France have signed a historic debt-for-nature swap that will see US$25 million invested in the Congo River Basin. The agreement comes under France's Debt Development Contract (C2D) and stems from the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries...

Prevent Cancer Now.(CAMPAIGNS)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... A coalition of prominent Canadian environmentalists has formed to bring attention to the environmental causes of cancer, spurred by the statistic that one in two people will develop the disease in their lifetime. Prevent Cancer Now plans to...

Buy a bale!(CAMPAIGNS)(straw bale residence by University of Waterloo's School of Architecture in Cambridge, Ontario)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Students at the University of Waterloo's School of Architecture in Cambridge, Ontario, plan to build their own straw bale residence. Upon completion, the Grand House will feature 12 bedrooms plus common space as housing for students in the...

Climate Action Network.(CAMPAIGNS)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... The federal government's cancellation of environment and energy programs in favour of a "made-in-Canada" plan has prompted the Climate Action Network (CAN) to seek out the opinions of Canadians. The organization is launching Climate Action Tour...

Faking change.
July 1, 2006... "KIMBERLY-CLARK now tree friendly, no longer wipes away ancient forests." "Halliburton solves global warming." These are just a couple of the unlikely headlines making "news" these days. With activists continually broadening their toolbox of...

Harper cuts EnerGuide.(Letter from Kitchener-Waterloo)
July 1, 2006... STUNNED NGOs, angry municipalities, bewildered academics and taken aback homeowners--all evidence of a disturbing development in the Conservative government's environmental policy. On May 12, 2006, Ottawa announced the termination of funding...

Drugs on tap.(RESEARCH)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... A report released by the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy (CIELAP) presents emerging concerns about pharmaceuticals, personal care products and endocrine disrupters in water. According to CIELAP, testing in the US has shown...

Child labour declines.(RESEARCH)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... According to global statistics by the International Labour Organization (ILO), the number of child labourers was reduced by 11 percent between 2000 and 2004. Of the present 218 million children estimated to be working, 126 million are engaged...

Green wall of China.(RESEARCH)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... The Qinghai-Tibet plateau, which accounts for nearly half of China's glacial coverage, is melting at seven percent per year, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The National Meteorological Bureau says that the average temperature in...

Promises to keep: aid donors need to return to the basics of health, education, water and sanitation to address the most dangerous threat of our time--poverty.
July 1, 2006... IN 2000, ALL 191 UNITED NATIONS member states agreed to eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be achieved by 2015. The goals aim to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, to achieve universal primary education, to promote gender equality,...

Africa's race against time: the need is urgent, but Stephen Lewis provides clear solutions that could have an immediate and lasting impact on Africa's future.(Excerpt)
July 1, 2006... Stephen Lewis' Massey Lectures were originally delivered in late 2005, and were subsequently published by House of Anansi Press as Race Against Time. (1) Over the course of five lectures given in five different Canadian cities, Lewis railed...

Money, media and death.
July 1, 2006... Democratic Republic of the Congo -- Civil War 1998 to 2003 and ongoing The Democratic Republic of the Congo endured a five-year conflict between government forces (backed by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe) against rebels (backed by Uganda...

Lessons from the epicentre: early warnings and immediate assistance are crucial when natural disasters strike, but donors need to look beyond the immediate relief period to provide meaningful aid.
July 1, 2006... ON JULY 17,2006, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck the coast of West Java in Indonesia, causing a powerful tsunami that claimed the lives of more than 300 people, and displaced as many as 28,000. Conjuring up images of the Boxing Day tsunami of...

Big business on campus: the industrial presence at universities can muddy research--only with scrutiny can corporations have a positive role.(Political Science)
July 1, 2006... IN 1996, Petr Taborsky, a student at the University of South Florida, left his chemistry lab for two months on a chain gang. His crime was theft. He had "stolen" his own research notebooks, containing information about his water purification...

Majoring in organics: North America's first and only degree program in organic agriculture models a holistic future for farming.
July 1, 2006... IN 1998, A PETITION was circulated among students at the University of Guelph calling for an academic course in organic agriculture. The result? Around 350 undergraduate students signed and Crop 3400: Introduction to Organic Agriculture was...

Make poverty history.(Empowering Squatter Citizen: Local Government, Civil Society and Urban Poverty Reduction)(Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World)
July 1, 2006... Empowering Squatter Citizen: Local Government, Civil Society and Urban Poverty Reduction, Diana Mitlin and David Satterthwaite, editors, Sterling, Virginia: Earthscan, 2004. Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World, Robert...

Big apple in garbage.(Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash)
July 1, 2006... Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash, Elizabeth Royte, New York: Little, Brown, 2005. Elizabeth Royte, author of Garbage Land, touches on the politics of recycling programs as she takes the plunge into one of North America's oldest,...

Urban vitality.(Cities, Culture and Granite)
July 1, 2006... Cities, Culture and Granite, Edmund P. Fowler, Toronto: Guernica, 2004. Cities, Culture and Granite by Edmund P. Fowler is a welcome addition to the literature on the crucial topic of how our cities take shape--whether they are sprawled or...

Measuring up.(Brain Mulch)
July 1, 2006... ON A WINTER camping trip to Yosemite National Park, my friend and I wondered repeatedly how cold it was. Since it got dark quite early, we found ourselves making camp and climbing into the tent hours before sleep would wash over us. To pass the...