Alternatives Journal articles from July 2007

Alternatives Journal archives from July 2007

Happiness is a carbon tax.(Editorial)(imposing taxation on carbon emission)
July 1, 2007... THE other day, a fellow journalist told me that Happiness equals Expectations divided by Reality (H=E/R). In other words, if you expect Prince or Princess Charming, but reality dishes out a frog, you might not end up being that happy. From...

No capitulation.(Letters to the Editor)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2007... [This is in response to Jaccard's letter to the editor "Missing Pages," 33:1] In my review of Mark Jaccard's book ["Fuelling the Debate," 32:4/5], I criticize his endurance criteria because they focus on endurance of the energy system...

Gore need not be Carson.(Letters to the Editor)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2007... "The Silent Spring of Al Gore" article falls into the same trap that often limits the environmental movement: focusing more on heroes and villains than on strategies that work. Gore and Carson addressed different topics, using the methods and...

Radical implications.(Letters to the Editor)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2007... James Meadowcroft's superb essay on Canada's very cautious steps toward an environmental state ("Building the Environmental State," 33:1) becomes equally cautious just when I hoped he would take some intellectual risks. He is correct when he...

Green Party.(Letters to the Editor)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2007... It was good to read the different perspectives on the greening of politics in Canada. Keep up the great work. Enjoy. --Frank de Jong Leader, Green Party of Ontario

Love that patois.(Letters to the Editor)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2007... I received my new copy of Greening Politics [33:1] today. It looks great. My favourite piece is the letter from Jamaica about the struggle at Pear Tree Bottom. I love that it starts off with patois. --Andil Gosine, Toronto, Ontario ...

Polybag woes.(Letters to the Editor)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2007... I just got my shiny new Alternatives in a shiny, crinkly new wrapper, which I presume has enough advantages to outweigh the disadvantages of being more stuff to dispose of. But how to dispose of it? Is it plastic or is it a cellulose product to...

Cars, cows and carbon: grade 10 students weigh in on technology fixes for the planet.
July 1, 2007... This February, 34 Grade 10 students from as far away as Winnipeg visited the University of Waterloo as part of a program developed by Waterloo Unlimited. A group of five students expressed an interest in environmental communications, the media...

New system favours GMO.(CANADIAN NEWS)(seed registration system, genetically modified organism)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... As the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's proposal to modernize our seed registration system heads into final consultations, the National Farmers' Union (NFU) and other groups are calling for its withdrawal. As it stands, before new seed...

Unclogging the pipe.(CANADIAN NEWS)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... The Dehcho First Nation is the only aboriginal group along the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline's route without a signed land claim. Until now, the federal government has been critical of the Dehcho's land-use plan, which accepts the pipeline while...

Ecological sootprint.(CANADIAN NEWS)(tiny particles from atmospheric aerosols)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... The stormy weather that pummelled Vancouver's Stanley Park last winter may not be the result of climate change. A study from Texas A & M University, with contributions from Nobel-prize winner Mario J. Molina, shows that atmospheric aerosols...

Robo-ethics.(moral codes in robot production)
July 1, 2007... FROM Blade Runner to Foundation, The Terminator to The Jetsons, science fiction often foreshadows future dilemmas. Welcome to the future. In 2003, there were more than 600,000 robot vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers in use. Japanese firms are...

Cyberhunting shot down.(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... A NEW FORM of captive hunting reveals that even in the US there are limits to the right to bear arms. Cyberhunting replaces the squeeze of a trigger with the click of a mouse. It has only occurred once, but legislators all over the US are...

Economic Cornfusion.(Science Desk)(using ethanol fuel from corn)
July 1, 2007... THE IDEA of replacing a fossil fuel, gasoline, with a renewable one, fuel-ethanol derived from corn, may seem like a smart green idea. Scratch the surface, however, and you discover that corn-ethanol doesn't stack up well against other...

www.trailscanada.com.(Hot Green Website)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Summer is here! Don't just read about the environment, get out there and experience it for yourself. Go For Green's TrailsCanada website lists over 4000 trails across the country. Whether your pleasure is a leisurely stroll with your dog on...

Resisting revolution.(GLOBAL)(green revolution in Africa)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... The Alliance for a Green Revolution, a joint venture of the Bill and Melinda Gates, and Rockefeller Foundations, proposes to spend $170-million over the next five years on agricultural development in Africa. Interestingly, over 70 groups from...

Counting carbon calories.(GLOBAL)(carbon emission in production processes)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Soon, British snackers will be counting carbon along with calories. Responding to research that two-thirds of consumers wanted to know the carbon footprint of products they use, the UK's Carbon Trust is developing a carbon labelling system....

Herbal harvesting.(GLOBAL)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Next time you enjoy the energetic blast of your ginseng supplement, remember that 80 per cent of medicinal plants are collected from the wild, without ecological regulations. Thankfully, sustainability is in sight. The Medicinal Plants...

Escarpment rocks on.(CAMPAIGNS)(environmental advocacy for Niagara Escarpment through music )(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Musician Sarah Harmer can add an environmental victory to her Juno awards. For the first time since the Niagara Escarpment Plan came into effect, according to Ken Whitbread, manager of the Niagara Escarpment Commission (NEC), the Ontario...

Fluorescent funds.(CAMPAIGNS)(selling compact fluorescent light bulbs)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Green Students Fundraising (GSF) has a refreshing solution for student groups in need of financial support. Rather than sell candy bars or muffin mix, GSF encourages sales of compact fluorescent light bulbs. This bright idea raises money,...

Adopt an MP.(CAMPAIGNS)(Canada's Members of Parliament)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Taking a page from a textbook on good parenting, the Climate Action Network (CAN) encouraged Canadians to adopt one of 13 MPs who sat on Canada's Bill C-30 Clean Air Act Committee. The bill involved Kyoto targets, energy efficiency and motor...

Still not good enough.(Stephen Harper's plan on climate change)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... The Harper government's new climate change plan requires industry to generate 40 per cent of the 150 million tonnes of emissions reductions through controversial intensity targets. David Suzuki: "It's a disappointment, John [John Baird,...

Nuclear wind over Saskatchewan.(in Canada)
July 1, 2007... AIMING to increase the province's reliance on renewables to one-third of total electrical generation by 2030, Saskatchewan's NDP government is in the midst of building a wind power project that will add 45 MW to the grid. A $1.5-billion...

A Fallen Maple.(Letter from Haliburton)(lead concetration in maple syrup)(Personal account)
July 1, 2007... WHEN WINTER turns to spring, my thoughts turn to maple syrup. From the age of two, I'd sit beside the evaporator with my tea and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while Grandma tended to the fire and Dad and Grandpa gathered sap from the...

Buzzing off.(RESEARCH)(honeybees)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Honeybees that fly away to die, queens abandoned in collapsing colonies, loads of brood left to starve beside untouched food stores. These are but a few symptoms of a mysterious epidemic termed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) that is ravaging...

Saved by the sunbrella.(RESEARCH)(umbrella designed to protect Earth from sunrays)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... An umbrella of celestial proportions? Volcano simulations? These are just two technofixes being investigated by the world's geo-engineers. Stanford University professor Stephen Schneider may call them "planetary methadone for our planetary...

One tree forward, two trees ...(RESEARCH)(state of the world's forests)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... "Progress is being made, but is very uneven," concludes the seventh biennial State of the World's Forests report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Although some forests are regenerating, the world lost another three per cent of its...

From bottles to buildings.(Editorial)(recycling buildings akin recycling pop bottles)
July 1, 2007... DURING the 2006 World Planners Congress in Vancouver, delegates raised an important question during a round-table talk on sustainable urbanization. They asked, if we have policies to recycle items as small as pop bottles and tin cans, why don't...

Reusing cities: we have reuse policies for beer bottles, so why not for buildings, neighbourhoods and entire cities?
July 1, 2007... MOST DISCUSSIONS OF URBAN sustainability don't mention buildings. This is like trying to discuss forests without talking about trees. If we have policies to reuse or recycle items as small as pop bottles and tin cans, shouldn't we have...

Rehab it: making the most of existing resources.(recycling old buildings)
July 1, 2007... WHEN people envision green buildings, they typically think of state-of-the-art, energy-efficient, shiny, new buildings. Existing building stock is written off as inefficient, only good for demolition or recycling, and best left to heritage...

Greening on a shoestring: the Ecology Action Centre's new green home is now a retrofit demonstration.
July 1, 2007... ECO-RENOVATING your house on a budget is like one of those kids' Choose Your Own Adventure books: Each decision delivers a unique set of challenges and consequences. Since most of us have limited funds, building an environmentally sound dream...

Borrowed from barns and churches: retrieving good design principles from early industrial architecture.
July 1, 2007... IF WE WERE to cut off electricity to the lighting and ventilation mechanisms in a contemporary industrial or office building, work would be nearly impossible. This was not always the case. Some early industrial buildings included effective...

Heritage in the 'Burbs: how to make suburbs a lasting legacy.
July 1, 2007... Imagine walking down a street of a suburban subdivision built in 2000, somewhere on the outskirts of Calgary, Vancouver or Toronto. Only now it's 2020. To your right is one of the single family homes that survived a physical transformation...

Modern Babylon: city parks can be celebrated treasures, but the real trick is to integrate ecological heritage into urban life.
July 1, 2007... THE HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON, with their stream-irrigated cascade of trees and lush plants draped from column-supported terraces, were the glory of the Mesopotamian civilization. One of the Seven Wonders of the World, the gardens defined this...

Peril and possibility.(Editorial)(measuring progress vis-avis environmental sustainability)
July 1, 2007... THE SHOW TODAY is brought to you by the numbers 120 and 1.2 billion. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 120 is the World Wildlife Fund's current estimate of the percentage of global carrying capacity for human life that we are currently using....

The Goose and the golden egg.(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... THERE WAS ONCE a Countryman who possessed the most wonderful Goose you can imagine, for every day when he visited the nest, the Goose had laid a beautiful, glittering, golden egg. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Countryman took the eggs to...

Precisely incorrect: favoured by most economists, the GDP makes clear-cut prognoses that have only a loose connection to reality.(Report)
July 1, 2007... NO ECONOMIST would deny that welfare is more than just money, and nobody living in a market economy would doubt that money is an important element of welfare. The best way to measure non-monetary contributions to well-being, however, is not...

Resist blind faith in statistics: sustainability measurements are needed to assist government authorities and help citizens hold governments accountable.
July 1, 2007... STATISTICS are omnipresent in large-scale democracies, and recently they have come to play an important role in green politics as indicators of sustainable development. However, both the democratic and green benefits will be limited if...

Adding + subtracting: even its creator knew the GDP measured quantity, not quality.(Gross Domestic Product as measurement for progress)(Report)
July 1, 2007... The Gross National Product includes air pollution and advertising for cigarettes, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors, and jails for people who break them. The GNP includes the destruction...

Deluding ourselves: what we need is a good dose of realism.(conditions of the global environment)
July 1, 2007... DOUBTLESS, PEOPLE ARE OPTIMISTIC that sustainability is possible. Pessimism is enervating and deflating. However, both optimism and pessimism are merely states of mind that have little connection with reality. What we really need is a good dose...

To incinerate or not to incinerate: Richard Gilbert and Mark Winfield debate the burning issue.(Point-Counterpoint)(Discussion)
July 1, 2007... Richard Gilbert opens WASTE IS WHAT we have used and have no further use for. Incinerating waste, I believe, is a better environmental solution than landfilling. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Only a limited amount of waste occurs in...

Thomas Berger's unfinished revolution.(Political Science)(imposing moaratoriums on pipeline construction)
July 1, 2007... WHAT A lovely boom it was to be. Earth Day 1970 was a recent memory, and then president Richard Nixon was expanding American involvement in Vietnam. But for many, the action was in Northern Canada. It was full speed ahead for frontier oil and...

Oh the possibilities ...(Planet U: Sustaining the World, Reinventing the University)(Book review)
July 1, 2007... Planet U: Sustaining the World, Reinventing the University, Michael M'Gonigle and Justine Starke, Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers, 2006. The university is one of the oldest and most invariable institutions in the Western world. In...

Sustainable gains.(Book review)
July 1, 2007... Gaining Ground: In Pursuit of Ecological Sustainability, David M. Lavigne, ed., Guelph, Ontario: International Fund for Animal Welfare, and Limerick, Ireland: University of Limerick, 2006. As I read this book, I was sure I could hear the...

Beautiful, functional and frugal.(the natural world)(Speech)
July 1, 2007... I AM VERY HAPPY that I can speak at a science convocation because the practice of science, the daily work in the lab, has been the source of so much pleasure and fulfillment in my own life. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Allow me, then, to...