Alternatives Journal articles from March 2004

Alternatives Journal archives from March 2004

Mayday! Mayday!(Editorial)
March 22, 2004... A few mornings ago, I awoke from a terribly realistic dream. I was walking along the hard-packed sand of a Nova Scotia beach, wrestling with an unidentified problem of pressing urgency, until the muted roar of the ocean resolved itself into the...

E. coli brings long-term risks.(Canadian News)
March 22, 2004... Severe E. coli infection can lead to long-term health complications, say researchers in the Journal of the American Medical Association. A 50-year review of the medical literature, including the ongoing illnesses in Walkerton, Ontario, found...

Canada opposes asbestos ban.(Canadian News)
March 22, 2004... Canada has refused to sign on to a UN-proposed ban on asbestos, helping defeat the initiative. Worldwide, Canada is the second-largest producer of chrysotile asbestos, which is a known carcinogen. The United Nations Development Program was...

Ontario halts water removal.(Canadian News)
March 22, 2004... The Ontario government has placed a one-year moratorium on most new and expanded water-taking permits. This suspension will provide some time to develop better regulations. The province plans to charge bottlers and other companies a fee for the...

Moose on endangered list in NS.(Canadian News)
March 22, 2004... The moose, a symbolic icon of Canada, has been added to the endangered species list in Nova Scotia. An unknown neurological disease is the likely culprit in the decline of population levels. The disease may be linked to high concentrations of...

Neuromarketing.(Off the Beat)
March 22, 2004... WELCOME NEWS for parents sick of endlessly replaying Bambi for their TV-addicted tots. Disney is developing a technology that will make a DVD self-destruct 48 hours after its case is opened. What would it take to get someone to buy something so...

Hot green web sites.
March 22, 2004... The on-line Ontario Environmental Directory is an easy-to-use, searchable database of groups in Ontario and beyond: www.oen.ca/dir [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Teachers and students in Alberta can make use of a new interactive web resource...

World Social Forum takes on coke.
March 22, 2004... FOR SIX DAYS in January, a sprawling industrial complex in Mumbai, India, became the site of the fourth World Social Forum, as community activists, NGO staff and fellow travelers gathered to celebrate and organize under the banner "another...

China expands nuclear energy.(Global News)
March 22, 2004... China has announced an expansion of its nuclear energy program, with the goal of becoming self-sufficient in reactor design and construction, as well as uranium supply and production. Eight nuclear power reactors are already in operation and...

Cod catch continues.(Global News)
March 22, 2004... Cod stocks in the North Sea, the Irish Sea and west of Scotland are at such low levels that the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea advised a zero-catch policy for 2004. The scientific advice was ignored by the European Union...

Illicit CFC market booming.(Global News)
March 22, 2004... The illegal market for ozone-depleting refrigerants is booming throughout the world. International agreements, which called for the ban of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) because they harm the ozone layer, have increased the demand for such...

False pesticide claims get fine.(Global News)
March 22, 2004... New York's Attorney General has ordered Dow AgroSciences, a subsidiary of Dow Chemical to pay two million dollars to the state of New York because they were found to be making misleading claims about the safety of their pesticide products. This...

Complaint succeeds.(Campaigns)
March 22, 2004... Lax enforcement of Canada's pulp and paper industry is under investigation by the international agency responsible for monitoring Canada's environmental performance under NAFTA, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC). The...

Retrofits for social housing.(Campaigns)
March 22, 2004... GreenSaver has made a three-year deal with the Toronto Community Housing Corporation that will see up to one million dollars spent on energy-saving retrofits. Toronto Community Housing is one of the largest social-housing providers in North...

Inuit fight climate change.(Campaigns)
March 22, 2004... Climate change is a human rights violation, says the Inuit Circumpolar Conference on behalf of Inuit people in Canada, Greenland, Alaska and Russia. Rising temperatures are causing ice to thin and permafrost to thaw, and could undermine Inuit...

Coalition for farm reform.(Campaigns)
March 22, 2004... A new coalition of Canadian NGOs has formed to push agricultural reform. The Beyond Factory Farming Coalition brings together a number of different campaigns around hog farms, salmon aquaculture and animal living conditions. Provincial,...

Leukemia linked to tungsten.(Research Findings)
March 22, 2004... Increased levels of tungsten correlate with higher than average rates of childhood leukemia, a study in Nature has reported. Researchers examined metals in tree rings in three US towns that have abnormally high levels of childhood leukemia....

Ocean salinity changing.(Research Findings)
March 22, 2004... The tropical Atlantic Ocean is becoming saltier, says a new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Higher than average global temperatures are evaporating ocean waters more rapidly than normal, and upsetting the balance of salt...

Ecology critical to water flows.(Research Findings)
March 22, 2004... A guide for including ecological considerations in water planning has been prepared by the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Common tabulations of water use list three sectors: households, industry and agriculture. But there is a fourth sector:...

City living cheaper than suburbs.(Research Findings)
March 22, 2004... Living in the suburbs is costlier than living in the city, says new research released by the Neptis Foundation. The research team from the University of Toronto developed and mapped data on household travel expenditures throughout the Greater...

Men at work, sperm at risk.(Science Desk)
March 22, 2004... POLLUTION has been blamed for the widespread declines in human sperm counts observed over the latter half of the 20th century, but researchers are only now able to identify some of the chemicals involved. Two recent studies show that where men...

Election countdown.(Indicators)
March 22, 2004... Percentage of Canadians who voted in the 2000 federal election: 61.2 The number of years since Canada experienced a lower voter turnout than in the last federal election: 75 Percentage of eligible voters aged 68 and over who voted in...

Nature to get right-of-way.(Letter from South Stukely)
March 22, 2004... IN THE RURAL municipality of South Stukely in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, a small but dedicated group of landowners has been trying to turn an energy corridor into a nature reserve. The 100-metre-wide corridor, shared by three utilities,...

Empty nets: fisheries are in decline around the world as fishing technology outstrips ecological capacity.
March 22, 2004... JUST AS A TROPICAL SCIENTIST might look at the impressive expanse of Canada and assume that this country has boundless potential for agricultural production, unaware that in reality only the thin sliver of land along its southern border (five...

On the menu: a consumer's guide to eating seafood responsibly.
March 22, 2004... OUR OCEANS are in deep, deep trouble. Only ten percent of the large fish are left, food webs are in tatters and pollution and invasive species threaten marine ecosystems. Coastal communities are also in trouble. From Petty Harbour,...

Wanted: new management; Many of Canada's fisheries are in crisis, but new forms of management suggest a more sustainable future may be possible.
March 22, 2004... FRANKLYN D'ENTREMONT is quite prepared to believe in the possibility of miracles. Twelve years ago, D'Entremont was driving his pickup truck in his home town of Pubnico, Nova Scotia, and the next thing he knew he was in the back of an ambulance...

Catch of the day: seafood campaigns are reaching consumers but they risk oversimplification.
March 22, 2004... BRITISH CELEBRITY CHEF Ken Hom is using his television audience to help demand an end to the widespread human rights and environmental abuses associated with the shrimp industry. His partnership with the UK-based Environmental Justice...

Healthy fishing: the Great Lakes should be cleaned up--for the sake of the fish and the fishers.
March 22, 2004... IT'S A WARM SEPTEMBER afternoon and in the name of science we've disturbed the peace of a solitary shoreline fisher to ask about fishing in Hamilton Harbour. We want to know about his catch: whether he eats it, how he prepares it and where he...

Fish fat facts: informed food choices will decrease exposure to contaminants.
March 22, 2004... THE RECENT study published in the prestigious journal Science documenting the occurrence of several persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in salmon, with much higher levels in farmed salmon than wild salmon, has caused quite a stir. Among the...

Put your foot in it: it's time to review the usefulness of the "ecological footprint" concept.(Political Science)
March 22, 2004... I REALLY MUST watch my step. Using a three-minute quiz provided by Redefining Progress, a California-based organization, I just measured my ecological footprint. It is uncomfortably huge: 7.8 hectares of the Earth's surface--about 24 soccer...

Every breath you take.(Stir it Up)
March 22, 2004... I REMEMBER when people used to blow toxic fumes into my lungs while I waited in line at the bank or the cinema. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Now smokers are banned from most public indoor spaces, treated like pariahs and forced outside to...

The call of the moon: turn to the tides for the latest source of clean, renewable energy.
March 22, 2004... LONG BEFORE humans walked this Earth, before the appearance of the dinosaur or the humble shrimp, a power as ancient as creation wove its spell into matter. We called it gravity. Non-scientifically, it is like a kind of love. What causes...

The new conquistadores: multinational mining companies face off against disgruntled communities in Peru.
March 22, 2004... MOST OF PERU'S Pacific coast is a strip of barren desert lying between the Andes Mountains and the ocean. A rare exception is in the north, near the border with Ecuador, where the interminable sand dunes give way to a lush green valley. Hectare...

Salmon Wars.(Reviews)
March 22, 2004... Salmon Wars Net Loss: The Storm Over Salmon Farming, Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin, directors, Moving Images , 2003, 52 minutes. Order from Bullfrog Films, (800) 543-3764 or video@bullfrogfilms.com. Net Loss is a compelling...

State of the Law.(Reviews)
March 22, 2004... State of the Law Unnatural Law: Rethinking Canadian Environmental Law and Policy, David R. Boyd, Vancouver: UBC Press, 2003. Environmental lawyer David Boyd has produced an impressive, accessible overview of the current state of...

City Musings.(Reviews)
March 22, 2004... City Musings What If...? Collected Writings 1986-2000, Paolo Soleri, Berkeley, California: Berkeley Hills Books, 2002. Paolo Soleri's eighth book is an eclectic collection of meanderings, reflections and dreams. Widely recognized for...

Industrial Disorders.(Reviews)
March 22, 2004... Industrial Disorders Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution, Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Deceit and Denial is not cozy bedtime reading. Markowitz and Rosner...

Check out the Tabloids.(Reviews)
March 22, 2004... Check out the Tabloids Enviropop: Studies in Environmental Rhetoric and Popular Culture, Mark Meister and Phyllis M. Japp, eds., Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2002. What do greeting cards, advertisements for sport utility vehicles...

Lyrical ecology.(On the Shelf)
March 22, 2004... ADMIRERS of veteran Canadian ecologist Stan Rowe's 1990 volume of reflective essays on human ecology called Home Place will welcome a new revised edition from NeWest Press. Rowe spent several decades at the University of Saskatchewan in...

Web reviews.
March 22, 2004... Reviews of the following books were published on the Alternatives Web site in Spring 2004: Against the Machine: The Hidden Luddite Tradition in Literature, Art, and Individual Lives, Nicols Fox, Washington, DC: Island Press, 2002. Reviewed...

Accolades.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 22, 2004... I have just read my first issue of Alternatives as part of my new subscription. I am immensely impressed with everything about your publication--the insightful articles and sidebars, as well as with the products and services offered by your...

Energy futures.(Letter to the Editor)
March 22, 2004... In the Winter 2004 Energy issue, editor (super-solar man) Robert Paehlke notes correctly that oil use fell off after 1979. But I doubt whether the miniscule alternative-fuel movement had much to do with that change. Obviously, the 55 mph speed...

Soft path rebuttal.(Letter to the Editor)
March 22, 2004... Taking Jim Lemon's points in reverse order: (1) The embodied energy in Canada's changing imports and exports is a huge and important topic. Soft-path proponents are keenly aware of these changing international trends, but, since their...

Nanotech naysaying.(Letter to the Editor)
March 22, 2004... I am writing in response to "Under the Magnifying Glass" by Langdon Winner (Winter 2004), which I found poorly informed and in places deliberately misleading. The early sections depressed me--writing an article about nanotechnology and...

Cultural caretaking.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 22, 2004... In the Winter 2003 (29:1) issue of Alternatives, I was referred to as an "Ogoni Chief from Nigeria who feels he is a custodian of the cultural knowledge of his people." This is an error. I am no more a chief. Writing and reading about the...

Corrections.(Correction Notice)
March 22, 2004... The Beach Solar Laundromat was mistakenly called the Solar Beach Laundromat in "Hot Water, Hot Savings," 30:1 (Winter 2004), p. 17. The photo credit for page 10 of the same issue was missed. The crumpled hydro structure photo was taken by...

Return to sender.(Brain Mulch)
March 22, 2004... WHETHER it's blocking whaling harpoons with a zodiac or scaling some multinational corporation's headquarters to hang a protest banner, environmentalists keep busy battling the challenges that the world presents. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...