Alternatives Journal articles from March 2009

Alternatives Journal archives from March 2009

Biofuelling the future.(Editorial)(Editorial)
March 1, 2009... WE'RE very pleased to announce that Alternatives has become the media sponsor for Earth Day Canada's Hometown Heroes. The annual award goes to an individual or group who has made an outstanding contribution to the environment by working within...

What would nature do?(AskNature.org)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... Nature is the place to start when problem solving, according to the Biomimicry Institute. Inspired by this tenet, the institute launched AskNature.org. It is the world's first biomimicry database, a free, online public-domain library, featuring...

Colossal Fossil.(In Brief)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... Canadians can enter 2009 confident that little has changed with regard to their nation's approach to climate change. At the December 2008 UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland, Canada matched last year's performance and received the...

Ban the bottle.(In Brief)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... Toronto has joined almost 20 other Canadian municipalities by banning the sale of plastic water bottles in civic buildings. The recently approved bylaw also includes a mandatory charge for plastic bags in stores and a ban on plastic bags that...

Lafarge loses.(Lafarge Canada Inc.'s appeal)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... The Ontario Court of Appeal recently refused to hear an appeal from Lafarge Canada Inc. that, if granted, would have stopped an independent review of its proposal to burn alternative fuels in its cement kiln near Bath, Ontario. A group of NGOs...

Carbon credit transit.(In Brief)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol allows industrialized countries to buy pollution credits generated by developing nations. Often criticized for being a means for countries to buy their way out of having to reduce...

One less car.(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... A promise to leave their cars at home gets first-year students at Ripon College, Wisconsin, and the University of New England, Maine, a free bicycle, along with a helmet and lock. Ripon's president, who is an avid mountain biker, explains that...

Tar waters.(water contamination by oil sands)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... As long as oil companies have been operating in Fort McMurray, Alberta, tailings ponds have been a problem. Now, a new report released by Environmental Defence indicates that each day 11 million litres of contaminated water are leaking from tar...

GM-uh-o!(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... Supporting the claims of those opposed to the genetic modification of food, two recently released studies from the European Union show that genetically modified foods pose adverse health effects. The Italian National Institute of Research on...

Hot sewage.(sewage system )(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... In the first phase of its redevelopment, the Southeast False Creek neighbourhood and Olympic Village in Vancouver, British Columbia, will recover heat from its municipal sewer system to provide space heating and domestic hot water for...

Defining development.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2009... I am both impressed and saddened by your recent issue Saving the Land that Feeds Us [34:3, 2008]. We happened to take a trip to Vaughan [in the Greater Toronto Area] where we read the magazine. We found the homestead of my...

Directory feedback.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2009... While reading through the AJ Environmental Education Directory 2008-09 [34:5, 2008], we came across the "Spotlight on PhD Programs" as well as the note al the bottom of the page specifying that the article featured only "pure" environmental...

Conflict of interest.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2009... I read with interest the article "Raising the Bar" [34:4, 2008] and ask, is there a conflict of interest with Alternatives receiving some of its funding from Suncor? --Noel Thomas Montreal, Quebec Editor's response: At...

A second opinion.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2009... In response to your article "Eggplant to the Rescue" [34:6, 2008], I hate to be a party pooper as nothing thrills me more than to learn of a new, helpful, medical invention, but the American Cancer Society does not endorse Dr. Cham's eggplant...

Carbon continentalism.(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... THE OBAMA EFFECT is reverberating right into the heart of Environment Canada. On January 15, 2009, Prime Minister Stephen Harper took the unprecedented move of appointing Bob Hamilton to the newly created position of associate deputy minister...

Safe harbour for endangered species.(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... NO LONGER WILL PROPERTY OWNERS in Ontario be breaking the law if they restore their land by planting seeds of endangered species such as small white lady's slipper, American ginseng or the delightfully named Engelmann's quillwort. Changes to...

Cape hopeful.(Letter from Cape Farewell expedition)
March 1, 2009... Give us this day our daily seal And forgive us our footprints As we forgive those who tread against us And lead us not into pollution But deliver us from petrol For ours is the past, the present and the future For ever...

Beyond food-vs-fuel: the biofuel debate must consider both energy and agriculture.
March 1, 2009... THE DEBATE about biofuels has become, in large part, one of food-versus-fuel. Framing the discussion in this way distorts the issue, in that only a modest portion of biofuel is produced from crops that are raised for direct human consumption....

Home brew: how a small-scale accident put a Canadian ex-pat in the front row of the international biofuel discussion.(Essay)
March 1, 2009... NOT LONG AFTER arriving in North Carolina, I became enamored with that exotic Southern delicacy: deep-fried turkey. Each time I fried a bird, however, I was left with gallons of used cooking oil. The recycler in me found it hard to throw such...

Biofuel basics: we will do better in selecting among the biofuel feedstock options if we grasp the essentials of how ecosystems work.
March 1, 2009... IN RECENT YEARS, Canada has pumped billions of dollars into its biofuel industry. Most notable have been incentives paid to farmers to grow corn for ethanol production. While Canada now has a nascent biofuel industry with more and more plants...

The year in review: alternatives sums up major environmental stories of 2008.
March 1, 2009... Bottle Bans PREVIOUSLY the second most popular beverage in North America, bottled water took a plunge in 2008. Despite resistance from the bottled-water industry, several municipalities followed Charlottetown's lead in June 2007 and voted...

Better Bioenergy: rather than picking bioenergy "winners," effective policy should let a lifecycle analysis decide.
March 1, 2009... Resource Efficient Agricultural Production Canada (REAP-Canada), a non-profit organization dedicated to an ecological approach to the production of food, fibre and fuel from farms, suggests how the application of full lifecycle performance...

Growing fuel: kenyans are experimenting with jatropha to determine the best scale for production.
March 1, 2009... AS WE NEGOTIATE yet another pothole, Mrs. Atego laughs. First at how badly I'm driving along the pitted road outside Nairobi, and second at the fact that I want to visit her farm at all. "Why do you want to see my jatropha?" she asks. "You're...

Energy In: energy out; how three biofuels stack up.
March 1, 2009... Through the Washington State University Energy Program, customers of the Western Area Power Administration can ask energy-related technical questions. This particular Q&A reveals how much energy it takes to produce a litre of biofuel versus how...

In praise of mundane nature: the unsung nature in alleyways and backyards plays an important--and undervalued--role in urban lives.
March 1, 2009... OUR COLLECTIVE IDENTITY as Canadians and our conception of the environment is largely one of endless forests, untamed rivers and free-ranging wildlife. This vision, however, no longer reflects the reality of most of our lives. Four out of five...

Scientizing Politics.(The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics)(Book review)
March 1, 2009... The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics, Roger A. Pielke, Jr., New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 188 pages. A stranger approaches you and asks for a referral to a restaurant in your town. How would...

The "R" Word.(Environmental Justice and Racism in Canada: An Introduction)(Book review)
March 1, 2009... Environmental Justice and Racism in Canada: An Introduction, Andil Gosine and Cheryl Teelucksingh, Toronto: Emond Montgomery Publications Limited, 2008, 180 pages. "Racist" is probably the worst insult you can hurl at someone in this land...

Eat your car.(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... JEAN-CLAUDE AND BLEN swap tarts for cars at Queen Ann, his Parisian tea house. Jean-Claude's bicycle always sits prominently outside the cafe's main window. "I don't need a car for anything," he says. Trains, not planes, take him away on...