Alternatives Journal articles from September 2003

Alternatives Journal archives from September 2003

The whole enchilada.(Editorial)
September 22, 2003... FOOD POLICY will likely become the most creative source of new politics in the coming decade. But we'll have to cut food policy analysts some slack when it comes to language. Much like wine experts, food policy wonks resort to heady...

NB to import US toxics.(Canadian News)(New Brunswick)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... New Brunswick has approved a new incinerator to burn toxic wastes from US Superfund sites. The facility, to be built in Belledune by the private company Bennett Environmental, will burn contaminated soils and other materials containing...

Feds push home retrofits.(Canadian News)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... Grants will soon be available for homeowners who renovate their homes for greater energy efficiency. The grant program is meant to help implement the federal government's action plan on climate change, announced three years ago. To meet its...

Alberta fails its forests.(Canadian News)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... Only 17 percent of Alberta's unprotected forests are ecologically intact and untouched by development. Global Forest Watch Canada has released new research based on satellite imagery that ranks Alberta last among similar-sized provinces in a...

Sprawling over the belt.(Alter Notes)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... WEIGHT GAIN is linked to urban sprawl, says new research published in an American Journal of Health Promotion special issue that focuses on community design. "We found that US adults living in sprawling counties weigh more, are more likely...

Druids save Austrian motorists.(Alter Notes)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... GIANT MONOLITHS have been erected alongside several stretches of highway in Austria notorious for their high accident rates. Austria's transportation authority hired druids to create the rock patterns in a secret two-year trial, after failing...

Chickens lack pluck.(Alter Notes)(behavior of free-range chickens)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... YOU CAN GIVE a chicken a door, but you can't make her go outside. Unless you provide some shade trees, that is. New research reported by the journal Nature shows that many free-range chickens actually spend their days inside the barn. The...

Pesticide Pepsi and cancer Coke.(Alter Notes)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... PEPSI AND COCA COLA are under fire in India, since a consumer watchdog group discovered dangerous levels of pesticides in the companies' beverages. New Delhi's Center for Science and the Environment tested 12 Pepsi and Coca Cola products and...

Activists cheer Cancun failure.(Global News)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... Anti-trade liberalization activists around the world celebrated when the latest round of World Trade Organization talks, held in Cancun, Mexico, broke down in September. Led by African nations who refused to open their markets further without...

Monsanto loses class action.(Global News)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... Biotech giant Monsanto has been fined a hefty $700 million (US) in a class action lawsuit against the company for poisoning Alabama residents with PCBs. The fine will be used to clean up the land and water around one of Monsanto's former...

University cuts Biosphere II.(Global News)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... Columbia University has announced that it will cut all ties with Biosphere II, casting into doubt the future of the $200 million (US) ecology experiment that Texas billionaire and oil heir Edward P. Bass built in the Arizona desert. A...

Polluted water kills pop star.(Global News)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... Bangkok has begun a long overdue clean-up of its canals after a popular singer suffered a life-threatening fungal brain infection when his car accidentally fell into a Bangkok canal in July. A member of the boy band D2B, Apichet...

Draggers challenged.(Campaigns)(fish dragging)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... Fish dragging is destroying habitat the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has a duty to protect, claims a petition submitted by the Ecology Action Centre in Halifax to the federally appointed Commissioner on Environment and Sustainable...

Dam aid damned.(Campaigns)(Canadian financing of dams)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... On the date of the completion of the second stage of submergence of the Three Gorges Dam in China, the Halifax Initiative released a report looking at why Canada continues to finance projects at home and abroad that ignore communities' rights...

Lawsuit targets atrazine.(Campaigns)(herbicide causes hormonal damage in wildlife)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... The herbicide atrazine, commonly used on corn, sugar cane and residential lawns, is the target of a new campaign by the Washington-based Natural Resources Defense Council The group has filed a lawsuit against the US Environmental Protection...

Down in the old, old woods.(Science Desk)(biodiversity in forest communities)
September 22, 2003... WE ALL KNOW biodiversity is a good thing. But scientists still know surprisingly little about how diverse populations come to co-exist in different ecosystems. This is especially the case when it comes to forests. A research project on...

Hydrogen fuel hitch.(Science Desk)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... HYDROGEN IS THE WAVE of the future, say many eco-technologists. Unlike the smog-producing emissions of diesel and gasoline, clean water and heat are the only byproducts of hydrogen fuel cells. But there is much we don't yet know about the risks...

Pot luck and polar plungers.(Letter from Perth)(environmental group EcoPerth)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... WE'RE lucky that the weather held. The 50-odd guests at ecoPerth's first annual harvest potluck exceeded by about ten the most people Bob and I have tried to hold in our home. Potlucks are just part of the culture in Eastern Ontario, but...

Pollution cuts save infants.(Research Findings)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... Air pollution has significant impact on infant health, says new research published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. The study, which examined the effects of a sharp reduction in manufacturing and associated particulate air pollution...

Blackouts can be prevented.(Research Findings)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... Energy conservation and efficiency measures are the fastest, cheapest ways to ease Ontario's electricity crisis and prevent future blackouts, says a new report from the David Suzuki Foundation. The report also examines the lessons learned by...

Visible minorities poisoned.(Research Findings)
September 22, 2003... African and Mexican-Americans are exposed to industrial poisons more often and with greater intensity than whites in the US, concludes a new report by the Environmental Justice and Health Union in California. The study, based on US government...

Coal gas needs review.(Research Findings)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... Exploration for the production of methane gas from underground coal seams has started in Alberta. The potential cumulative environmental impacts from intensive coal bed methane development means that Alberta should require environmental impact...

Jump into the fire.(Stir It Up)
September 22, 2003... ACTIVISM is sometimes like a wild fire. In no time flat, surprise campaigns emerge and catch fire. They spread rapidly and unpredictably, and dramatically alter the landscape. This happened in February when millions stepped into the streets...

Who said that?(Alternatives Quiz)
September 22, 2003... Match these quotable quotes... 1. "When I returned to my office on Monday, I consulted the Minister of Indian Affairs, who was myself, consulted the Minister of Northern Affairs, who was myself, and consulted the minister responsible for...

Pretending to help the poor: a Third World activist challenges the hypocrisy of the biotech giants.
September 22, 2003... In June 2003, CropLife International, a federation of large agri-chemical companies, invited Anuradha Mittal, co-director of the Institute for Food and Development Policy (better known us Food First) to participate in a panel at the CropLife...

When organics go mainstream: the rising mass-market appeal of organic foods has changed the world for the small, local producers who started it all.(Industry Overview)
September 22, 2003... ORGANICS ARE the latest corporate success story. Two US organic and natural food retail chains--Wild Oats and Whole Foods Markets--have over 200 outlets and sales of around one billion US dollars annually. (1) Food industry giants General...

One belly, one vote: food democracy lives at the co-op.
September 22, 2003... FROM ORGANIC FARMS to food banks and non-profits, there is a growing movement for food democracy, and for alternative food economies that guarantee safe food that is abundant, accessible to everyone and often locally based and controlled. Food...

Whose label? Organic certification now serves big business better than farmers and consumers.(Commentary)(Industry Overview)
September 22, 2003... ORGANIC CERTIFICATION provides us with some guarantees. No chemicals. No genetically modified organisms. No hormones or penicillin. But as the organic movement spins into an international industry, it is this grower's point of view that we...

So near, yet so far: local producers are blocked by the centralized systems of big grocery chains.(Industry Overview)
September 22, 2003... MIKE OULTON rattles corn in the bucket, calls out, and two large yaks flump shaggily down from their shady resting place. "Chinese people like yak meat, announces Mike, who runs a small slaughterhouse called Mike Oulton's Quality Meats in...

Life after oil: Cuba's fossil fuel shortage has inspired innovations that combine sustainable agriculture and renewable energy.
September 22, 2003... ONE OF THE FIRST MISSIONS of the Cuban revolution was to achieve the greatest sugar harvest Cuba had ever seen. World sugar prices were rising in the 1960s and the island was in need of foreign currency to pay for imports and to service its...

Juan Valdez, meet Jane Walden: all our food should be "fair trade"--in the North and in the South.(Commentary)
September 22, 2003... MUCH OF THE WORLD'S coffee is grown by small family coffee farmers like the Colombian icon Juan Valdez. But whose face comes to mind when you think of the other food you consume? Drawing a blank? I'm not surprised. Northerners have put so...

Deadly double standard: pesticides severely restricted in the North continue to poison farmers in the South.
September 22, 2003... I WAS FIRST STRUCK by the glaring inconsistencies in pesticide use in Canada and the developing world while working in Nicaragua in the mid-1980s. Trained in medicine and interested in how human health is affected by the way we design, work and...

Food for all: the story of FoodShare shows how community food security programs can make a difference, even if they can't end hunger.
September 22, 2003... FOODSHARE did not start off particularly green or radical. When it was created in 1985, FoodShare was envisaged by Art Eggleton, then mayor of Toronto, as a way of coordinating access to the emergency food sector, and as a self-promotion tool...

Belo Horizonte social club: where food is treated as a right, both farmers and urban residents benefit.
September 22, 2003... SIT DOWN for a meal at the Popular Restaurant in downtown Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and you will be participating in a radical movement of food justice and democracy. The restaurant, owned and run by the local government, makes nutritious meals...

Take food action.(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... Eat Well * Eat, drink and buy local * Use the vegetarian food guide * Shop at a farmers' market * Try slow cooking * Dine at independent restaurants * Serve healthy meals at schools * Support independent stores...

Where to start.(Directory)
September 22, 2003... Organics and sustainable agriculture Planet-Friendly maintains a directory of organic and sustainable food and agriculture Web sites and other resources in Canada. www.planetfriendly.net/organic.html City Farmer is a global, on-line...

Digest this: recognizing the right to food could usher in a new era of social and environmental gains.(Commentary)
September 22, 2003... MOST PEOPLE don't realize that we all have a right to food. But we do--at least in theory. The right to food was first proclaimed in 1948 in the United Nations' founding declaration on human rights, and has since been elaborated on by a series...

Gram Vikas has won the World Habitat Award.(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... An NGO first featured in Alternatives has won a prestigious international award. The Gram Vikas Rural Health and Environment Program was one of two case studies described in Geeta Vaidyanathan's article, "In Gandhi's Footsteps" (Alternatives,...

Now that the lights are back on: deregulation will not stabilize our energy supply--policies that foster innovation will.(Political Science)
September 22, 2003... THE BIGGEST blackout in North American history provoked many reflections on technology and society. Some focused on the grid, and the nature of connectedness and cascading failure. Others thought about the fragility of the modern way of life,...

United we fish: the fight against the privatization of the fisheries is creating new alliances between native and non-native fishing communities in southwest Nova Scotia.
September 22, 2003... HUBERT SAULNIER'S family has been fishing in the Bay of Fundy for as long as there have been Acadians in Nova Scotia. These days a lobster licence, like the one Hubert bought for 25 cents in the early 1960s, goes for just under one million...

Public interest squeezed: government cuts have forced non-profit and voluntary organizations to devote scarce resources to the money-chase.(Reality Cheque)
September 22, 2003... When federal and provincial governments moved in unusual unison and haste in the 1990s to curb spending, they also set in motion a series of changes to the way non-profit and voluntary sector organizations were funded in Canada. New...

Something smells: government regulation is not keeping up with the growth of factory hog farms.(Commentary)
September 22, 2003... ON CANADA DAY, the domestic pig population was 14,644,000. (1) That's one pig for every two people. Over a third of these pigs were being raised in big industrial operations with more than 4500 animals each. (2) Next year, if the trends...

Alternatives directory: Canadian undergraduate environmental studies programs.(Directory)
September 22, 2003... WE ARE pleased to present our fifth annual directory of Canadian undergraduate programs in environmental studies. Reflecting the multidisciplinary nature of environmental studies, many of the programs listed are combined degrees, college...

Frankenfuss.(Genetically Modified Foods: Debating Biotechnology)(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... Genetically Modified Foods: Debating Biotechnology, Michael Ruse and David Castle, eds., Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002. This volume is a collection of readings addressing various facets of the genetically modified food (GMO) debate:...

Eat this book.(Confronting Consumption)(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... Confronting Consumption, Thomas Princen, Michael Maniates, Ken Conca, eds., Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002. Consumption, Adam Smith wrote in 1776, is what it's all about: "the sole end and purpose of production." Indeed, it's often more...

Nature knows best.(Thinking Ecologically: Environmental Thought, Values and Policy)(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... Thinking Ecologically: Environmental Thought, Values and Policy, Bruce Morito, Halifax: Fernwood, 2002 In these lacklustre days of Canadian environmental policy, it is refreshing to come across an innovative perspective that both challenges...

Sound forest.(Dedans/Dehors, sound installation)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... Dedans/Dehors, sound installation by Chantal Dumas, Montreal: L'Art qui fait Boum! www.artquifaitboum.qc.ca>, Marche Bonsecours, April 16 to June 8, 2003. "In 1943, under the German occupation, we went into the forest to get a small tree...

Green pursuit.(Bioviva ecological board game)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... Bioviva, a board game, distributed by Outset Media , 1543 Westall Avenue, Victoria BC, 877-592-7374. In the lineage of Trivial Pursuit, this French-designed game asks players to playas "a traveler thirsting for knowledge about your...

From Paul Bunyan to Paula's bunions.(Taking Stands: Gender and the Sustainability of Rural Communities)(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... Taking Stands: Gender and the Sustainability of Rural Communities, Maureen G. Reed, Vancouver: UBC Press, 2003. Paul Bunyan may have been a hero a few decades ago, but if he lived today he would probably be vilified rather than valorized....

Eat your vegetables: eating lower on the food chain is one of the best ways to reduce the environmental impact of your food choices. But coming up with good recipes and a balanced diet can be a challenge for beginners on the veggie path. Even veteran vegetarians--and ecologically conscious carnivores--will find these Web sites of interest.(Hot Green Web Sites)(Directory)
September 22, 2003... The Vegetarian Resource Group www.vrg.org/recipes Looking for a vegan birthday cake recipe? Find several and a good discussion about balancing family harmony and a political diet on the site of the Vegetarian Resource Group, a non-profit...

Calgary misses the bus.(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... I read with great interest the articles about smart growth in the Summer 2003 [29.3] issue of Alternatives Journal. "New Urbanism Stalls Without Public Transit" [by Nicola Ross] makes a very good point. I was in Calgary for a few weeks this...

Looking for alternatives.(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... I enjoyed the Spring [2003] issue on [29:2], though I thought those blowing the whistle on corporate ownership might have spelled out a couple of important forces underlying the privatization dynamic. The first of these is the drive by...

More mythology about Chief Seathl.(Letter to the Editor)
September 22, 2003... David McLaren ["Lost Words," 29:1] raises some important issues on the status of the "web of life" quote often attributed to Chief Seathl. But I'm not convinced that the brief glosses given in the article move us anywhere. The "web of life" is...

Triple X shopping.(Brain Mulch)
September 22, 2003... IT WAS always a moral high ground for me to say I had never been in one. Just seeing those stores usually makes me feel dirty. Of course I've wanted to go in. Anyone could tell from my side long glances. Who hasn't been tempted? They're...