Alternatives articles from July 1995

Alternatives archives from July 1995

Exploring human knowledge and perception. (Environmental Studies Association of Canada; includes French translation)(Editorial)
July 1, 1995... The Environmental Studies Association of Canada (ESAC) was established in 1993 to promote inquiry and intervention into environmental topics across a range of different communities and academic disciplines. This issue represents the first in an...

My old blue genes. (satire on genetic engineering)(Column)
July 1, 1995... You have to hand it to geneticists. These cats really know how to have fun. Fresh from major successes in breeding tomatoes for lawn bowling, and developing Pacific salmon the size of Japanese luxury sedans (but with better upholstery), the guys...

Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone criticism grows. (includes related article on Canadian Parliamentary hearings on the synthetic hormone)
July 1, 1995... On November 5, 1993, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) for use in the United States. This synthetic hormone which increases milk production in cows is one of the first products of...

Bridging a chasm: new report addresses environmental research needs.
July 1, 1995... One irony of the environmental community is that while more than 94,000 graduate students are doing projects and research at 45 universities in Canada, many environmental groups still have trouble meeting their research needs. It seems the space...

Chemical pollutants linked to male infertility.
July 1, 1995... Medical researchers and environmental scientists say hormone-mimicking chemicals appear to be making the environment a "virtual sea of estrogen" that is feminizing male animals, including humans. Declining sperm counts and increases in genital...

Controversial arrangements may send Candu reactors to China.
July 1, 1995... The Canadian government's November 1994 announcement of over eight billion dollars in deals with the government of China has reinvigorated debates about Canadian trade policy and commitments to social, environmental and human rights. The...

Farmers prepare environmental plans. (Ontario)
July 1, 1995... Thousands of Ontario farmers are taking a break from their farming chores to work on their Environmental Farm Plan (EFP). Turning a new furrow for the environment, farmers are carrying out formal environmental reviews of their farming operations...

Progressive activism on the Internet. (includes list of environmentalist Internet sites)
July 1, 1995... The Internet is, as its users are proud to boast, the largest functioning anarchy in the world. Every day hundreds of millions of messages are passed between its members, without the benefit of a central authority. -- Kevin Kelly in Out of...

The experts disagree: a simple matter of facts versus values? (assessing environmental risks; includes related articles)(includes French-language summary)(Cover Story)
July 1, 1995... Disagreements between experts about their risk judgements were once almost entirely hidden in environmental decision making. In recent years the gradual opening of decision-making processes has led to the more frequent spectacle of competing...

Turning rivals into allies: understanding the Wise Use Movement.(includes French-language summary)(Cover Story)
July 1, 1995... Over the past three decades few successes have been achieved in dealing with the long-term challenge of integrating humans into the landscape in an ecologically appropriate manner. Current battles over Clayoquot Sound, the forest communities of...

The forester's eye: technology, techniques and perceptions in Early American forestry.(includes French-language summary)(Cover Story)
July 1, 1995... You know they're growing mechanical trees... they grow to their full height then they chop themselves down. -- Laurie Anderson(1) This is an article about vision, representation and nature. It is about how mundane practices of seeing and...

Risk and Responsibility.
July 1, 1995... Controversies over how to manage health and environmental risks stemming from industrial development are among the most bitter disagreements in contemporary society, William Leiss and Christina Chociolko tell us. In their recently published Risk...

Life and Times of the Oldest Piece of the Planet.
July 1, 1995... Having learned from the publicity blurb on the back cover that the author is an "intrepid naturalist" who suffers from "unquenchable curiosity" I was more than prepared to dislike this book. But I was charmed instead. The text is engagingly...

Armed Conflicts Report, 1993.
July 1, 1995... Of the 38 wars presently being waged around the globe, the mass media tend to inform us of only a few. In 1993, conflict in Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia-Herzegovina dominated the news; fighting in Azerbaijan, Laos and Papua New Guinea received scant...

Ethics and Environmental Policy: Theory Meets Practice.
July 1, 1995... In recent years, there has been a growing interest in environmental ethics. Many consider the Western industrial ethical framework to be responsible for widespread environmental destruction, and feel the need for a more sustainable approach. This...

The Geography of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild Places.
July 1, 1995... The Geography of Childhood is a fine collaboration by Gary Nabhan and Stephen Trimble, two writer-naturalists, who examine how and why children acquire knowledge and values about nature and how culturally this process has broken down. Their quest...

Reclaiming Our Cities and Towns: Better Living with Less Traffic.
July 1, 1995... A chief advantage of cities is the opportunity they provide for encountering, by design or accident, people, ideas, food, buildings and other experiences. And yet our means for getting around them often seem designed to limit such opportunities....

Redesigning the American Lawn: A Search for Environmental Harmony.
July 1, 1995... Most Canadians and Americans are passionate about their lawns. They religiously and enthusiastically plant, weed, fertilize, spray and mow them. Bormann, Balmori and Geballe, all professors at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies...

Who Will Save the Forests?
July 1, 1995... The world is edging closer and closer to the brink of what many perceive to be an environmental and socio-economic crisis in forestry. Eruptions over the South American rainforests, Clayoquot in BC and the Christmas Mountains in New Brunswick,...

Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice and Communities of Color.
July 1, 1995... In 1986, several oil companies planned to build a pipeline between two coastal towns in California. In order to protect the mostly white, affluent coastal region, the proposal included a costly 20-mile detour inland through a predominantly...

On sleeping with the enemy. (environmentalist serves on hydroelectric utilities' governing board)(Column)
July 1, 1995... Shortly after it came to power in 1990, the new NDP government in Ontario asked me to serve on the Board of Directors of Ontario Hydro. Adele Hurley, head of the Canadian Coalition on Acid Rain, was also appointed to the Hydro Board at that time....