IN THE MID-1990s, a Melbourne band called TISM roared up Australia’s alternative-music charts.
Author: emily
The Power & The Glory
IT WAS LIKE AN ALTAR CALL. I had just finished a conference presentation on organic agriculture when a tall, hale fellow in his late 30s bounded down to the front of the auditorium. He wanted to tell his story about how organic food had saved his life. He recounted how […]
Editorial: In the Key of G
DESPITE ALL THE YEARS I’ve worked in the not-for-profit sector, our current fundraising drive is the first time that I’ve been up close and personal with a program involving individual donors. It’s been a humbling experience. Looking through the list of donors, some of whom I know, but most with […]
Editorial: Rethinking Energy
IN THE FIVE YEARS I’ve spent as editor of Alternatives, nothing has been as controversial as the Suncor Energy advertorials that have been running in the magazine. Many of you have taken advantage of the opportunity to read the opinions of Gord Lambert, this tar-sands company’s vice president of sustainability. […]
The Evolution of Theory
EcoMorphosis
WHEN THE FIRST ISSUE of Alternatives Journal rolled off the presses in 1971, the world was a very different place – politically and technologically. There was a self-conscious political left and the political right was far less ascendant. Computers filled whole rooms and munched on punch cards to obtain information. […]
Alternatives
BACK IN 1971, the founders of this publication called it Alternatives. Bob Paehlke, who played a big role in the conception, says the idea was to explore better options for a blindly pro-consumption and pro-growth-at-all-costs society in which almost no one was thinking about the long term.
Editorial: What Makes a Building Green
AS THE ALTERNATIVES TEAM was finishing up this Green Buildings issue, we were also settling in to a new building ourselves. The former Public Utilities Building in the heart of downtown Kitchener, Ontario, is a three-storey stone beauty from the early 1930s, complete with Art Deco flourishes and an original […]
Letters to the Editor: 38.2
Hard Nose on the Soft Path I write with congratulations on a thought-provoking and introspective 40th Anniversary issue of Alternatives. I am concerned, however, by a potential stumbling block faced by the environmental movement that may have greatly stymied our progress: We’re quite a weak lot, aren’t we? From “soft” […]
Eating Up
THE QUESTION made a great conversation starter on its own: Can a grand dinner party bringing together the right people spark a conversation that could change the world? Last November, World Accord International Development Agency in Waterloo, Ontario, decided to find out.
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