Archives: Reviews

The Carbon Rush book by Amy Miller

The Carbon Rush: The Truth Behind the Carbon Market Smokescreen

The success of Amy Miller’s 2013 documentary The Carbon Rush has propelled the creation of an accompanying book of the same name. Originally planning to create a follow up to her previous  Canadian film Myths for Profit by focusing on Canada’s carbon offsets, Miller kept encountering the same questions. “But […]

Bike City, Great City by David Chernushenko

Bike City, Great City

City councillor David Chernushenko’s documentary “Bike City, Great City”  showcases the facet of Ottawa transportation that is ready to shine: cycling. With a “silver” rating in terms of cyclist accessibility, designated by the League of American Bicyclists and the Share the Road Coalistion, Chernushenko shows how the nation’s capital can […]

The Good Neighbour, directed by Astrid Schau-Larsen

The Good Neighbour

Director Astrid Schau-Larsen’s The Good Neighbour, Den Gode Naboen in Norwegian, follows the journey of Julie Strand Offerdal as she gathers evidence of how the activities of Statoil – a 67% Norwegian government owned oil and gas supplier– impact the lives of people living right next door to their Canadian […]

The Province of Ontario's 25-year Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe

Implementing the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe

The Neptis Foundation is well known for its research reports on land use and transportation issues in the Toronto region. It is one of the few outfits currently publishing material at a regional scale of analysis in Canada. So when Neptis releases a new report, it’s a bit of an […]

All is Lost film review A\J AlternativesJournal.ca

All is Lost

In the aftermath of the 2014 Oscars, this review focuses on one film that was overlooked by the Academy and, to an extent, by popular culture at large. All is Lost tells the story of an aged man (Robert Redford) who finds himself shipwrecked on a solo voyage in the vast […]

The Nature of Empires book review A\J AlternativesJournal.ca

The Nature of Empires and the Empires of Nature: Indigenous Peoples and the Great Lakes Environment

Indigenous perspectives and academic methods are brought together in conversation in The Nature of Empires and the Empires of Nature: Indigenous Peoples and the Great Lakes Environment. This collection of essays, edited by Karl S. Hele, explores the British, American and French empires’ unsuccessful attempts to exert control over nature […]

Ecotopia art exhibit review A\J AlternativesJournal.ca

Ecotopia

We tend to section nature into neat grids with roads and fences. We wrap it up into little parcels of parks surrounded by pavement. Forests are cleared for farms. This interaction between the natural and the constructed is the subject of Ecotopia, a diverse collection of multimedia artwork currently making […]

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth book review A\J AlternativesJournal.ca

An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth

Chris Hadfield, perhaps the first out-of-this- world rock star, wastes no time before waxing poetic in his book about the bounteous beauty of space and our planet. “The windows of a spaceship casually frame miracles,” he writes in the opening paragraph of his introduction. “Every 92 minutes, another sunrise [because […]