Canada's Environmental Voice
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. […]
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.
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 […]
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” […]
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.
AS WE CROSSOVER the Claiborne Avenue bridge from the Upper Ninth Ward on Gray Line International’s “Hurricane Katrina – America’s Greatest Catastrophe” tour, local artist Brad Dupuy informs us in his rich voice that we “are about to enter what is known famously as the Lower Ninth Ward.” What makes […]
WINDOWS IN HISTORIC BUILDINGS are often a source of tension between the historic preservation movement and people who want to increase the energy efficiency of older buildings by replacing wooden windows with vinyl ones. To support its case, the preservation movement argues, “The greenest building is the one that is […]
MODERN CONCERNS about energy started with two oil-price shocks in the 1970s, coming to the fore again in the 1980s with the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Then, more recently, we experienced the Deepwater Horizon and Fukushima disasters. Who knows what the future holds?
“I’M NOT THE KIND OF PERSON to say, ‘Look at this great space to share ideas in’,” admits André Roy, Dean of Environment at the University of Waterloo. “But this building is different.”
PRETEND THAT YOU are about to build a modest home somewhere in Canada. You’ve made the appropriate arrangements with designers, building officials, contractors and suppliers. The only thing left to do before you start construction is order the 75,000-litre railway tanker full of gasoline that you’ll burn to provide the […]
