TRADITIONALLY DRENCHED IN pesticides and fertilizers, Canada’s wineries are quietly shedding their bad environmental reputation, and opting for a deeper shade of green.
TRADITIONALLY DRENCHED IN pesticides and fertilizers, Canada’s wineries are quietly shedding their bad environmental reputation, and opting for a deeper shade of green.
IN A RUGGED KNOT of mountains in the remote reaches of Northern British Columbia lies a stunningly beautiful valley known to the First Nations as the Sacred Headwaters. There, on the southern edge of the Spatsizi Wilderness, the Serengeti of Canada, are born in remarkably close proximity three of Canada’s […]
FROM VANCOUVER ISLAND’S southern Seymour mountain range to its dry eastern coast, the Cowichan River drains a 930-square-kilometre landscape – an area a little smaller than Ontario’s Prince Edward County. With its rural charm and boast as Canada’s warmest locale (its name means “warm land” in the local Hul’qumi’num language), […]
"TRUST ME, I’m the Doctor.” And when it comes to saving the Earth, no one else compares. That’s Doctor Who of course, the eponymous protagonist of the longest running science-fiction show on television. Doctor Who is a pop-culture phenomenon in the UK, and since the show’s reboot in 2005, its […]
Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada’s Oilsands, Ezra Levant, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2010, 272 pages. EVERY DAY, bitumen plugs up the economic and political works of Canada with another heavy headline. Thanks to the rapid development of the tar sands, Canadians can now read about dead birds, deformed fish, […]
AS THE STORY GOES, the duo behind the Chicken Soup for the Soul empire couldn’t find a publisher when they assembled their first book. But despite Chicken Soup’s winning formula – 112 million books sold in 15 years – the world of book publishing continues to be an enigma.
IN JUNE 2009, Thomas Berry, the historian, priest, author and self-described “geologian,” passed away at his home in Greensboro, North Carolina. He was 94. Uniting recent scientific discoveries concerning the provenance and progression of the universe with religious insights into the nature of creation, Berry’s writing blended empirical and spiritual […]
IN APRIL 2007, Yann Martel vowed to send PM Stephen Harper a book every two weeks – to “expand stillness”. In a similar spirit, Alternatives turned to four of the leading voices advocating for Canada’s transition to a green economy. We asked them which books they’d place at the top […]
SUPPOSE THEY HAD a depression and nobody came? Instead of accepting today’s economic downturn as a pink slip that can’t be refused, what if our governments reacted as if they had received a Facebook invitation: by selecting “join cause,” “learn more” or “ignore”?
KIDS ARE SMART. They get it. Over the past year, I have spoken to hundreds of university students in Eastern Canada. First, I present scientific evidence that demands we put a price on carbon and move to a low-carbon economy. Next, I pose the question: Which sectors will be the […]