Canada's Environmental Voice
YOU’VE HEARD the ads. Beyond the ugly open pit mines lies a different sort of oil sands, intones a friendly Cenovus voice. The difference, goes the ad, consists of some 100 gleaming steam plants in Alberta’s boreal forest where industry can safely recover oil from 450 metres beneath the ground […]
TECHNICALLY, only plants can be weeds. But plenty of other organisms are similarly vigorous, adaptive to circumstances and resilient in the face of discouragement. They, or rather we, are metaphorical weeds. Weeds in the plant world thrive in adversity. Unwanted, maligned and attacked with murderous intent, they nonetheless survive and […]
Lawyers acting on behalf of the Ontario government told the courts last month that Ontario’s endangered species legislation is now only concerned with the most dire of species listed under the law. The Woodland Caribou; the American Eel; the Blanding’s Turtle — these and more than 150 other species currently […]
We spend most of our lives at work—where levels of disengagement are at an all-time high, according to the Conference Board of Canada. This is bad for our economy, since disengaged workers are less productive. It’s also bad for workers and their families, who live the daily physical and mental […]
Widespread public debate on building vast networks of snaking energy pipelines throughout Canada dominated the country’s environmental newsreel in 2014, and will continue making headlines in the year ahead.
Several weeks ago, I watched Pride, a fascinating political drama documenting the true story of a few London-based gay rights campaigners who in 1984 decided to support some beleaguered striking Welsh coal miners. It’s a genuinely heartwarming story about political solidarity. If you have a chance to see Pride, you […]
AT 16 METRES or more – about five storeys high – the Bay of Fundy’s tides are the highest in the world. Each day along Fundy’s 1,200-kilometre coastline, the tides cover and then expose stony, red-sand beaches and some 3,000 hectares of biologically important mud flats. In the upper bay, […]
The Arctic is melting as a result of global warming, with sea ice shrinking at an alarming rate. Within 30 years, the Arctic Ocean is projected to be virtually free of summer sea ice. This has led to a significant increase in marine traffic and the expectation of even larger […]
Plastic is the scourge of our post-industrial age. So much waste has accumulated that we could – and should – have foreseen.
On a media tour this week of the proposed park on Toronto’s eastern boundary, federal NDP environment critic Megan Leslie (Halifax) told reporters she will advise her caucus to oppose government Bill C-40 despite the personal difficulty she feels in opposing the park. “I’m in a parallel universe where I […]
