Canada's Environmental Voice
One question I am frequently asked in my work at Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory is “what’s the difference between a butterfly and a moth?” From my perspective, the most noticeable difference is that butterflies are more popular. While butterflies are celebrated symbols of freedom, peace and beauty, moths tend to be […]
While the media has focused its lens upon the Harper government’s undermining of scientific research, scant consideration has been given to the impact of the “war on science” on Canada’s judiciary. Tasked with reviewing and adjudicating upon the constitutionality and validity of Canada’s resource regulatory process, the judiciary may be […]
In his book, The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia, Bernard Suits defines the act of playing games as “the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.” It’s easy to dismiss playing games as an impediment to the real-world experiences required to develop an environmental ethos.
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 […]
Karen Eilerson founded the Discovery Child Care Centre 15 years ago in Barrie, Ontario, because she wanted to help heal the disconnect between kids and nature. She’s since become integral to nurturing her community by sticking to a simple equation: Less screen time and more green time.
In 2011, the CEOs of oil companies operating in the tar sands were found guilty of ecocide in a mock trial staged by the Eradicating Ecocide Global Initiative. The trial was part of British lawyer Polly Higgins’ campaign to have ecocide recognized as an international crime by the United Nations. […]
THE DEBATE about the Keystone XL pipeline has dragged on for more than five years now, and it is beginning to look like a petroleum-fuelled version of the Napoleonic Wars. On one side, Big Oil and its revenue-hungry government allies want to maintain the Napoleonic status quo by expanding an aging […]
Kent Monkman is no stranger to poking fun at us. That’s not to say he’s a First Nations artist who mocks the white man, or a gay person taking heterosexuals to task. No, he pokes fun at us, writ large. The part-Cree, part-Irish artist’s work includes the exploits of his […]
Bicycles conjure images of freedom and whimsy but also of fear, creating a dichotomy in how cycling is represented in the media. Many cycling safety campaigns have capitalized on this fear to illicit emotional responses to encourage a given change in behaviour (See Transport for London’s Do the Test for use […]
AS THE PUSH FOR TAR SANDS PIPELINES ESCALATES and the legal channels for fighting them become exhausted, some environmentalists are reconsidering the value of civil disobedience, which Sierra Club Canada (SCC) executive director John Bennett describes as “breaking an unjust law or breaking a law to draw attention to an […]
