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 […]
IS IT JUST ME or has energy replaced child pop star Justin Bieber as this year’s hot topic? There are advertisements for clean energy on television, signs on the side of the road about wind farms, newspaper headlines describing yet another catastrophic oil spill, and Oprah is asking me to […]
Online retailers devalue printed books with aggressive pricing. Text piracy threatens publisher profits.Publishing is dying.
IN CORPORATE BOARDROOMS across Canada, businesses are debating the hot topic of how to rebuild consumer trust when it comes to the environment. Dishonest and irresponsible corporate public relations (PR) campaigns have duped citizens so many times that they are increasingly skeptical of the business community’s sincerity when it comes […]
DAVID SUZUKI is an inveterate storyteller who first cast his spell on me in Toronto’s St. Paul Cathedral in 1989. He, Margaret Atwood, Gordon Lightfoot and others were raising money for the Amazon’s Kaiapo people. Twenty-two years later, I’m still enchanted. In our latest conversation, “The Doc” – as friends […]
Alternatives got interested in ecotourism because it raises questions about greenwashing, the parameters of sustainable development and comparisons to other forms of travel. Joe Pavelka profiles a pair of Peruvian families who demonstrate ecotourism’s most holistic qualities. Rachel DeMotts and Larry Swatuk look at the complexities of promoting tourism through conservation […]
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 […]