Canada's Environmental Voice
I HAVE NEVER gone south in the winter. The closest I came was a three-day, mid-February family getaway in Niagara Falls at a hotel with an indoor waterslide park. The chlorine infusion did wonders for my skin! I actually prefer going to Ottawa to skate on the canal or ski […]
FOR BOOK READERS, it’s unimaginable that anyone would not get a rush when they crack open the pages of a new volume, inhale that inky smell and feel the crisp paper. In a small village close to where I live, there’s a publisher who prints on site. Tim Inkster, co-owner […]
WHEN WE CAME UP with “The Greening of Politics” as the theme for this issue of Alternatives, little did we know we’d be competing with headline stories in the mainstream media. At the time, Elizabeth May hadn’t declared her Green Party candidacy and Stéphane Dion’s chances of becoming Liberal leader […]
WITH AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, March of the Penguins and The Day After Tomorrow grossing well over the average for a studio feature film, it seems that Hollywood may be listening. Moviegoers, adamant in their demands to mix pleasure with purpose, seem to no longer be content with films focused on […]
WHAT THE WARMING WORLD needs now,” writes author Bill McKibben in Grist magazine, “is art, sweet art.” Precisely because environmental problems are rooted in cultural practices and ideologies, it is artists, immersed in world and cultural practices, who are ideally situated to locate and develop effective- responses. In fact, we’ve […]
LAUNCHING STREET FESTIVALS. Planting watermelon. Doling out fake traffic tickets. If you’re wondering what these have in common, read on. They’re ingenious ways of handling issues, prying open the box. That’s what Alternatives delivers in this Creative Communities issue: fresh approaches to entrenched social problems – poverty, waste, addiction, environmental […]
A RADICAL TRANSFORMATION of education would develop an ecologically literate society – one that understands the principles of ecological systems and uses them to design human systems.
I ATTENDED Belfountain Public School from Grade 1 to 8. With four classrooms and a gymnasium, it was a considerable step up from the one-room schoolhouses where my older siblings learned their three Rs. Nonetheless, a product of educational wisdom in 1960s Ontario, the schoolyard was devoid of vegetation and we […]
SINCE ROMAN PLEBEIANS rose up against their masters in the fifth century BCE, social movements have been the most important force for advancing progressive change. They work because ordinary people – like you and me – are the ultimate source of power in any society: People in positions of economic, […]
The Playlist for the Planet is another example of how the music community believes we need to do more to protect the environment. I hope the songs … inspire you to make changes that will bring about a healthier world. -David Suzuki
