Canada's Environmental Voice
At first it can be tricky to pin down what Sustainable Waterloo Region does. That’s not to say the volunteer-fuelled non-profit doesn’t share its own success story well. It’s that SWR’s influence is naturally understated, an unseen support beam to the goals and achievements of other businesses trying to cut […]
To be brutally honest, I actually don’t believe in sustainability at all. I confess! The trend currently identified as “sustainability” would simply be called using common sense if either of my grandmothers were to offer their posthumous opinions. While it is true that new technologies and radical innovations might sell […]
How can contemporary design adapt to the unique physical climatic conditions, tectonic traditions and rich local cultures of Canada’s Arctic? And how can the fragile threads of indigenous knowledge and tradition entwine with our collective modern lust for seductive new technologies, shiny objects and addictive processed foods without long-term damage […]
In 1904, Prince Piero Ginori Conti of Larderello, Italy found himself in charge of a boric acid extraction company. One can only assume his life’s greatest ambition was not boric acid extraction, because he quickly repurposed the firm’s resources to begin producing electricity via a reciprocating steam engine.
During the last 10 years in Canada, as well as elsewhere in North America and other parts of the world, proposed wind energy projects have spawned fierce opposition and intense controversy. It’s not headline news when members of the public react against possible changes to their neighbourhoods.
In cities across Canada, people and organizations are finding ways to address complex challenges and creatively shape the future of their communities. They are greening neighbourhoods while producing local food, creating social enterprises to reduce poverty, mentoring immigrants and helping them integrate into their new communities, and using community arts […]
Canada and Australia have so much in common that they might be twin nations separated at birth. Both are large democratic, English-speaking, settler nations, thinly populated, prosperous, resource rich and politically moderate. They have multi-party, representative systems and historically have had strong environmental movements. Yet both have lately elected extreme […]
Screen time and sustainability don’t have to be mutually exclusive. A recent US Public Interest Research Group study found that hand-held technology advancements are leading smartphone users to choose multi-modal transportation over privately owned vehicles, especially among 16- to 34-year-olds. Beyond making car sharing, bike sharing, cab hailing and public […]
So much of the thinking around climate change has evolved since 2007 that Ontario’s seven-year-old climate action plan is now “irrelevant” according to Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller.
“[The road] looked like it’d been hit by a bomb,” said Jim Webster, Commissioner of Parker County, Texas.
