Canada's Environmental Voice
Editorial: Green at Home LEEDing the Way – Guy DaunceyThe “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design” rating system will inevitably foster greener buildings and more sustainable communities.Canada’s First LEED Gold – G.D. Greenville – Robert PaehlkeApplying green principles to buildings and urban planning is a sound long-term investment of public dollars.
Editorial: When the Going Gets Tough – Ray Tomalty Bitter Harvest – Joan MarshallFor the people of Grand Manan, government-approved exploitation of rockweed is yet another outside threat to local ecosystems and economic sustainability
Editorial: Child of the Weekend Gets a Job – Stephen Bocking Stopped Cold – Heather A. SmithAction by Canada on climate change has been blocked by opposition both inside and outside government.Inset: Trading Scheme Offers One Way to Cut Greenhouse Gases by Trevor FleckInset: Key Events
Hard Nose on the Soft Path I write with congratulations on a thought-provoking and introspective 40th Anniversary issue of Alternatives. I am concerned, however, by a potential stumbling block faced by the environmental movement that may have greatly stymied our progress: We’re quite a weak lot, aren’t we? From “soft” […]
“I’M NOT THE KIND OF PERSON to say, ‘Look at this great space to share ideas in’,” admits André Roy, Dean of Environment at the University of Waterloo. “But this building is different.”
MOST PEOPLE WOULDN’T buy a car without knowing its fuel economy, or sign up for a cellphone plan without comparing service-provider rates. Yet when it comes to one of life’s biggest investments – purchasing a home – few people question how much it will cost to operate that house over […]
When reviewing a book, I mark it up mercilessly. I jot down notable points, create a list of possible quotes and scribble down potential themes that might shape my review. When my lists are long, jumbled and written in my fast, furious – and almost illegible – handwriting, it means […]
BEHOLD THE SIMPLE CHICKADEE. With its black toupee, matching beard and silver jacket of wings, it is a bundle of quick intent. According to famed Canadian artist Robert Bateman, it also has a face to forget. “A chickadee’s face is like the end of a sock,” he remarks frankly from his […]
“Shifting our behaviour to achieve sustainability depends on society’s ability to reconnect with nature,” writes Brendon Larson. In his first solo-authored book, Metaphors for Environmental Sustainability, Larson, who teaches in the Environment and Resource Studies program at the University of Waterloo and is president of Ontario Nature, encourages his readers […]
Humanizing the Economy describes an alternative economic system and accompanies it with examples of how such a system is being built around the world. Beginning with a critique of capitalism, author John Restakis argues that before the emergence of this economic order, market transactions were embedded in social relations that […]
