Canada's Environmental Voice
SUPPOSE THEY HAD a depression and nobody came? Instead of accepting today’s economic downturn as a pink slip that can’t be refused, what if our governments reacted as if they had received a Facebook invitation: by selecting “join cause,” “learn more” or “ignore”?
KIDS ARE SMART. They get it. Over the past year, I have spoken to hundreds of university students in Eastern Canada. First, I present scientific evidence that demands we put a price on carbon and move to a low-carbon economy. Next, I pose the question: Which sectors will be the […]
LIZ BENNEIAN can’t remember a time when she wasn’t interested in nature and the environment. I’ve asked her to think back because I’m curious to know how this dynamic conservationist, with over 20 years of experience in journalism, came to be the environmental conscience of Oakville, a community situated on […]
"NEOPHOBIA" is the fear of novelty. While this condition is pervasive in the hallowed halls of Parliament Hill, nowhere is it found amongst the contributors to this issue of Alternatives. From crisis comes new ideas, and our current economic and environmental conditions have shot the creativity metre among our authors […]
MORE THAN A SET of scientifically based conditions for a sustainable society, the Natural Step Framework has been the foundation for hundreds of innovative sustainability programs around the world.
AT THE TURN OF THE 20TH CENTURY, cities were at a tipping point. Many people believed that broad social problems, such as poor public health, poverty, widening class divisions and social unrest, were closely linked to the design and (non-)functioning of cities. Visionary urbanists, such as Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd […]
“SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES” is one of those terms that stumps an editor. As I waded through the rich collection of articles that make up the theme section for this issue of Alternatives, I was forever struggling with it. Authors would write that communities wanted to “become sustainable,” as though sustainability was […]
LET’S FACE IT – the really inconvenient truth is that the age of unconstrained exuberance is over. Techno-industrial society has broken faith with Gaia and is now wrestling its twin demons of hubris and greed. It is illusory to think that anything can ever be the same. Nevertheless, not a […]
Stephen Bocking hearkens back to Aldo Leopold for a new ecological vision. How can we keep all of the parts and why should we? Bocking weaves politics and science together to reveal prospects of a resilient future with ecologically creative designs for parks and neighbourhoods.
Thomas Homer-Dixon, author of Carbon Shift, The Up Side of Down and The Ingenuity Gap, chronicles the evolution of “master” sciences and demonstrates how ecology will soon wear that title.
