Canada's Environmental Voice
A FRIEND OF MINE in Calgary just bought a home. The neighbourhood isn’t fancy – most houses are 50-year-old utilitarian bungalows – but it’s close to the university and not far from downtown. Although my friend’s purchase is one of the more dilapidated specimens on her street, she paid a […]
THE LANGUOROUS DOG DAYS of summer are upon me as I write this editorial. Tonight, Sirius, the canine star, will light up the sky. But I can’t ignore the slightly burnt aroma of autumn that already tinges the still afternoon air.
This issue of Alternatives focuses on water soft paths. For most people this statement invites the question: What are water soft paths? Though noun and adjective have been reversed, water soft paths share a common heritage with the soft energy paths developed in the 1970s by a group of researchers […]
WHAT A LOVELY BOOM it was to be. Earth Day 1970 was a recent memory, and then president Richard Nixon was expanding American involvement in Vietnam. But for many, the action was in Northern Canada. It was full speed ahead for frontier oil and gas. Oil wells would be pumping, […]
Richard Gilbert opens Waste is what we have used and have no further use for. Incinerating waste, I believe, is a better environmental solution than landfilling.
THE SHOW TODAY is brought to you by the numbers 120 and 1.2 billion.
ECO-RENOVATING YOUR HOUSE on a budget is like one of those kids’ Choose Your Own Adventure books: Each decision delivers a unique set of challenges and consequences. Since most of us have limited funds, building an environmentally sound dream home means every choice must be weighed carefully for its expense […]
DURING THE 2006 World Planners Congress in Vancouver, delegates raised an important question during a round-table talk on sustainable urbanization. They asked, if we have policies to recycle items as small as pop bottles and tin cans, why don’t we have strategies to reuse or recycle items as large as […]
I OFTEN SAY that my “church” is the one with the great big blue ceiling. People usually chuckle as they grasp my meaning, though I’m not certain that they take me very seriously. But the marriage of nature and spirit appears to be simmering just below the surface for many […]
SIMPLE SOLUTIONS to difficult problems are exceedingly rare. Their attraction, however, is undeniable. The world is awash in cults, fanaticisms and miracle cures. Millions of media minutes are devoted to how we can stop climate change by dumping iron filings in the ocean, prevent cancer by taking massive doses of […]
