THE SHOW TODAY is brought to you by the numbers 120 and 1.2 billion.
THE SHOW TODAY is brought to you by the numbers 120 and 1.2 billion.
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 […]
WE ARE SURROUNDED by a sea of discarded materials that can be reused in building construction. Think of all those political signboards that we see at election time outside private houses and in other prominent locations. Temporary signs are often made of corrugated plastic that could be used as siding […]
IT’S 2060. Your grandchildren are sitting in their classroom. On the wall hangs a photograph of a blue planet. But it isn’t Earth. It’s a planet in a distant star system. And we know that this planet harbours life. Humanity is not alone. Now imagine a different scenario. Suppose our […]
Welcome to Living Classics, our new book review column. Upcoming issues of Alternativeswill include a look back on classic environmental books and reports. We’ve dusted off old copies of Silent Spring, the Berger Report, Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, and more to see how they resonate today. We invite you to suggest your […]
VOWS OF MARRIAGE. Oaths of citizenship. A jury’s verdict. Words with the power to change our identities are usually spoken in public places. But a cancer diagnosis is almost always delivered within a private conversation that takes place, unwitnessed, behind the closed door of a doctor’s office, on the phone, […]
We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we use it with love and respect.– Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
It’s About My Perverse City Book Re: Ray Tomalty’s review of Perverse Cities: Hidden Subsidies, Wonky Policy and Urban Sprawl, Alternatives, 37:6.
BACK IN 1971, the founders of this publication called it Alternatives. Bob Paehlke, who played a big role in the conception, says the idea was to explore better options for a blindly pro-consumption and pro-growth-at-all-costs society in which almost no one was thinking about the long term.