Canada's Environmental Voice
OUR COLLECTIVE IDENTITY as Canadians and our conception of the environment is largely one of endless forests, untamed rivers and free-ranging wildlife. This vision, however, no longer reflects the reality of most of our lives. Four out of five Canadians live in major cities or their suburbs, far from the […]
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 […]
IN 2005, Andrea Dawber came across a project named Walk Here. She recalls thinking about Davenport, the tree-challenged Toronto community where she lives: It needs to be green here, she realized, if people are going to walk here. And so began GreenHere, the 2010 winner of Earth Day Canada’s Hometown […]
LAST JUNE, I returned to Banff National Park after a long absence. It was good to be back. Banff, Canada’s first and most famous national park, is an important part of my home range. My daughter was born in Banff ’s Mineral Springs Hospital, her birth witnessed by a herd […]
“Sustainability” is a monstrous concept. Perhaps no other term exposes such a vast gulf between frequency of use and level of understanding. With its newest issue, Your Town: Sustainable by Design, Alternatives jumps in to fill that gap. Deborah Curran uncovers sustainability’s wicked nature, while Ray Tomalty and Mark Redwood […]
Editorial: Fixing the Economy Raising Funds – Shannon StaplesSalt Spring Island gives national currency a run for its money.Other Canadian Alternative Currencies Revolving Funds – Gabriella Kalapos and Philip JessupMunicipalities can turn their energy costs into gold.
Editorial: Unity in Diversity – Robert Gibson Demanding Good Wood – Martin von MirbachSome current approaches to forest certification are of dubious merit, and even the best have significant limitations.Inset: Forest Stewardship Council: Principles of Forest ManagementInset: Canadian Council of Forest Ministers: Criteria and Critical ElementsInset: Pacific Certification Council: Principles
“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 […]
In the 2009 New Ecology issue of Alternatives Journal, Thomas Homer Dixon, professor of Environment and Resource Studies at the University of Waterloo, wrote that Ecology would replace Physics as the master science of the 21st Century. In that same issue Stephen Bocking of Trent University argued that Politics, not […]
