Canada's Environmental Voice
When I was asked to compare nature literature in Canada and the United States, particularly in the West, I quickly went for my bookshelves – only to discover that the lion’s share of my library was still far away, sequestered, like a lost collection of ancient Middle Eastern scrolls in […]
RECENTLY LAUDED by the CBC as one of Anna Maria Tremonti’s “Game Changers,” Nicole Rycroft has been on an impassioned journey. Originally from Australia, this stalwart activist for environmental rights has gone from practising direct-action in blockades to sharing boardrooms with CEOs from some of Canada’s largest paper-consuming businesses.
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 […]
IF YOU FIND YOURSELF saying, “There’s nothing in the newspaper these days,” you are undoubtedly correct. Large white and coloured voids are in, as are expansive photos with blank areas, such as a distraught goalie kneeling in a huge goal mouth adorned only with a missed soccer ball. In its […]
Those of us who believe that humans are causing global warming may not notice the growing body of sophisticated denial literature. Al Gore’s recent essay in Rolling Stone Magazine lays out the depressing tale of disinformation and ideologically shielded ignorance that is currently unfolding in the US. “In one corner […]
“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 […]
Good photographs and good poetry have a great deal in common: They both offer lessons in seeing, placing their audience as if behind the lens or the pen, opening them to the world in a way not before realized. Catherine Owen’s book of poetry, Seeing Lessons, demonstrates the power of […]
There is no denying the unique vantage point of Timothy Leduc’s new book, Climate, Culture, Change: Inuit and Western Dialogues with a Warming North. Your first clue is right there in the subtitle: that’s dialogues with, not about, Canada’s northern ecology.
Apart from a knowledgeable mentor, the field guide is a nature enthusiast’s most valuable tool. With the right guide, a seemingly featureless swath of unfamiliar habitat comes alive with ecological insight. In ornithology, guides are particularly valuable due to the immense variability that birds display. In The Crossley ID Guide: […]
Fashion is one of the most profitable industries in the world, but we rarely hear about the ugly practices used to keep beauty in business. For instance, the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan has diminished by 90 per cent, partially due to the irrigation of cotton crops for the textile industry […]
