Canada's Environmental Voice
IN RECENT YEARS, Canada has pumped billions of dollars into its biofuel industry. Most notable have been incentives paid to farmers to grow corn for ethanol production. While Canada now has a nascent biofuel industry with more and more plants opening across the country, little thought has been given to […]
NOT LONG AFTER ARRIVING in North Carolina, I became enamored with that exotic Southern delicacy: deep-fried turkey. Each time I fried a bird, however, I was left with gallons of used cooking oil. The recycler in me found it hard to throw such waste in the woods, so in 2002 […]
WE'RE VERY PLEASED to announce that Alternatives has become the media sponsor for Earth Day Canada’s Hometown Heroes. The annual award goes to an individual or group who has made an outstanding contribution to the environment by working within their community. It’s work that often goes unnoticed, so we are […]
Rick Hyndman, the senior climate change policy adviser to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers in Calgary, has written this article in response to Michael R. King’s thoughts on carbon trading (“No Carbon Copy,” 34:6, 2008). That Canada should mimic the European Union and necessarily develop a carbon trading system […]
The Worldwatch Institute’s recently released report, Green Jobs: Working for People and the Environment, outlines impressive growth projections for the environment sector. The author notes that “climate proofing” the global economy will create great employment opportunities worldwide. Could investment in a greener economy propel us toward a more sustainable future […]
“IT WAS A BAD YEAR,” David Donnelly, Earth Day Canada’s Hometown Hero for 2008, tells me. We’re sitting at a long table beside the open-concept kitchen in the common room at 215 Spadina Avenue in downtown Toronto. It’s the official hangout for socially conscious non-profit groups in Canada’s largest city. […]
MOST CANADIANS assume that Alberta is getting filthy rich from its hydrocarbon resources. In comparison with Norway, however, Canada’s wealthiest province is failing to live up to its potential. Both jurisdictions produce about the same amount of fossil fuels and have populations of a similar size, but that’s where the […]
IN MARCH 2008, the Canadian government released the latest details of its proposed action plan for tackling climate change in Turning the Corner: Regulatory Framework for Industrial Greenhouse Gas Emissions. It doesn’t include provisions to reach Canada’s Kyoto target of a six-per-cent reduction from 1990 levels by the 2008 to […]
THE FEDERAL ELECTION is kicking into high gear as this issue goes to press. It’s too early to predict which party will form the next government, but regardless of who ends up living at 24 Sussex Drive, there is an abundance of environmental lessons that our future prime minister can […]
WE ARE well into 2008 and there still is no common global name to define this decade. There’s no catchy term like the Roaring Twenties or the Dirty Thirties. These past eight years have remained unnamed and undescribed.
