Canada's Environmental Voice
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 […]
EVERY SUMMER, we have a small produce market in our neighbourhood. Volunteers run it oncea week. In the morning, they go to the regional farmers’ produce auction. In the afternoon, they set out the fruits and vegetables on temporary tables in front of the community centre, with handmade signs indicating […]
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 […]
WITH ALMOST 20 YEARS of negotiations behind us and greenhouse gas emissions rising faster than the federal deficit, perhaps the time has come to look for alternative approaches to tackling climate change. As University of Victoria professor Michael M’Gonigle suggested in The Tyee in December, could it be that Copenhagen’s […]
CANADIANS THINK of forests as “the lungs of the earth” or “natural air purifiers.” They understand that forests provide life-giving oxygen. They may not be familiar with the corollary benefit of sequestering carbon from the atmosphere, but they appreciate that having large areas of healthy forests helps balance the web […]
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 […]
David Waltner-Toews is a professor emeritus of Population Medicine at the University of Guelph, and founding president of Veterinarians Without Borders – Canada, and the Network for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health. He is also the author of more than 100 scholarly papers and 21 books of non-fiction, fiction and poetry.
IT IS FREQUENTLY CLAIMED that the human species already possesses the know-how to avert the direst consequences of climate change and environmental collapse – it’s now simply a matter of deploying this know-how.
“RESILIENCE IS … the ability to absorb and learn from disturbances, to be changed and then to re-organize and still retain basic structure and ways of functioning. Growth and efficiency alone can often lead ecological systems, businesses and societies into fragile rigidities, exposing them to turbulent transformation. Learning, recovery and […]
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 […]
