Canada's Environmental Voice
With the worldwide explosion of the Occupy movement, and related Indignado protests in Europe, renewed attention has focused on the possibility of a new high water mark in the push for social change. Each of these four books approaches issues of social change from different perspectives, all drawing from a […]
Have you ever struggled to reconcile difficult questions about climate change? Are you faced with naysayers who claim that the human impact on the biosphere is all a media fabrication or the workings of scheming Birkenstock-wearing extremists? Authored by a father-son team (a professor at Duke University and an attorney […]
Professors Clapp and Dauvergne are among the few academics that recognize that the best approach to both analysis of and advocacy for environmental issues lies with political economy, or public policy designed by the application of economic concepts. Their book is a demonstration of that thesis, which they undertake by […]
Why is our food grown so far away from where we live? Why do we classify farms as rural and cities as urban? Carrot City dismantles the social constructs between these two halves of the same whole, and others: yards and gardens, industrial and agricultural practices, organic and conventional, producers […]
A great resource for understanding the possibilities of urban agriculture and international food security, Ladner situates food at the centre of many contemporary issues such as oil dependency, obesity, climate change and the loss of farmland. His argument is that by finding solutions to urban food issues, many of the […]
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 […]
What should conservation look like in the Anthropocene age? Under the premise that humans have transformed nearly the whole planet in some way, shape or form, Emma Marris challenges readers to reconsider their definitions of conservation, and proposes a paradigm shift in how humans define, perceive and understand nature to […]
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 […]
Interested in convincing yourself and those around you to live sustainably? Here are three books that can help you try. In The Power of Sustainable Thinking, Bob Doppelt emphasizes the change process that he believes will lead us to sustainability. Although he sees this book as a complement to his […]
Being an environmentalist isn’t for sissies – the statistics are depressing and they turn people off, and the problems often seem to have no end. Anyone feeling this way should read The Transition Companion, which mixes knowledge, action and inspiration to address a range of areas that are central to […]
