May 1, 2012

Millions Against Monsanto by Ronnie Cummins • Finally, public opinion around the biotech industry’s contamination of our food supply and destruction of our environment has reached the tipping point. We’re fighting back. “If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on...

May 1, 2012

by Lucy Sharratt • After more than10 years, active research into the genetically modified (GM or genetically engineered) pig called “Enviropig” is being abandoned. In late March, the hog industry group Ontario Pork decided to stop funding GM pig research at the University of Guelph and the university is now closing down its active research and...

May 1, 2012

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki A colleague told me his toddler was wandering through a neighbourhood park picking up twigs and sticks, brandishing them as tools for digging, poking and tapping. Suddenly, the boy stopped and pointed excitedly to the canopy of branches above. “Look papa. Sticks come from trees!” Mentally reconnecting fallen branches to their...

Apr 1, 2012

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki Cities cover just two percent of the world’s land area, yet they account for about 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. According to the United Nations, 59 percent of us now live in cities; in developing countries, 81 percent of people are urbanites. And those figures are rising every day. Even though cities are a major...

Apr 1, 2012

ON THE GARDEN PATH by Carolyn Herriot Don’t eat anything your grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. – Michael Pollan Mindful eating and consumption can change the world, a practice referred to as eco-gastronomy by the “Slow Movement.” When we aspire to rightful living, we need to be aware of our food miles and whether the food...

Mar 1, 2012

An interview with retired economist Reimar Kroecher by Joseph Roberts • At press time on February 24, the Calgary Herald published an article by Rebecca Penty entitled “Transport Canada approves Enbridge’s supertanker routes.” Penty notes: “The federal department determined three shipping routes proposed by Enbridge are...

Mar 1, 2012

by Ken Peters • Just so we are clear, I love the planet and believe we are fast destroying it. I believe that debating global warming is a brilliant piece of sleight-of-hand by business. We used to just call it pollution and it was clearly bad; now they’ve got us debating global warming while we continue to rape the land and foul the oceans worse...

Mar 1, 2012

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki • It’s been 20 years since Canada’s East Coast cod fishery collapsed and we still have no recovery target or timeline for rebuilding populations. That’s just one finding in a damning report from a panel of eminent Royal Society of Canada marine scientists. “Sustaining Canada’s Marine...

Mar 1, 2012

ON THE GARDEN PATH by Carolyn Herriot According to Carolyn Steel, author of Hungry City: How Food Shapes our Lives, supplying cities with food is one of the most important issues on the planet. Her TED lecture starts off showing how people living in cities in the past used to feed themselves and what happened when cities expanded. As cities grew, food production...

Feb 8, 2012

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki • The battle lines are drawn and Northern BC’s pristine wilderness is the latest front. With hearings underway into the proposed $5.5-billion, dual 1,172-kilometre Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project to transport bitumen from the Alberta tar sands to Kitimat and imported condensate to dilute it from the coast...