Last Wednesday, the following ‘letter to the editor’ appeared in Toronto’s Now Magazine: Disabled stay home I am a person with a disability who does not use Wheel-Trans, as others need it more and my needs have been better met by riding the subway, which is conveniently located half a block down my street. It’s […] More »

Greenpeace predicts world leaders will be making a big apology in 11 years if they don’t step up at the Copenhagen climate summit next week. A new line of giant ads in the Copenhagen airport features Harper, Obama, and 6 other serious looking, digitally aged world leaders saying, “I’m sorry. We could have stopped catastrophic […] More »

I came out of Tuesday night’s Munk Debate on Climate Change feeling kind of funny. Given that NASA scientists and others tell us we have about seven years to cap global greenhouse gas emissions before “runaway climate change”—and the next couple weeks may establish whether that happens or not—it strikes me that a debate about […] More »

The results from a recent study seems to perfectly illustrate Canada’s increasing confusion on climate change. While Canadians agreed that “climate change is the planet’s defining crisis”, when given a list of arguments used on either side of the climate change debate, there was a surprising amount of belief that both arguments held some truth. […] More »

UBC’s student union, the Alma Mater Society (AMS), filed a complaint with the United Nations this week accusing Canada and B.C. of violating the 1976 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. By signing this treaty, the AMS says, the Canadian government agreed to eventually make post-secondary education free and accessible to all. Article […] More »

Canada has been a hotspot for international climate activists this week. We’ve got Al Gore in Toronto, warning among other things that using tar sands oil takes away any advantages of greening our vehicle fleet. Then there’s Britain’s George Monbiot speaking this Saturday at the University of Toronto (2-4PM) on the “Countdown to Copenhagen: Who […] More »

Sometimes it seems that no minority sits on a higher horse than people with disabilities—give an inch and they want a mile. I bet that’s what creator Ryan Murphy,  executive producer Brad Falchuck and the rest of the creative muscle behind Glee thought, in their most private moments, once they started hearing the complaints from […] More »

Those who still support Canada’s military presence in Afghanistan should read Malalai Joya’s new book, A Woman Among Warlords. Joya was suspended in 2007 from the Afghan Parliament for denouncing the presence of warlords in government. However, Joya doesn’t just stop at opposing the corrupt government of Hamid Karzai or the Islamic Fundamentalism of the […] More »

In the best example of Catch 22 that I can think of since, well, Catch 22, it seems our prime minister, Stephen Harper, will not be attending the international climate change talks in Copenhagen in December because it is unlikely any final deal on climate change will be met—though that is partly thanks to months […] More »

I was sitting in my meditation practice working on quieting my thoughts when it hit me—religion could stop climate change. Well perhaps it wasn’t such a stroke of enlightenment, as it was keeping my ears open.  In this style of Buddhism led by Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thích Nhất Hạnh, the practice contains the reading […] More »

Three years ago, at least partly a result of an unusually warm winter, climate change broke through mainstream media as a major issue. Today, I’m experiencing a bit of a déjà vu. It is mid-November and yesterday there was a high of 18 degrees in Toronto. While we might relish a balmy November day after […] More »