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September-October 2010

How the web blurs the line between truth and falsehood

Navneet AlangWebsite

Though you might reasonably condemn the modern internet for a variety of reasons—ruining attention spans, turning all public discourse into a shouting match, or insulting your sexual prowess with badly punctuated mass emails—one thing the medium could always reasonably claim was its potential for spreading truth. Decentralized and egalitarian, the web seemed to herald the […] More »
September-October 2010

Out of the media glare, the honeybee die-off still threatens the food chain

Claudia CalabroWebsite

Stories of Colony Collapse Disorder swarmed the mainstream media in 2006. Report after report claimed pollinating bees were dying en masse, abandoning their hives, and putting our entire modern food system at risk. Today we rarely hear about CCD, even though the number of bee colonies that survive each winter continue to drop at abnormal rates. […] More »

EcoChamber #20: This Thanksgiving, participate in a 350.org climate action where you live

emily hunter

As of today it’s official: every province and territory across Canada is on board with the 350.org climate movement. This Sunday, 350.org events will be held throughout Canada and around the world. Last year, we saw the beginning of this movement. On Oct. 24th, 2009, several thousand youth took over Parliament Hill in Ottawa to give […] More »

Wednesday WTF: Tar sands oil — now with 30 times more dead birds

Graham F. Scott

The Alberta tar sands are a famously bad place to be a migratory bird. Turns out it’s even worse than we thought. From the Toronto Star: A new study says birds are likely dying in oilsands tailings ponds at least 30 times the rate suggested by industry and government. […] The 14-year median, including raptors, […] More »
July-August 2010

How Canwest helped Shell Oil greenwash its tar sands business

Raina DelisleWebsite

Shell Canada’s operations in Alberta’s oil sands are clean and green, and simply the victim of nasty rumours spread by environmentalists trying to tar the company’s reputation. That is, if you believe the “six-week Canwest special information feature on climate change, in partnership with Shell Canada.” Canada’s largest media company teamed up with the oil […] More »

Wednesday WTF: At climate change meeting, delegates talk about talking

jesse mintz

Negotiators are currently engaged in talks in Germany to discuss the agenda for the year-end environmental summit in Mexico. The Mexico meeting is intended to broker a new international agreement to replace the soon-to-be expired (but long since overshadowed) Kyoto Protocols. Sounds promising; but before we get too ahead of ourselves, let’s try and understand what […] More »
July-August 2010

As green-collar jobs boom, Canada is mired in the tar sands

Jessica Leigh JohnstonWebsite

Canada and Abu Dhabi share one big trait: an economy addicted to oil. But while Canada doubles down on the tar sands, the emirate quietly plans a renewable energy hub in a gleaming zero-emissions city in the desert. Can either of these bets pay off? Looking out over the site of Masdar City in Abu […] More »
May-June 2010

6 tips for protesting the G8 and G20 in style and safety

Gillian Bennett

From June 25–27, the world’s most influential political and economic leaders will descend upon Muskoka and Toronto for the G8 and G20 summits. Joining them will be thousands of protesters advocating everything from anti-globalization to climate justice. If you want to get in on the dissent, check out this advice for emerging activists from Mike […] More »

Canadian Water Summit 2010: Q&A with Tony Maas of WWF-Canada

Alixandra GouldWebsite

[Editor’s note: Alixandra Gould is attending the 2010 Canadian Water Summit on Thursday, June 17. In advance of that, she interviewed a few of the experts who will be speaking at the event about some of the key issues in current Canadian water policy. Yesterday she contributed a report on the sorry state of water infrastructure […] More »
May-June 2010

How bad science stifles rational debate about wind power

Andrea McDowellWebsite

Wind energy ought to be a shoo-in. Yes, the infrastructure costs a lot of money but the fuel is free and plentiful, turbines produce no emissions, and no mountaintops need to be removed. And unlike nuclear power, no long-term radioactive waste needs to be stored for millennia. Yet, bizarrely, small groups of committed neighbourhood activists […] More »

Book Review: George Monbiot's Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning

daniel tseghay

[Editor’s note: Heat has been out for some time, but given it’s Earth Day, and also given the recent shutdown of so much air traffic after the Eyjafjallajokull volcano eruption, we thought it wasn’t a bad time to revisit it here.] Few issues require as much research as climate change science. You have to know […] More »