In 2001, when Earth Rangers was planning for its new facility, the mandate its members gave to the engineers and architects was that they wanted a building with the lowest environmental impact possible, a building on the cutting edge of eco-friendliness. Ten years later, the Earth Rangers Centre is one of the most energy efficient […] More »
[Editor’s note: On a semi-regular basis, we survey a sample of recent back issues of This to analyze the topics we cover, how truly national our scope is, and the makeup of our contributor roster. See the last survey here.] The new documentary Page One focuses on the state of journalism, its new technologies and decreasing […] More »
The July-August 2011 issue of This Magazine (that’s it on the left there!) is now in subscribers’ mailboxes (subscribers always get the magazine early, and you can too), and will be for sale on better newsstands coast-to-coast this week. Remember that you can subscribe to our RSS feed to ensure you never miss a new article going […] More »
That Gideon Forman is an activist should come as no surprise. The child of New York peace activists, he spent his 1960s childhood handing out leaflets around his Greenwich Village home. What is surprising is that this wiry man in his 40s has become one of Canada’s best environmental strategists and led a group of […] More »
A project that would have provided hundreds of Metis with jobs and affordable housing was quashed on Tuesday, with a 7-6 vote by the Edmonton City Council. And though it may not seem so at first glance, that decision was likely for the best. While the project’s benefits were appealing, there were some deeper problems with […] More »
Could you live on $14,000 a year? Could everyone in Canada? And could we live on $14,000 a year for the rest of history? That’s the sort of uncomfortable, prickly question Peter Victor likes to ask. And the way you answer might say a lot about the future of the planet. That’s because Victor is […] More »
[This article has been updated since its early March 2011 publication; please see 5th paragraph] Imagine a major Canadian city fortunate enough to have both an old-growth forest and wetlands, rich in biodiversity and rare habitats, covering an area almost three times larger than Vancouver’s Stanley Park. Now picture chunks of it bulldozed for subdivisions […] More »
The Claim Last June, the governmental Canadian General Standards Board released proposed standards for organic salmon farming. The goal: to overcome trade barriers and help develop niche markets. But will that organic sticker really mean organic-quality farmed fish, or is it just covering up some nasty production practices? The Investigation Though the standards board is […] More »
The Claim All-natural wood- and corn-based cat litter is a better, greener alternative to traditional clay cat litter. Not only is it biodegradable, but pet owners can flush kitty’s mess down the toilet without getting the guilty conscience that comes with adding a plastic bag per day to already overflowing landfills. But could cat poop […] More »
The Claim Supporters of “upcycling”— turning garbage into funky purses, photo frames, jewelry, and more—say it’s a great way to minimize what’s going into our mountainous landfills. But just how truly green is this practice? The Investigation One company that’s been making waves in the world of upcycling is TerraCycle. Partenered with such big businesses […] More »
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 »