2012-05-24-120523_Russia_Oil_pipeline_spills_komi16 (1).jpg "I have to see it to believe it," was the reaction to my Russian colleague, Jon Burgwald, when he told me that every spring the rivers in Northern Russia turn black with oil saturated ice. read more
Continue readingTag: climate change
DeSmogBlog: NRDC Report Predicts 150,000 Heat-Related Deaths Due To Climate Change
Melting Ice People WWF Rosa Merk.jpg Chances are, if you're already concerned about being off'ed by climate change, it's probably because you imagine being swept away by a super-charged hurricane, drowned by rising sea levels, starved because of drought-induced crop failure, or set aflame by roaring wildfires. But as it
Continue reading350 or bust: Quebec Shows The Rest Of Canada What Democracy Looks Like
Hundreds of thousands of people poured into Montreal’s streets last night to show their displeasure at the provincial government’s draconian anti-protest law, Loi #78. Watching the action on Twitter last night, it was fascinating (and disturbing) to see the hashtag #casseroles start trending after people, many of them middle-aged and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review – April 27, 2012
Friday, April 27 saw another day of relatively non-contentious debate on the main bill up for discussion in the House of Commons. But there was plenty of reason to question why the focus would be as narrow as it was. The Big Issue That main bill was the Cons’ elder
Continue reading350 or bust: Raised Beds And Riots
Another Monday and my hugelkultur piles aren’t done; in fact they are growing daily; I didn’t realize they were like rabbits, and would start reproducing at a crazy rate! As any of you gardeners out there know, when it’s time to get the garden ready, there’s no rest until it’s
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: A Scientist’s Perspective: On Blogging, Comments … and Online Civil Discourse
Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media.png This is a guest post authored by John Abraham, cross-posted with permission from the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media. A recent posting on The Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media website linked to a very long piece regarding
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your long weekend reading. – While some of us may recognize that there’s little reason to lend much credence to the talking points spewed out by any Con spokespuppet, others have tried to give the benefit of the doubt as long as possible. But Lawrence Martin notes
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne tears into the Cons for being interested solely in developing a junk labour market where both work safety and income security are sorely lacking. And Chris Selley offers his own rebuttal to the “no such thing as a bad job” mentality:
Continue reading350 or bust: Thirty Minutes To Change Your World
The Spring of Sustainability is a three-month series of events that allows callers to interact directly with world-class visionaries by phone or webcast, for free. Since the end of March, this amazing series has brought visionaries like Vandana Shiva, Hunter Lovins, John Robbins, and Van Jones to people all over
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: New National Standards Ask Schools to Teach Climate Change
school-bus.jpg This is a guest post by Juanita Constible, Science and Solutions Director of The Climate Reality Project, cross-posted with permission. As a scientist, I know how important it is for our kids to get a top-notch science education. So it’s extremely significant that a new set of national science standards
Continue reading350 or bust: TED Talk Thursday: The Wisdom Of Cradle To Cradle Design
I’m still up to my ears in hugelkulturing, and hope to share my photos and experience soon. In the meantime, here’s architect William McDonough, co-author of Cradle To Cradle: Remaking The Way We Make Things, discusses what our buildings and products would look like if designers took into account “all
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Andrew Jackson raises an absolutely devastating point to refute anybody trying to use “it’s all about growth!!!” as an excuse for slashing social supports and handing free money to the rich: In this age of austerity, we are constantly told by governments that
Continue reading350 or bust: University Sustainability Initiative Saves Climate And Its Bottom Line, While Canada’s Economy Suffers From Lack of Green Practices
New Jersey’s William Paterson University adopted a climate action plan in 2009 that puts the university on a path to becoming carbon neutral by 2065 – and to reducing their baseline by 50 percent by 2025. A cornerstone of that work is their 3.5 MW solar array that snakes around
Continue reading350 or bust: “Our Answer To Enbridge Is NO”
Ta’Kaiya, 10, lives in North Vancouver and is from the Sliammon First Nation. She traveled on the Yinka Dene Alliance Freedom Train that recently crossed Canada to raise awareness of the threat posed By Enbridge’s tar sands pipeline through coastal First Nations territory. Here she is performing a song she
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Vancouver joins local governments opposed to increase in oil pipelines and tankers
Monday, May 14, 2012 West Coast Environmental Law applauds two of Vancouver’s elected bodies – Vancouver City Council and the Vancouver Parks Board – for passing resolutions to take a formal position on the proposed Kinder Morgan oil pipeline expansion project, and associated oil tanker traffic. West Coast Environmental Law,
Continue reading350 or bust: It’s Gardening Time
It’s a gorgeous sunny May day, and I’m busy building my “hugelkultur” raised garden bed at the edge of the conifer forest which covers some of our one and a quarter acres of Canadian Shield land. A hugelkultur bed is a raised garden bed filled with rotten wood. Anyway, one
Continue reading350 or bust: A Message From Mother
Found on Facebook today: * Get your MOM the BEST present ever for mother’s day… steward your soil, nurture nature, compost your waste, remediate local contamination, share with the innocent and the needy, teach virtues, coordinate with your neighbors and local friends and actively prioritize implementing energy systems that are
Continue reading350 or bust: Take Time To Renew Your Spirit
Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible. ~Marion C. Garretty, quoted in A Little Spoonful of Chicken Soup for the Mother’s Soul * Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers I know, especially my own mom, my mom-in-law, and my step-mom. May
Continue reading350 or bust: Saturday At The Movies
Tonight we’re hosting a singalong Sound of Music event, so in honour of that, and the birthday that it is celebrating, here’s Julie Andrews and the rest of the cast singing Do Re Mi. If you’re in my corner of northwestern Ontario, drop in!
Continue readingFar and Wide: Don’t Accept The Premise
Latest Andrew Coyne column details the inaction from all parties on the climate change file. However, the piece begins with a now common assumption, one that really has no basis in fact, apart from platitudes. In other words I simply don’t accept this premise: If there is one thing on
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