Waste Mismanagement Leads to Plastic-Filled Oceans
Up to 12.7 million tonnes of plastic waste enter the world’s oceans every year, partly due to litter and inadequate waste management. Plastic particles sit in sieves ready for sorting.…
Global Affairs
U.S. energy called on to help West handle Russia
America should rethink overhauling energy export policy in favour of ‘drill, baby, drill’ simply to flex muscle against Russia over Crimean play. Can boosting U.S. energy exports help declaw the…
Europe looks to coal to reduce electricity prices
One year after The Economist signalled an ”unwelcomed coal renaissance”, Bloomberg News reported Jan. 6 that Europe’s lust for lower energy prices was reviving lignite mining for coal-fired generation in…
Ontario to roll out Green Bonds in 2014
GO workers wait ahead of announcement from Ontario government about green bonds (Oct. 30, 2013) Ontario made a small splash in the financial world at the end of October when…
SOPA delayed, but Canada’s Copyright Modernization Act carries on
Sums It Up Quite Nicely. | Image from The Guardian.co.uk 18 U.S. Senators have withdrawn their support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) due to an overwhelmingly negative online…
Saving Solar Power in Germany
German Solar Park. For most of the past winter, Germany’s 1.1 million solar power systems that crisscross the country have sat relatively idle. Overcast skies and a relative lack of…
Globe columnist John Ibbitson talks politics and how the West has won
Globe columnist and author John Ibbitson. A standing room only crowd assembled last night at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto to hear Globe and Mail columnist John Ibbitson speak on…
Ontario should brace for cuts ahead of March 2012 budget
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and Finance Minister Dwight Duncan. Matt Gurney in the National Post lays it on a little thick when he calls the Ontario Liberals – and Premier…
Occupy protests must find a way to politicize while dodging rubber bullets
UC Davis campus police pepper spraying protesters. A second wave of evictions and police violence is being unleashed upon Occupy protesters across North America, and the resiliency of the movement…
Biggest concern with Rick Perry’s debate gaffe? Not his poor memory…
Rick Perry and Ron Paul at the CNBC GOP debate in Detroit, MI. It seems that the biggest take away from the GOP presidential candidate debate last week was that…
Canada rejigs how 254,000 immigrants are selected annually
A new type of immigrant is quickly taking advantage of the Canadian immigration system, and Canada’s Immigration Minister Jason Kenney wants to make it even easier for them to settle…
United Nations close to finalizing a ban on Western e-waste exports
At a recent United Nations environmental conference in Cartagena, Colombia, attended by over 170 represented countries, 50 nations have ratified an amendment to the 1989 Basel Convention which will restrict…
UK ‘Green Deal’ set for launch next Autumn
The Energy Act 2011 was granted royal assent in the United Kingdom on October 18, a move that will pave the way for the Green Deal to come into effect…
New study indicates global warming could cost Canada billions
A new study from the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) is arguing that the effects of a warming world may cost Canada upwards of $5B…
Feel Safer Post-9/11? Feel $92B Safer?
Earlier this week, the non-partisan (but left-leaning) Rideau Institute released a report on Canada’s defence spending since 9/11 entitled The Cost of 9/11 and the Creation of a National Security…
DNA evidence enough to cause concern over invasive Asian Carp
This past week, a multi-agency fishing expedition got underway looking for Asian Carp west of Lake Michigan in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. After catching a 19-pound Asian Carp…
Anti-abortion group does something insane, surprises no one
The American anti-abortion group Repent America has taken their fight against abortion to a whole new and zany level. No longer content to only picket clinics and harass women, they…
‘With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility’: Bloomberg gives fight to Big Coal
Not content to have merely taken on the gun lobby, the tobacco industry, and the anti-gay marriage crowd, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has set his sights on picking…
Thinking about the universe in a post-shuttle world
Coming fast on the heels of Canada’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and the official handing over control from Canadian to US armed forces is another milestone ending in Canadian – actually,…