In search of climate solutions before the December 2009 summit
By Bill Kovarik
So this is the speed of light.
We laugh as the solar-powered boat glides silently down the Spree River through the heart of Berlin, Germany. As monumental buildings drift past, our captain, Arno Paulus, points out a series of 64-year-old bullet holes in the stone walls alongside the river.
It’s a sobering moment in the new Berlin, a city where ghosts still flit through the Tiergarten and where hollowed-out churches still draw crowds on the Ku-Damm boulevard.
And it’s because of this past, Paulus says, that Germany has a moral obligation to help change the world. “We can do it,” he says, [...]
Chasing Copenhagen – Part I
Chasing Copenhagen – Part II
In search of climate solutions before the December 2009 summit
By Bill Kovarik
A sobering dinner with one of the worlds leading climate scientists — Stefan Ramstorf of Pottsdam University in Berlin — sets a tone of urgency. As we watch the swans paddle out on a pristine German lake, I think about Ranstorf’s prediction that at least six feet of sea level rise by 2100 is close to inevitable.
He tells us that if the goal is to limit CO2 from fossil fuels to 750 billion tons over the next 40 years, then the “only fair and just principle here is to assign them on a per capita basis.” He asks [...]
Raising Campus Awareness
By Angelique Veerman
The environment was on the minds of UWO students at Clubs Week this fall and EnviroWestern has come up with many projects and events to keep environmental issues at the forefront this year.
EnviroWestern is a campus club that started in 2003 with the goal of making the University of Western Ontario “the most sustainable campus in Canada,” said the club coordinator Holly Stover.
This year EnviroWestern attracted close to 700 new members at Clubs Week. Students are attracted to the group because of a mutual interest in the environment, said Stover.
With two new projects beginning this year and many others carrying on from previous years, EnviroWestern has created many [...]
Anticipating climate change
By Colin Schultz
It’s hard to go through the day without hearing someone mention climate change, how you should be reducing your carbon footprint, or noticing the cute sustainability slogans on t-shirts at the mall.
What’s even harder is trying to wrap your mind around what climate change could really mean for us. The ice caps are deteriorating, and the annual average temperature is on the rise, but it’s hard to gather what that means for regular people.
The way it’s usually framed is by saying there will be more hurricanes, flooding, and mass hysteria.
These predictions are made using climate models.
Dr. Peter Berry studies the human health impacts of climate change for Health [...]
London hospitals say progress being made
By Joel Tiller
(full PDF)
Despite what was written a couple of weeks ago in the London Free Press, London-area hospitals are making progress in reducing their ecological footprint.
In an Oct., 20th article titled Hospitals deemed high polluters, the Free Press took a critical approach to the recent revelation that London’s hospitals are the biggest polluters in the city.
“Healthcare, outside of the tar sands, is the most polluting industry in Canada,” said Dr. John Howard, a pediatrician with London Health Sciences.
“Although the London Health Sciences Centre is a big polluter they are very worried about that … and the reality is that we have to balance the good things we do in [...]
Book series features children and environment
By Maria Ionova
Marghanita Hughes can still clearly remember the day that started it all.
She was resting in the backyard of her suburban home in British Columbia, observing her three children weaving around a group of tall-standing pine trees. She couldn’t help but notice the vibrant butterflies and enormous dragonflies circling the heads of her little ones.
Hughes wondered to herself, ‘what would happen if her children were to magically merge with the surrounding insects?’ She imagined they would take on the form of butterfly girls and dragonfly boys. She picked up her pencil and sketched an image of a girl with butterfly wings. These were to become the main characters of [...]
Port Hope poised for cleanup
After More than 70 Years of Nuclear Contamination, Port Hope is Poised for a Cleanup
By: James Jackson
“Those people should be moved, (all) sixteen-thousand of them,
from Port Hope and another town built for them.”
– Helen Caldicott, Speaking at The University of Western Ontario
October 16th, 2009
The nuclear accidents of the past are well documented, and are headlined by the 1986 nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl and the 1979 near-meltdown of the reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. The coverage of nuclear accidents in Canada is sparse, but that does not mean they haven’t happened.
Port Hope’s nuclear legacy goes back almost eighty years. Radium was extracted from uranium ore in Port Hope starting [...]
A new buzz for London restaurants
By Jess Brady
A London ON restaurant is taking a do-it-yourself approach when it comes to making a naturally sweet treat.
Garlic’s of London quite literally set downtown London abuzz this spring when they installed their very own beehive on top of their restaurant in order to harvest their own honey supply.
The move is anything but conventional as Garlic’s is the first establishment in London to take on such a project. But it does speak to the commitment of the restaurant’s management and head chef to use as much locally produced food as possible.
Since Chef Wade Fitzgerald came to Garlic’s just over two years ago, using local produce and foods has become [...]
London Hydro brings energy efficient lighting
By Laura Schober
For small, commercial businesses, reducing their carbon footprint is not always a top priority. But London Hydro is pleased so far with the positive response it has received towards the Power Savings Energy Blitz, an energy conservation program that provides environmentally efficient lighting retrofits to local businesses.
Hans Schreff, London Hydro’s project manager of conservation activities, says that the majority of participating businesses did not initially have the resources or money to make the switch to the latest energy saving options.
“We like to call them the mom and pops or the storefronts and those are typically a very difficult segment of our marketplace to get involved in conservation measures. [...]