Complete communities are a development of convenience for those living within them as they provide the necessities for daily needs. Complete communities encompass many options for housing, jobs, walkability, transport, retail, services and amenities while preserving natural features and significant areas of farmland. Historically, compact development was the norm before […]
Research
Business, Interrupted: A Rebuttal
This year Earth Overshoot Day was the earliest ever, falling on July 29 as the day humanity collectively used nature’s resource budget for the entire year. Scientists, environmentalists, activists, and the world’s youth have made loud and clear demands for radical and progressive policies to curb humanity’s environmental footprint.
Direct Air Capture
In the race to remove the trillion tons of excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, the treatments we choose for this problem ought to at least be slightly better than the problem itself. We have proposed solutions on the table, but the carbon dioxide removal (CDR) landscape is complex, risky, […]
Minjimendan, Garden of Remembering
Educational Video Companion: Indigenous Food Security and Farming Dr. Andrew Judge is an Anishinaabe-Irish Scholar and founded the ongoing Indigenous knowledge project, Minjimendan, at rare Charitable Research Reserve. Minjimendan is an Ojibway word meaning “in a state of remembering.” It is a reference to the state of mind in […]
The Green New Deal: Our Best Chance on Climate
The Green New Deal (GND) has gotten a lot of attention since legislation was proposed in the U.S. Congress in February. The term derives from Roosevelt’s New Deal policies during the Great Depression. The Green New Deal, however, addresses today’s two most urgent problems simultaneously: climate change and rising inequality. […]
Edging Forward: Achieving Sustainable Community Development
Edging Forward is a hearty, well-informed plea to Canadians across the country to get off our collective butts and start affecting the change we know is needed. Ann Dale, a senior professor in the School of the Environment and Sustainability at Royal Roads University, provides a re-examination of what sustainability […]
Electrify Everything
If you electrify everything and produce electricity from wind, water, and solar, your power demand goes down 42.5 percent. Most of that is due to the fact that electricity is more efficient than combustion. If I drive a car, the plug-to-wheel efficiency of an electric car is about 80 to […]
We’ve Outgrown Growth
If economic growth is an unmixed blessing, why would there be a need to talk about inclusive, green, clean, smart, responsible, or sustainable growth? In my research, I’ve asked the question: can we in Canada have full employment, no poverty, greatly reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and fiscal balance without relying on economic […]
A Sense of Community
This series, starting with this introductory survey by former A\J editorial intern and recent University of Waterloo Environment grad Semini Pathberiya, is focused on starting to answer the two metaphysical questions raised off the top in anticipation of determining just how big of a boat we’ll need to fit all […]
Local Heroics
With Kyoto’s deadlines looming, Canada faces the likelihood that we will not reach our targets of reducing emissions to six percent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. And Canada is not alone. A number of European countries, Japan and New Zealand are realizing that their emissions continue to rise […]