At 8:30 pm on Saturday, March 31st (when Earth Hour officially began), I was in Whole Foods in Toronto. Whole Foods, the natural, organic, and overall environmentally-conscious grocery store, is of all places where you expect to find people who know what Earth Hour is. But when the building dimmed their lights, my girlfriend and [...]
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Prime Minster Stephen Harper, along with Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, is seeking faster environmental reviews to move projects along at a quicker rate. Under the proposed changes to the review process, the Canadian Federal Government desires to have a single review board for each individual project with a clearly defined and enforceable deadline for [...]
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There has been much controversy surrounding the Northern Gateway Project, a lot of what has to do with the overall environmental impact it will have. Additionally, there has also been a strongly emerging debate as to whether the project is in Canada’s National interest in so far as jobs and economics are concerned. Proponents are [...]
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Daniel Turp, law professor and former Bloc Quebecois MP, along with Julius Grey, a Montreal based lawyer, are suing the Federal Government on its decision to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol Treaty that was given Royal Assent in 2007. Both men are suing the government because having withdrawn from Kyoto “contravenes the principles of [...]
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Last week many legal experts stated that aboriginals who oppose the Northern Gateway Project linking the Alberta oilsands to BC’s Northern coast don’t likely have the power to veto it, although Gordon Christie, a law professor at UBC asserted, “first nations along the route do have powerful claims that just might prevent the state from [...]
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About 10 years ago, I went to Future Shop to buy a new computer monitor. I eventually ended up with an Acer LCD – one which I am extremely happy with to this day. However, I wasn’t too thrilled at the checkout line when I was told I would need to shell out another $12 [...]
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Immediately following Obama’s official thumbs down on TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline proposal, media, businesspeople, politicians and the public on both sides of the political coin began sounding off about the rights and wrongs and pros and cons of the decision. As a Greener Ideal reader I can take a swing in the dark at the [...]
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Plastic shopping bags are progressively being banned around the world. In Britain, the plastic bag is symbolically viewed as actions of a “throw away society.” Even China, who is consistently fingered as one of the world’s two worst polluters, has placed a ban on them. But there are no such widespread bans in either Canada [...]
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One headline stands out among others balking at Harper’s bold move pulling Canada out of the international Kyoto Protocol: “B.C. responds to Kyoto withdrawal with a shrug” (The Globe & Mail, Dec. 14) A shrug? Amidst all the clenched fists and raised neck veins coast to coast– this indifferent, non-vexed gesture? Canadians everywhere are shaming [...]
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Whether we like it or not, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s intention to withdraw Canada from the next round of Kyoto is the right decision. For us to try to curb our green house emissions to 6% below 1990 level is a far too ambitious goal, especially in light of our ongoing oil production in Alberta. [...]
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