canada

When Lighting Your Water on Fire Isn't a Magic Trick
Jessica Ernst lives in the village of Rosebud, Alberta, East of Calgary. EnCana, a big oil & gas company, is operating close to her house. The photo above speaks for itself. Read on for her story....

It gets harder every day to figure out who to vote for in Ontario if you are a TreeHugger type. It used to be New Democratic Party turf; then the Green Party came along, but one can't overlook the Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty, which has pushed every TreeHugger button including:

Health: Banned trans fats in schools, smoking in cars with children, lawn pesticides and pit bulls. Planning: Cleaned up the planning act and brought in the Green Belt. Electricity: Banned incandescent bulbs, removed rules against clotheslines, closing coal fired power plants (or trying, anyways) Cycling: Eliminated...

Almost fifty years ago, President Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth opened the St. Lawrence Seaway, built to generate electricity and open Great Lakes ports to to ocean-going ships. 100 square miles of land, including six villages, home to 6,500 people, were submerged, "sacrificed at the altar of shipping and hydro-electric power," as Peter Gorrie of the Star puts it. Robert Moses on the American side, and Robert Saunders on the Canadian, bulldozed it through.

"In the '50s there was no such thing as protests," Jane Craig of the Lost Villages Hist...

According to Sylvain Charlebois of the Kenneth Levene Graduate School of Business, writing in the Globe and Mail, “Food-crisis investigators in the U.S. are in the dark. With more than 1,000 cases of illness reported in 41 states (and two deaths reported in Texas), officials from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention now believe tomatoes may not be the only culprits in the national salmonella outbreak. Some hot peppers are suspect, too.”

Charlebois notes that “Tomatoes are a logistical nightmare because ...

Image from jpctalbot

At the risk of gross oversimplification, let me start by revealing the Climate Change Risk report's two main takeaways: Avoid living in most parts of Africa if you're especially risk averse (75 percent of the world's 20 most vulnerable countries are found there) and move to Canada to best hedge your bets.

The Comoros Islands: most at risk
The riskiest location by far, as

The idea behind waste gasification is an attractive one: Take trash and subject it to extreme heat under anoxic conditions to produce syngas, a blend of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which can be used as a fuel source. Despite its promise, its high operating costs and relative inefficiency had heretofore limited its applicability in most countries.

Yet, as reported by Technology Review's Peter Fairley, that is all set to change with the approval of North America's first gasification plant ...

There are not a lot of choices when one decides to bicycle across Canada; there is really just the two-lane Trans-Canada Highway that is shared by every transport truck, sober or drunk driver or cyclist trying to cross the country, like Daniel Hurtubise and his two kids were, along with Robert Carrier, who left his six kids at home. Hurtubise had juvenile Diabetes, but was riding "to show that the disease does not stop people from living an active lifestyle." But cars do, very effectively; They were all struck from behind by a Honda Civic, and Hurtubise and Carrier were killed, while the kids were sent to hospital. The

tailing pond, Alberta tar sands

The National Post started a new "eco-page" this morning, which is pretty funny when the lead story on the front page is an admiring portrait of "eco-Judas" Patrick Moore. I have had a love/hate relationship with the Post since it started; founded by Conrad Black as a conservative voice, it hired the best writers and designers and revitalized the newspaper industry in Canada.

Eco-page notwithstanding, I am cancelling it today. We complain often about the abomination that is the

Image courtesy of D&J Huber via flickr

A festering problem Lloyd reported on last year -- the invasion of British Columbia's forests by voracious mountain pine beetles -- has taken a drastic turn for the worse, according to a new study published in the journal Nature. Werner Kurz of Natural Resources Canada found that the beetles are turning large tracts of forests into carbon sou...

As we reported before, many solar power farms are planned in the province of Ontario, Canada. Major players include SunEdison of Baltimore and Skypower of Toronto, who just broke ground on a solar project, and OptiSolar, a California manufacturer of thin-film silicon solar cells (the composite image above is of their Sarnia project).

The Toronto Star reports that the province now has contracts for 407 megawatts, while it initially predicted that it would get 88. We suppose that's enough to call their progr...

EcoCabs has just arrived in Toronto, Canada. The 3-wheel vehicles are powered mostly by the driver's legs, but there's also an electric-motor assist to help them reach a cruising speed of up to 12 kph (7.5 mph) in city streets. Perfect for short distance trips, especially if you are a tourist (free rides will be offered during summer street festivals and special events), EcoCab claims to exceed the road safety standards that apply to it. "They will ride in the right-most lane and in bike lanes, where the average speed of traffic is 6 km per hour," says Will Kozma, president of GO Mobile Media, the company that sells advertising on the ad-supported cabs....

After Beijing's Cat Death Camps, here come the Seal version in Arkhangelsk, Russia.

Seal hunting is controversial, and there's a lot of propaganda coming from both sides. One says that there's nothing special with it, it's traditional and profitable, no big deal. The other claims it's particularly cruel, citing independent studies that show that almost 80% of sealers don't check if the seal is dead before skinning it, and that half of them get skinned alive. But regardless of where the truth lies, we think most p...

The hair on your legs, silly! If there is a way to improve on leg-waxing, then Moom has done it. This Canada-based product works just like regular wax in theory, only its better because its nicer on your skin, Certified Organic and has reusable applicator strips. We aren’t here to argue the merits or politics of hair removal, but if you’re in the market (male or female) for an easy, eco-way to rid yourself of hair then Moom is a great option. ...

Seventeen grassroots environmental organizations across North America are receiving funds from a $450,000 pool of grants allocated by the Conservation Alliance.

The Alliance is 130 member outdoor industry companies who make a yarly contribution to grant fund. Since its founding in 1989, by industry leaders REI, Patagonia, The North Face, and Kelty, the Conservation Alliance has supported environmental organisations to the tune of $6.5 million. Thi...

Brent Comber's Alder Collection, Vancouver

All TreeHuggers know about the 100 mile diet, but watch out for the next trend, the 100 mile style, first heard (by us) via the Globe and Mail. We quote: "Consumers are becoming increasingly aware o...

William Vanderson, Getty Images

The idea of edible packaging has been around for a while; TreeHugger has shown a few starch-based ideas. However, most break down in the presence of water so they have to be made fairly thick. At the University of Manitoba, scientists have mixed pea starch with beeswax to make a thin film edible packaging that is water resistant, so instead of throwing out the wrapper 'round your Big Mac, you can just cut it up and add some salad dressing. No word from inventor ...

Image: Dave BergeronIt’s that time of year again in Montréal when even the deepest and coldest snow drifts yield to the warm, melting power of the sun: the cyclists are out in full force, outdoor cafés make a comeback and people start smiling at each other on the street again. It’s also the time when the butterflies go free at the Montréal Botanical Garden during the 11th annual edition of the Butterflies Go Free (Papillons en liberté) event, which began in February 21 and will run until April 27th, this year f...

Creative commons: the Toe Stubber

Here is a shocker- all of the automakers building or selling in Canada have asked the Government to look at raising the price of gasoline as a way to cut emissions. They note that it is pretty hard sell cars with greater fuel efficiency to people who don't want them, so just raising the standards won't work unless gas prices make fuel efficient cars more attractive. They quote a 2001 study by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences:
"There is a market inconsistency between pressing automotive manufacturers for improved fuel economy from new vehicles on the one hand, a...

We know we're already renegging on the New Year's resolution or Lent promise or whatever we made about devoting blog space to the Black Lips, but here's three of the four of them playing a set of individual numbers for...

Before they started cracking down a few years ago, Hawaii was used by US and Asian pedophiles alike as a hub in Southeast Asia's several-billion-dollar-a-year child sex tourism industry. Things have gradually been getting better, but that doesn't make it...

Dear Vice, I teased my little brother a lot when he was younger. And even though he's grown up to hate me and now refuses to acknowledge my existence, it was worth it just to see the veins pop out...

Everyone's favourite champion beatsmith, Ghislain Poirier has been laying down yet more tuff blends for you. Including this banger featuring Wayne & Collie Buddz from Bounce Le Remix Vol.3.

L'il Wayne ft.Birdman / Collie Buddz -Dopeman (Ghislain Poirier remix)

Buy more heat here

Mr.Poirier has sent me a cracking mix up of all of his recent carnival bassbin bangers in one handy bite sized mix. Fun for all the family. Except your mum.

Dope man is still sounding very heavy.

download Ghislain Poirier - Bastard Bass Mix

1. "No More Blood" [ft. Face-T]
2. "Road Ride Riddim"
3. "East Montreal Riddim"
4. "Propaganda Riddim"