Canada's Environmental Voice
Being an environmentalist isn’t for sissies – the statistics are depressing and they turn people off, and the problems often seem to have no end. Anyone feeling this way should read The Transition Companion, which mixes knowledge, action and inspiration to address a range of areas that are central to […]
Concerns for our unsustainable, fossil-fuelled lifestyle underlie Rachel Kaplan and K. Ruby Blume’s book, Urban Homesteading: Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living. The book provides a colourful overview of what each of us can do to build a more self-sufficient future. It explains the principles of homesteading and permaculture, and provides a […]
Irrigation accounts for 70 per cent of the world’s fresh water use, so it has been evident for many years that food security is considered a greater issue, if less immediately critical, than drinking water. Add climate change into the mix, and what was already a difficult global problem becomes […]
The Raw Milk Revolution, by David E. Gumpert, would more accurately be entitled “Milk Wars.” Any attempt to sell raw milk creates a froth of such proportions that we must conclude that it is symptomatic of something bigger.
In The War in the Country, Thomas Pawlick has done a great service. He documents recent tensions and traumas that have battered every rural community across Ontario. Moreover, he reports in the voice of family farmers, small businesses, native people and back-to-the-landers. These stories are worth keeping in your library to […]
At last, here is a book about our common future that we don’t have to be afraid to read. Written by “transition movement” founder Rob Hopkins, The Transition Handbook offers an inspiring and practical blueprint for community-based action in response to the challenges of climate change and peak oil.
Here’s a fact I had never considered: the word “rival” comes from the Latin word rivalis, meaning “those who draw water from the same source.” Rivalry is closely related to the availability of shared resources, and tensions are easily triggered when food and water are at stake.
