Ecocast (UK 3)
Just got back from a couple weeks away from civilization and I swear I must have caught something. The fever's passed but I'm pretty sure I'm still hallucinating. At least that's how I've felt catching up on the eco news. First a bill looking to ban one of the top families of chemicals on my hate-on list (phthalates) passed third reading in parliament. What happened here? I'm used to Canadian politicians dragging their mukluks in the slush on this front, making loads of promises to investigate chemicals but sputtering out on the delivery.
Now, if all goes well...
Adria's got her new Ecocast up! She covers this week's topic: The green scoop on the Red Rocket – measuring up public transit.
Adria's third and last Ecocast from her London travels is now up! Check it out!
Ecocast (UK 3) [2.37 MB, mp3]
Adria's second-of-three Ecocasts from her UK trip is now up! Check it out!
Ecocast (UK 2) [3.3 MB, mp3]
NOW's Adria Vasil visits London, UK., and gives her view of the green scene across the pond!
Ecocast (UK - Day 1) [992kb, mp3]
Another year, another concert out to save our souls. Don't get me wrong, I love anyone that dreams in peace signs and rainbows and I also love a good mainstream rock out session now and then but the cynic within couldn't help but sneer a little about Al Gore's eco fest. How much good could the Live Earth concerts do? I mean, did Live 8 really "make poverty history"? Did Live Aid end African famines? What about the struggling farmers helped by Farm Aid? Still struggling no doubt (though at least those guys keep the message alive with a...
Sorry Ecoholic readers, I had a mental lapse in last week's column and called methane the stinkiest of greenhouse gases. I was clearly high on some chemicals offgassing from my desk at work. Methane is in fact odourless.
(with apologies to readers without pets. I swear the next blog will be entirely pet-free)
Who knew feeding your in-house animals could be so complicated? Or guilt-inducing. I was floored when pet food industry critic and vet Elizabeth Hodgkins berated me for giving my cat dry food while researching my article last week. Of course, I tried to squirm out of any culpability. "But the bag says it's all natural. Organic even. How could it be bad?"
Looking back at that conversation, it's as though everything I ever preached about greenwashing and the flagrant abuse of the word natural...
As soon as you start approaching Vancouver you know you’re up for a different vibe. There’s no downtown expressway to separate its people from their waterfront (a la the Gardiner). No parkway to scar up vast swaths of greenspace (hello, DVP). The dense treescape reaches high above storefronts (unlike the scrawny excuse for urban foliage that Toronto forgets to water). Oh, and yoga mats and herbal mists are offered to every guest at my Robson St. hotel. Note to self: why haven’t I been here before?
The sky is bursting with sunlight and the whole town seems to be celebrating...
I hop off the train in Ottawa to find a perfect day. The sun is shining, the sky cloudless - and there’s water dripping down my leg. What the? My evidently poorly sealed water canister has completely emptied itself in my bag, all over my marked up copy of Ecoholic, not to mention a week’s worth of business cards and eco flyers from the road. Nothing a good air drying and a margarita can’t fix.
I toss my bag at the hotel, wrap the book in a towel then head out to eclectic Byward market to cozy up to Ottawa’s...
We've received numerous letters and calls from trail users in the Crothers' Flats about Kyla Dixon-Muir's piece in our April 26-May 2 issue. We understand concerns raised by some readers that the article tarnished with a broad brush bikers in the Crothers' Flats who keep to the managed trails.
But clearly, others who ride the Flats love their stunts. And judging by the elaborate obstacles built, are quite handy with a chainsaw.
The Don is a resource for all to enjoy, although it's the feeling of some nature lovers that ecologically sensitive areas like Crothers (and yes, the Flats,...
I always thought dawn was the end of a good night, not the start of a new day, which might explain my phobia of Breakfast Television. And despite my vocal warnings about the possibility of finding drool on my chin and muttering nonsensical eco gibberish if I were ever to be interviewed before 9am, here I am dragging my butt out of a hotel bed at first light and making my way to Global TV in Montreal. Why did I give up coffee again?
The interview is over before I can even start sending earlobe signals to my family in...
Rolling into the weekend, I was revved up for a little book signing, maybe a little interviewing, but I had no clue I would end up chilling with two living icons of the environmental movement in one day, let alone in one room. Okay, so we weren’t exactly chilling per se. But we were in the same room.
Packing up at the office on Friday, NOW editor Alice Klein offers me a ticket to join her at the Al Gore talk at the Green Living Show the next morning and I jumped. The cynical environmentalist within that keeps a watchful...
NOW's Brenda Marshall and David Logan celebrate the release of fellow NOWnik Adria Vasil's Ecoholic book.
NOW entertainment editor Susan G. Cole works the crowd at the Ecoholic book launch at the Gladstone.
So the Ecoholic book hit stores this week and I have to say it's really exciting to see the little-column-that-could in mass circulation across the country! So far reaction to it has been incredibly welcoming and positive from Charlottetown to Whitehorse. I spoke with CBC radio affiliates in 11 cities coast-to-coast in a seriously intense but invigorating 3-hour timeframe on Friday and I have to say, it's just cool to think what started as a tiny column wedged in the middle of NOW is being yakked about all the way up in Yellowknife!
Even more surprising is the reaction people...
We've got a big issue tomorrow - The Green Issue and HotDocs. NOW's ecohottie Adria Vasil is on the cover with her new book, Ecoholic and NOW co-founder Alice Klein has her doc, Call of the Hummingbird screening this weekend at HotDocs. Both topics are getting some extra love online with HotDocs getting its blog on, in addition to the reviews and listings in-issue.
In other nowtoronto.com news, Join our flickr group and check out the green themed photos from our monthly competition. Give the photographer props and let 'em know NOW sent ya.
Now... back to my...
Are we losing the battle to become a bikeable city? Well, only 48 kilometres of bike lane have been built in a 1,000-plus kilometre plan. Do the math.
When you look at what other cities are accomplishing - Bogota closes its core to cars every Friday and on holidays; Chicago has bike racks on all its buses; Montreal two-way lanes - it's hard not to feel a little deflated by the state of cycling in the Big Smoke.
The car-first mentality at City Hall - we don't even incorporate cycling in our transportation thinking - needs to be radically turned...
It's been a week and a half since this headline: Aerospace industry to get $900M boost.
But I just can't stop thinking about it. Which believe me is a drag because my first ever film (Call of the Hummingbird) is debuting at Hot Docs in two weeks and that's what I should be thinking about.
But back to Harper. Here's the deal. I think he has accidentally demo-ed a way to direct say, at least $100 Billion of government and government-leveraged private dollars towards conservation and clean energy over the next five years without even disturbing a little hair on...
It's not even April yet and green versions of nearly every magazine are pouring onto newsstands - and I'm snapping them up whenever I spot them. 125 ways to Go Green! Eco Living In Style! You get the point. Even Sports Illustrated is talking climate change (and not just because it gets girls to wear bikinis more often).
Yes, it's all very encouraging when it comes to bringing environmental consciousness to the mainstream, but some of the flagrant misinformation and greenwash on shelves is enough to make a person swear off the word "green" forever.
Case in point: Toronto-based Wish...
Are there hormone disruptors leaching from my metallic water bottles?
Came across a disturbing little tidbit tucked at the back of the Washington-based Environmental Working Group’s report on bisphenol A in canned food and beverages that I just didn't have room for this in last week's column.
Yes, we now know about the hormone disruptors leaching from food and beverage cans and yes, most Ecoholic readers will have heard about something fishy (namely, the same hormone disruptor, bisphenol A) leaching from hard, clear polycarbonate water bottles. But I nearly jumped out of my seat when I spotted my favourite...
