From the monthly archives:

January 2009

Wheat Board offers ecological stimulus

January 31, 2009 by Ryan Slifka

Yesterday the Canadian Wheat Board announced that it will now offer funding incentives to prairie farmers who wish to make the transition from conventional to organic:
“Growing consumer demand for organic products creates new opportunity for western Canadian farmers,” said CWB president and CEO Ian White. “We have committed to assisting organic farmers in a number [...]

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New Resilient Digest

January 30, 2009 by Mike Soron

The New Resilient Digest contains links from around the web — news, information, stories and media on food, energy, and economics, and a quick summary of the week gone by.

Is America on the Brink of a Food Crisis? The question seems almost quaint, now. President of the Land Institute, Wes Jackson, wrote a New York [...]

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“Wild Cities” – EcoMetropolitanism’s ambitious vision

January 29, 2009 by Mike Soron

Every trip I take to Vancouver I am overwhelmed by the city’s urban space and natural surroundings. Perhaps it is because I call bland and poorly-planned Calgary my home — but, I’m not alone. North America — and especially its planning community and urbanophiles — seem to be infatuated with Vancouver. Simply put, the City [...]

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Victory gardens for food security

January 29, 2009 by Robert Clegg

Not long ago a large portion of the food we consumed as a nation was actually grown right in our own back yards. Millions of Canadians each spring ritualistically planted their vegetable gardens which yielded a bounty of fresh vegetables fit for their dining room tables. During World War II millions of Americans [...]

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Raw milk on trial in Ontario

January 28, 2009 by Ryan Slifka

Michael Schmidt, a farmer from near Durham Ontario, has been in and out of court over the past fifteen years due to the fact that he has been selling unpasteurized milk products, including most recently raw milk cheese. Schmidt now faces 20 charges for violating the Ontario Milk Act by selling raw milk cheese to [...]

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The Suzuki Diaries: Europe’s energy alternatives

January 26, 2009 by Ryan Slifka

A few nights ago, I caught an episode of the Nature of Things with Canadian environmental guru David Suzuki. This episode was titled “the Suzuki Diaries” and documents David and his daughter Sarika throughout Europe on their search for alternative, sustainable energy. Highly recommended, if only to visualize how far behind Canada really is. The [...]

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Public libraries: the recession barometer?

January 25, 2009 by Ryan Slifka

One of the few institutions that thrive in recession times is the public library. Understandably, public library use goes up when people can’t afford to buy books, or have a lot of spare time on their hands thanks to being laid off (or both).
In Calgary, the land of the boom, the public library system had [...]

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Trolley cars: the cost effective (and old-timey) transit solution

January 24, 2009 by Ryan Slifka

It seems as if every time an extension to the Calgary light rail transit system is proposed, there is either some money-related outrage, or community protest. Truth be told, light rail transit is an expensive endeavor in any city, and Calgary’s (and Alberta’s) fiscal hawkishness is a real obstacle to any meaningful progress in making [...]

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Bird flu outbreak in BC’s Fraser Valley?

January 23, 2009 by Mike Soron

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is looking into some sickly turkeys at a 50,000-strong bird farm in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley. Early testing suggests H5-type avian influenza. Several nearby farms have been placed under quarantine.
H5N1 influenza, a highly pathological subtype, killed nearly 250 people in Asia, Africa and Europe in ‘04 and ‘05 and [...]

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Canadian wheat and the biofuels lobby

January 23, 2009 by Ryan Slifka

While the world is potentially on the cusp of a new “green revolution”, Canadians should be weary of our government’s supposedly “green” policies.
Bill C-33, an act to amend the 1999 Environmental Protection act to require mandatory 5% biofuel content in diesel, for example, was given royal assent last year. In proposing the bill, the [...]

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Investigation into listeriosis outbreak hits early criticism

January 22, 2009 by Mike Soron

Perhaps you recall the listeriosis outbreak in Canada last year. The outbreak, connected to Maple Leaf Foods, was responsible for twenty deaths and 53 confirmed cases of listeriosis.
Gerry Ritz, some jackass Tory MP for Battlefords-Lloydminster, was reappointed Agriculture Minister by the government despite doing an appallingly irresponsible job managing the crisis. He was quoted [...]

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Fast food in UK urged to adopt calorie counts on menus

January 21, 2009 by Mike Soron

According to the Guardian UK, fast food restaurants in the UK are being urged to put calorie counts on their menus.
Men in Britain now get a quarter of their food energy intake outside the home, while women get 21%. A number of chains, including KFC, Starbucks and McDonald’s, already offer nutritional information on websites [...]

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The Return of Depression-moderne & New Social Art

January 20, 2009 by Mike Soron

ReadyMade magazine asked five artists to design posters inspired by the state-sponsored art of the First Great Depression. The results are striking, capturing a renewed sensibility, lost in the decades that followed the 30s. Do art and the state have a role to play in a new resilience?
American art has never been so liberally [...]

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