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Bottomfeeder by Taras Grescoe
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In an attempt to appease Canada’s green-minded seafood eaters concerned about eating an endangered species for dinner, Green life reporter Peter Stock dives into a conversation with David Lavigne, marine biologist and professor at the University of Guelph, about the best selling book, Bottom Feeder: how to eat ethically in a world of vanishing seafood.
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Responding to a listener request, Danny Leskiw speaks with University of Toronto Dentistry Faculty Dr. David Locker about a concern that drives some people to consume bottled water at home, in spite of the environmental impact: concerns about health impacts of fluoridation in public water supplies. Dr. Locker dispels myths about health risks of fluoridation, and addresses misinterpretations of the current science.
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Green Energy Act
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This summer, Ontario’s “Green Energy and Economy Act” (Bill 150) was approved by the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Since that time, it has received international recognition as a model policy framework in sustainable energy policy. Declaring a bill as law, however, is only the first of many steps to transforming a policy proposal into legislation. To learn about one of the barriers – configuring the proposal into the existing legal framework – Environmental Law correspondent Naomi Jehlicka speaks with lawyer Elliot Smith, an Associate with Osler, Hoskin, and Harcourt LLP, which is involved with implementing the Act.
True Green Home
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Kim McKay is co-founder Clean Up the World. In partnership with the United Nations Environmental Programme, Clean Up the World mobilizes 35 million volunteers each year in community-led initiatives to clean up, fix up and conserve their local environment.
McKay, who was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2008 for her environmental work, has co-authored a series of True Green environmental how-to books. The latest is entitled “True Green Home: 100 inspirational ideas for creating a green environment at home.” It is published by The National Geographic Society.
Green Living reporter Peter Stock spoke with McKay from Australia about the new book.
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Copenhagen. Photo by jimg944.
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Joanna Dafoe speaks with P.J. Partington, a climate change policy analyst for the Pembina Institute, to discuss Canada’s role in the UN climate change negotiations. Partington deals with climate change policy at the federal and international level. He is a founding member of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition and has previously managed the highly successful Canadian Youth Delegation to the UN climate negotiations.
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Ecological Economist Peter Victor joins us to consider how Canada might be able to make room for steady-state economics within a shifting economic context.
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James Lovelock at a book signing. Photo by askpang.
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We break from our usual format to present a giant of the global environmental movement, British scientist James Lovelock. Lovelock is well known for his scientific work detecting CFC’s and linking these gasses to processes contributing to the ozone hole. This work set in motion global agreements to restrict ozone-depleting gasses and won his group the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Today, however, Lovelock is one of the few Nobel prize winners who can be described as better known for a different idea – not one that won a Nobel prize. In Lovelock’s case, that idea is “the Gaia Hypothesis”. Conceiving of the entire planet as a enormous superorganism, Lovelock gave birth to a new way of thinking about life on earth. In today’s lecture delivered at the Glenn Gould Studios in Toronto, Lovelock presents Gaia’s struggle for survival in a lecture based on his book, “The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning”. Thanks to Danny Leskiw for recording this lecture.
- We feature a traditional giving of thanks by Danny Beaton of the Turtle Clan of Mohawk Nation. Beaton initially presented this address to a press gallery at the Ontario legislature as he made his plea to save Alliston Acquifer from becoming home to a garbage dump.
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Greenpeace campaign logo.
- This week Greenpeace launched their second disruption action on Tar Sands operations. Last week we reported on the first action in which 20 American, Canadian and French activists broke into Shell Canada’s Albian Muskeg River oilsands mine north of Fort McMurray and successfully shut down production for 6 hours. This week, their target was Suncor. As of the night before broadcast, lead Greenpeace Canada officials Bruce Cox and Jessica Wilson were still in custody. We managed to reach spokesperson Mike Hudema in Edmonton.
- Sick of high fuel costs? Sickened by the damage transportation is doing to our environment? In theory biofuels — ethanol, biodiesel, etc. — might proide relief on both these fronts. But theory aside, is it really practical? For four years Blake O’Brien ran his 1985 diesel Mercedes Benz “beater” (his description) on WVO — Waste Vegetable Oil — he scavenged from a nearby Vietnamese eatery. In this telephone conversation, O’Brien lays out the pros and cons of of pollution-free, cost-free motoring.
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