Emily is former A\J web editor and a graduate of Environmental Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. Emily is an urban homesteader who tries to live as plastic-free, local and organic as possible, and can be intense about it. 

Co-chair of the Waterloo Region Food Systems Roundtable, Ellen Desjardins writes extensively about food security issues. Her current research explores how people respond to a changing food environment. 

Eliane Morin is a Calgary-based freelance writer and recipient of the 2007 Brenda Strathern Writing Prize. She has been frequenting inner-city markets since she was four years old. 

Debbe Crandall is one of Canada’s foremost environmental ­crusaders and the executive director of the Save the Oak Ridges Moraine Coalition. She lives on the moraine. Robert Gibson, the chair of Alternatives’ editorial­ board and a professor at the University of Waterloo, has a special interest in sustainable

David Richard Boyd is an adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University, and is the author of Dodging the Toxic Bullet: How to Protect Yourself from Everyday Environmental Health Hazards.

During his 21 years as a staff reporter at the Toronto Sun, David Kendall covered everything from rape n’ pillage to Mrs. Brown’s cockroach infestation. His current novel, Death Wish, is set mainly in Nauru, a place he visited in 2007.