Economics

Queen's Park, Ontario parliament building at night.

Where Do Ontario Political Parties Stand on Environmental Issues?

The past decade has taught environmentalists a hard truth about voting patterns, one that many have been trying valiantly to change: the environment takes a backseat when issues surrounding jobs and the economy are front and centre. Just ask Green Party leader Mike Schreiner. “The year 2007 was a great […]

Crimes against ecology A\J AlternativesJournal.ca

More Reasons to Arrest Harper: Feds Shutter World-Class Libraries

In A\J’s Heroes issue Laura McDonald put Prime Minister Harper on trial for ecocide. Scientists and other commentators are also accusing Harper of ‘libricide’ for the wholesale massacre of numerous world-class federal libraries. The activity has been characterized as a frenzy of knowledge destruction without regard for record keeping or […]

Climate change will mean more snow in Canada. Alternatives Journal. A\J

3 Mistakes the Media are Making about the New Climate Change Report

The fifth Assessment Report (AR5) from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be released later this month, and media are already having a field day with a leaked draft. Unfortunately, they’re getting a lot of it wrong. You may have seen reports about “uncertainty,” lower temperature predictions than […]

Graphic of oil barrels and a train going downhill - A\J AlternativesJournal.ca

Mégantic, Fracking & Money

EARLY SPECULATION on what caused the train disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Québec, in July seems to have settled on the role of the train’s engineer and the railway company’s poor safety record – and penchant for cutting corners. Some attention was also paid to the out-dated technology used for dangerous cargo, […]

The Energy of Slaves book review A\J AlternativesJournal.ca

The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude

Most of us think little about slavery, convinced that this scourge is behind us. Canadian journalist (and A\J columnist) Andrew Nikiforuk’s new book claims otherwise, arguing that servitude has not vanished but merely changed form. Today’s slavery is not confined to Jews or Africans, but encompasses all of us who […]