When You’ve Got to Go

It wasn’t all that long ago that we needed to use an outhouse to do our business. Even my mom remembers using newspaper instead of toilet paper in the 50s because it wasn’t a common household item at the time. Living in rural Ghana during the summer of 2007 brought me back in time to Montreal’s pre-indoor toilet era. My compound had one communal latrine (a tiny closet of a room with a hole in the ground and…

Achtung! Germany getting greener beyond doors of Klimahaus museum

When Bob Geldof opened the world’s first climate change museum in northern Germany two years ago, he was surprised by two guests, a man from Niger and a man from Samoa whose countries feature prominently in The Journey, the main exhibit at the Klimahaus. Geldof, a well-known human rights activist and music producer, spoke about water, from rising sea levels to desertification, and how these global warming problems will lead to climate migration. People like Foua from Samoa and Ibrahim from Niger would be forced to abandon their homes and homelands because their island is being flooded or there simply isn’t enough water available to survive where their people have lived for centuries…

Crazy Cameroon

Unbiased reporting is very difficult when it comes to the environment. How can one deliver a balanced report when ultra-rich investment corporation ‘X’ forgoes the environmental impact assessment, and goes ahead with project destroy-precious-habitat-for-profit-again? Unfortunately, this is a tale of that exact old story. The happy ending will come from a simple click to share your voice. It’s easy to feel heroic these days.

Das Klimahaus ist gut! World’s first climate change museum gives visitors the 8th degree

They say seeing is believing, but at Germany’s imaginative and revealing climate change museum, they believe experience is even better. Opened in June 2009 in the northern German port city of Bremerhaven, the UNESCO-sponsored museum is the first of its kind. The journey exhibit takes people through a range of the world’s climate zones: mountain glaciers, scorching desert, muggy rainforest and…

Asshole Birds

What do you say about killing another’s baby, replacing it with your own and forcing the parents to cancel out their genetic contribution to the world line in favor of your own. One side is obviously a bunch of dummies, and the other, vindictive jerks taking advantage of maternal niceties…

Even if it were the last election on Earth (Day): politicians ignore the environment, but do Canadians?

Ten days before the election, on April 22, Earth Day gives Canadians and people around the world the chance to focus on the environment. But the question is: does anyone really care? If you follow the election campaign, the answer would be no. The funny thing is that back in 1970, it was a Wisconsin politician, Gaylord Nelson, who started Earth Day. But even though our leaders aren’t talking about it, get back to reality and you’ll find the environment is front and centre. Start at the computer…

The ridiculously skyrocketing price of fuel

I was shocked and appalled last week when the skyrocketing price of gasoline topped $1.40 per litre. This is a 40% increase in less than two years! I had already complained bitterly I had already complained bitterly about rising gasoline prices and the underhandedness with which gas companies treat their consumers less than two years ago when the price hit $1.06! The rate of inflation is set at roughly..

What in Tar-nation? Alberta’s Tar Sands at the Dinner Table

We can’t talk about it at the holiday dinner table because one of the kids picked himself up and got himself out of debt by getting a job there. Sure, we’ve touched on it briefly after a couple of mojitos, but when I first learned that my brother-in-law was a mechanic for the larger-than-life trucks that speckle Fort McMurray, Canada’s oil-country, it put a frog in my throat, especially since I used to be heavily associated with Greenpeace, a leading campaigner against the Alberta tar sands. Getting into the pros and cons of the Alberta operation would lead…

Voting for the environment isn’t just for hippies

It’s wonky out there. It’s warm, it’s frigid, it smells like poo, and tulips are trying to push through semi-frozen dirt. In other words, it’s good ‘ol spring weather. The frequency of elections in Canada is almost as reliable as the changing of the seasons, and the parties we have to vote for are warm, frigid, smell like poo, and try to push up through frozen fodder. So who gets your vote?

The CBC has a vote compass tool to check which party most represents your values…

The right to be outside

Dirt, mud, snow, ice, slush, branches, fences, sand, sunburns, bruised knees, leaves, hills, fields, bikes, shovel and pail, hide and seek, skates, tag, slide, skipping ropes, skateboard, ball-bat-mit, burping contests, cloud watching, popsicles, trampolines, puddles. And now?

Told you so! Why no one wants to gloat about the global food crisis

Who doesn’t like a good gloat? A self-satisfying ‘told ya so!’ to the people who doubted you and a pat on the back from supporters when everyone else swore you were wrong. Sometimes smugness feels great! Well, I’ll tell you about a bunch of people who actually aren’t happy to brag about being right – the folks who have been warning us about the effects climate change will have on the global food supply…

Welcome aboard the earthship

Welcome to the Earthship. No, it isn’t a ship made out of earth, and no, it isn’t a spaceship made to boldly explore where no one has gone before. It’s an innovative type of home, typically built of recycled and reclaimed material, where the household itself functions like an ecosystem. The ecological footprint is minimal to nonexistent, and most of them are completely off the grid, using solar panels and wood stoves for heating, and semi-artistic designs for temperature regulation. Some use composting toilets, or just a plain outhouses in friendly year-round climates.

Going for Green at the Montréal Auto-Show

I hate cars… I know those words sound blasphemous to many people, but that’s the way I’ve always felt. Grandpa used to say “if they get you from point A to Point B who cares what you’re driving”. Personally, I’ve always thought of automobiles as either death traps or money pits . Let’s face it, almost everyone can think of someone who has died behind (or in front) of the wheel.

Still, with all this detestation I found myself Saturday at the Palais des congres checking out the 2011 installment of the Montréal International Auto-Show. My curiosity was peaked not by the overpriced Ferraris or Bentleys, but by the promise of a new beginning, a revolution in the auto industry. My hatred of everything on four wheels could never trump my love of the environment (or my abhorrence toward oil companies).

Not having kids is the next cool fad

We humans are part of the environment. Really, all those trees, bugs, birds, sand, walruses, ice floes, endangered orangutans … we’re part of that. Call me out for pointing out the obvious, but this notion was once a big revelation for me. I studied and worked in a few different aspects of the environment; as a technologist, a student, scientist, a field practitioner, an activist, an idealist and now a journalist.

Throughout most of these experiences, I always pictured myself as an observer, but not necessarily part of any type of ecosystem. I guess you could picture it like being a plumber; you fix the pipes, but they’re not your pipes. Well guess what – they are our pipes.

Polar bear, schmolar bear

While I was doing my undergrad at McGill, I was part of a group that visited high schools to give guest lectures about different environmental subjects. I had some of the best, and worst experiences with the young ‘uns, but I am, of course, going to talk about THE worst one. My partner and I were standing in front of a West Island high school class that just wasn’t into us. They were the noisy bunch – the more difficult children in the school, grade eight if I remember correctly. We were grasping desperately at anything to get them interested in our presentation on climate change. Polar bears; the poster child of climate change were an obvious pick. Who doesn’t like polar bears?

Green Bean 2010 Review

What a year! We’re still here, so hopefully that means that we’re doing something right…or not at all if we look at the last year in eco news. Without getting all ‘told you so’ on your butt, let’s have a look to see what the Green Bean has brought you throughout 2010 … Earth Day turned 40 this year! Two days before that anniversary, the biggest accidental, and certainly most frustrating ecological disaster we’ve ever seen dominated the media for months. Yup, it’s the BP oil spill, one of the worst environmental disasters of all time, but Obama did good by banning offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico until 2017.