Chris Benjamin

In 2007, several Haligonians living on low incomes testified before the Utility and Review Board. They were making the case that energy prices are too high. They couldn’t afford food and heat; it was either/or. These households suffer energy poverty, meaning they pay more than six percent of their incomes on heat and electricity. Environmentalists […]

Pre-Stephen Harper, Environment Canada was regarded as the most accessible, educational federal department. Its scientists were in the media, at conferences, even in classrooms, assessing human impact on the natural world. Now, three reports in as many months have slammed the department for its inaccessibility and lack of accountability. The Climate Action Network, a national […]

“All the earthworms in Atlantic Canada were introduced from Europe,” Christopher Majka, Nova Scotia Museum’s beetle man, tells me. “They have influenced the soil environment but not necessarily in a harmful way. Only a very small percentage of introduced species become invasive.” Majka’s words come faster as he recounts the history of non-human newcomers to […]

“You can see the greens thriving, almost ready for harvest,” Elizabeth Peirce says, pointing at her raised beds of arugula and spinach. “These tomatoes are starting to bloom.” She gently fingers the budding yellow flower. “Beauty.” She’s giving me the tour of her Kline Street backyard, one of her three peninsular gardens. She has another, […]

Developers are hurting Nova Scotia’s coasts and putting homebuyers at serious risk. Jen Graham, the Ecology Action Centre’s coastal coordinator, sends me a slideshow of houses under construction mere feet from the ocean, seaside roads torn up during heavy storms, causeways built for personal access to islands and private-property signs on beautiful beaches, often owned […]

In 2007, when I worked for a Ghanaian daily newspaper, I broke a story that 30 percent of the country’s maternal childbirth mortalities were actually botched abortions. Like many women throughout the world, denied access to safe surgical abortions, they resorted to backroom quacks with dubious equipment. They are among the 70,000 women who die […]

I‘m a few minutes late to meet with Tamara Lorincz, but she’s still standing when I arrive at the cafe. “It gave me a chance to put up some posters,” she says. Never a wasted moment. After five years as executive director of the Nova Scotia Environment Network, Lorincz is moving on. The tragic death […]

The upside to cycling in Halifax is that drivers are so scared and confused by bikes, they cut you a wide swath. The con: a lack of infrastructure. Bike lanes are few and scattered, and there’s almost no designated bike parking. When I bike downtown to a meeting and have to wander the block looking […]

The province wants to protect 12 percent of land from road-building and tree- harvesting. So why don’t our oceans get equivalent protection? “The easy answer is that the province doesn’t have jurisdiction,” says Rodrigo Menafra, the marine conservation coordinator for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. “But no signs have been given of supporting the […]

“It’s mostly the private sector that has solved problems,” Pam Cooley tells me over breakfast at the Ardmore. Cooley is the marketing half of CarShareHFX. It’s the latest venture in an impressive career of social enterprise—for-profit companies designed for the public good. Cooley has worked to safely return Guatemalan refugees from camps in Mexico, and […]

On April 12 transportation minister Bill Estabrooks announced the second biggest highway capital budget in the province’s history. More than $300 million is going to roads and bridges. This is how we save the economy. In a government press release Grant Feltmate, director of the Nova Scotia Road Builders Association, noted, “In the short term, […]