A group of four landowners is pushing for land designated as part of the Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes wilderness park to be re-zoned for residential housing and apartments. The proposed park is a chunk of land the size of the Halifax peninsula, stretching from the Bayers Lake Industrial Park to Hammonds Plains. It includes a […]
Environment
Posted inNews + Opinion
Inquiry into B.C. salmon first step to accountable fisheries management
In 1992, 95 percent of Atlantic cod disappeared. Our fisheries collapsed, and with a major ocean predator gone, an entire ecosystem was out of whack. Now scientists say the European cod stocks are collapsing. Thank god for pollock. Oh wait, their stocks remain depleted. OK, haddock? Some stocks stable, some uncertain, some shut down for […]
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Tree-mendously safe
It’s that time of year again—the holidays are almost upon us. And the pressure is on to spend, consume and waste. The Ecology Action Centre, on the other hand, is busy prepping for its annual preemptive damage control effort. The Annual Organic Christmas Tree and Chemical-Free Wreath Campaign invites people to green their holidays by […]
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Horatio the swan’s last song
Halloween brought a nasty surprise to the Public Gardens. Gardens staff found their swan, Horatio, dead on the morning of November 1. Horatio is remembered for his cantankerous disposition. “He was crazy and mean,” says gardener Tracy Jessen, who was often attacked by the swan while feeding him. “He could definitely draw blood.” This is […]
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Slow Food’s Edible Schoolyard doc released
Head to Keshen Goodman Library Sunday (Nov. 15, 2:30pm) for a screening of Slow Food Nova Scotia’s new documentary, The Edible Schoolyard. The film tells the story of a group of Summerville students with green thumbs. Dr. Arthur Hines’ elementary students have been tending a vegetable garden at school for nearly six years, as part […]
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Critical Mass confusion
“What are you guys doing?” asks a woman from inside her parked car on Spring Garden. More than a hundred cyclists, some dressed as skeletons, sex workers and bears, are blocking her from pulling out of her pit-stop at Timmy’s. “We’re going for a bike ride,” answers one of the Canadian Olympians. It’s Critical Mass, […]
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Bullfrog Power is coming
It’s been a good week for renewable energy in Nova Scotia. Minister of natural resources John MacDonnell announced that uranium mining will be permanently banned, pushing us further away from the nuclear debate. If we want to significantly cut carbon emissions, it’s renewables (wind, solar, hydro, tidal and biomass) or sink. And now Bullfrog Power […]
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Heavenly views at Galilean Nights
“We just set up our telescopes somewhere and grab people off the street,” says David Chapman, an amateur astronomer and organizer of this weekend’s “Galilean Nights,” a celebration of all things astronomy with an emphasis on spreading the word. “Quite a few people who come to us have never looked through a telescope before in […]
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Local greens go Copenhagen or bust
“We’re hoping to send the politicians a message,” sayJannelle Frail, explaining this weekend’s environmental gathering on the Common. Frail is an organizer with the local branch of 350.org, an international group drawing attention to the need for strong results from the UN’s Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, this December; “350” refers to the maximum […]
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Tree hugger power
At the Nova Scotia Environment Network’s annual gathering last week, in a discussion on working with the new government, some expressed hope, but most were disappointed. Longtime NDP MLA and environmentalist Howard Epstein was passed over for a cabinet post, and there has been no progress on key NDP issues, like a permanent uranium mining […]
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Rae Lutz talks turkey
This Thanksgiving, Haligonians are gobbling up turkeys. “We’re really crazy right now, prepping turkeys,” says Rae Lutz of Pasture Hill Farm, near Waterville. As of Tuesday, Lutz has received 400 orders for holiday turkeys, up from last year’s 350. She attributes the increased demand to new interest in Pasture Hill’s grass-fed and free-range turkeys. It’s […]
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City chicks rawk
Any way you look at it, urban chicken bylaws are stupid. Oil is getting scarcer and harder to access, we’re wasting it shipping food from New Zealand that we could grow at home and city councils have gone to the trouble of writing bylaws preventing good citizens from raising egg-laying hens. In 2008 food prices […]