Grizzly bears venturing from dens in search of food this spring will face landscapes dominated by mines, roads, pipelines, clearcuts and ever-expanding towns and cities. As in years past, they’ll also face the possibility of painful death at the hands of trophy hunters. British Columbia’s spring bear hunt just opened. Hunters are fanning across the […]
environment
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Advocates push for environmental bill of rights in Nova Scotia
A new proposed environmental bill of rights seeks to ensure all Nova Scotians have a right to a healthy environment. The bill, released on Friday, is the first of its kind in Nova Scotia. The 15-page document was produced by the Environmental Rights Working Group; a collaboration between East Coast Environmental Law, the ENRICH (Environmental […]
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Science March offers global warning
When politicians ignore climate change, scientists will change the political 
climate. This Saturday, on Earth Day, thousands of scientists and supporters in cities across the world will be marching against what advocates say has been a war on evidenced-based public policy. The largest event will take place in Washington DC—a mass protest against Donald Trump’s […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: March for science, march for Earth Day, march for humanity!
Science isn’t everything. But it is crucial to governing, decision-making, protecting human health and the environment and resolving questions and challenges around our existence. Those determined to advance industrial interests over all else often attack science. We’ve seen it in Canada, with a decade of cuts to research funding and scientific programs, muzzling of government […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: Citizen science and genetic testing yield positive results
Since I started working as a geneticist in the early 1960s, the field has changed considerably. James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins won the 1962 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. Researchers then “cracked” the genetic code, which held promise for fields like health […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: Marine protected areas are one piece of a complex puzzle
The federal government recently created two marine protected areas in the Pacific region and has committed to increase ocean protection from one percent to 10 by 2020. But will this be enough? Canada has the longest coastline of any nation, but our country doesn’t end at its ocean shores. With a 200-nautical-mile economic zone and […]
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Welcome to the 21st century: Brighter times or a new Dark Age?
If you own a smartphone, you have more computing power at your fingertips than NASA scientists had when they put people on the moon in 1969! And it’s in a small device, unlike the massive hardware the space agency used. Technology moves in leaps and bounds. As someone who grew up before home computers, transoceanic […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: Facts and evidence matter in confronting climate crisis
We recently highlighted the faulty logic of a pseudoscientific argument against addressing climate change: the proposition that because CO2 is necessary for plants, increasing emissions is good for the planet and the life it supports. Those who read, write or talk regularly about climate change and ecology are familiar with other anti-environmental arguments not coated […]
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Nova Scotia’s recycling efforts plateaued 15 years ago
In a recent self-assessed report card, the Otter Lake Community Monitoring Committee released the results of a December waste audit that found 52 percent of residential waste and 71 percent of business waste was reusable, recyclable or compostable material. “It was a surprise to us that the numbers were that high,” says Ken Donnelly, a […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: Intact wilderness is a hedge against our ignorance
In 2011, I travelled with my family down Yukon’s Hart River. It’s one of seven pure rivers in the Peel River watershed, a 68,000-square-kilometre wilderness that’s been at the centre of a legal dispute for many years and a land-use planning debate for more than a decade. For two weeks, we fished from the river’s […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: Faulty logic fuels fossil fools
Apparently, fossil fuel companies protect watersheds and rivers by removing oil. That’s according to comments on the David Suzuki Foundation Facebook page and elsewhere, including this: “The amount of contamination occuring [sic] from extraction is far less than if we just left the oil there to continue polluting the waterways.” The “logic” of climate change […]
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Questions about senator’s Fall River quarry conflict
Opponents of the Fall River quarry are wondering why the Halifax International Airport Authority (HIAA) withdrew its appeal of the contentious project, and what role a former senator made in that decision. James Cowan served Nova Scotia in the senate from 2005 until his retirement this year. He also has an association with HIAA. As […]
