First-time visitors to Australia are often drawn to the big city attractions of Sydney and Melbourne, or the fabulous beaches of Queensland’s Gold Coast. I’ve always had a soft spot for Adelaide in South Australia, a city built more on a human scale, where downtown can be easily navigated on bike, foot or tram. For […]
Science Matters
Posted inNews + Opinion
SCIENCE MATTERS: Feed-in tariffs help renewable energy grow
[Image-1] In the early 1990s, Germany launched Energiewende, or “energy revolution,” a program “to combat climate change, avoid nuclear risks, improve energy security, and guarantee competitiveness and growth.” Renewable energy grew from four percent in 1990 to more than 27 percent in 2014, including a significant increase in citizen-owned power projects, according to energy think […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: Oceans of reasons to protect what we love
[Image-1] June 8 marks World Oceans Day, but what if we celebrated oceans every day? Covering more than 70 percent of Earth’s surface, oceans, more than anything, define our small blue planet. We should celebrate their complex and vibrant ecosystems, life-sustaining services, calming effects and unimaginable diversity, much of which we have not yet even […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: Feeding humanity in a warming world
Calculating farming’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is difficult, but experts agree that feeding the world’s people has tremendous climate and environmental impacts. Estimates of global emissions from farms range widely. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency puts them at 24 percent, including deforestation, making agriculture the second-largest emitter after heat and electricity. Agriculture contributes to […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: Ain’t nothing like the real thing—but virtual reality comes close
[Image-1] The digital revolution is breaking new ground every day. Technology has a way of doing that. I remember when Hewlett-Packard introduced its first “laptop” computer, which stored a page and a half of writing. It revolutionized my life as a newspaper columnist, allowing me to write on planes or in a tent and submit […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: Divest from damage and invest in a healthier future
[Image-1] If people keep rapidly extracting and burning fossil fuels, there’s no hope of meeting the 2015 Paris Agreement climate change commitments. To ensure a healthy, hopeful future for humanity, governments must stick to their pledge to limit global warming to 1.5 or 2 C above pre-industrial levels by 2050. Many experts agree that to […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: A healthy biosphere means healthier humans
[Image-1] Imagine if scientists came up with an inexpensive, easily administered way to decrease the risk of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and obesity by 25 to 35 percent. It would create a sensation and, if patented, would be worth billions. But there’s already a free and simple way to achieve this: exercise. The human […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: Shocking migratory changes bring electric rays to Canada’s Pacific
[Image-1] Gary Krause was mystified by an unusual fish he caught in his trawl net off BC’s Pacific north coast in October. It was a Pacific electric ray, named for a pair of organs behind its head that can knock a human adult down with a powerful shock. Trawl fishery records show 88 of these […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: City life is stressing you out, but there’s a simple cure
For the most part, our brains didn’t evolve in cities. But in a few decades, almost 70 percent of the world’s people will live in urban environments. Despite the prosperity we associate with cities, urbanization presents a major health challenge. Cities, with their accelerated pace of life, can be stressful. The results are seen in […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: Tapping into geothermal, the clean energy source under our feet
In the midst of controversy over B.C.’s Peace River Site C dam project, the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association released a study showing the province could get the same amount of energy more affordably from geothermal sources, for about half the construction costs. Unlike Site C, geothermal wouldn’t require massive transmission upgrades, would be less environmentally […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: Environmental deficit tarnishes Canada’s rights record
[Image-1] Many Canadians see our country as a human rights leader, but a United Nations committee says we should do better. In early March, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights concluded that Canada’s lack of environmental protection and climate action mars our rights record. The committee’s periodic review of Canada put our country’s […]
