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 […]
Science Matters
Posted inNews + Opinion
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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SCIENCE MATTERS: Greatness comes from moving forward, not backward
The battle lines are drawn—in some cases literally. On one side are those reaping massive profits from fossil fuels, determined to extract and sell as much as possible before the market dries up. On the other are those who see the amazing potential of energy conservation, renewable energy and other innovations to reduce pollution, greenhouse […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
SCIENCE MATTERS: Understanding climate change means reading beyond headlines
Seeing terms like “post-truth” and “alternative facts” gain traction in the news convinces me that politicians, media workers and readers could benefit from a refresher course in how science helps us understand the world. Reporting on science is difficult at the best of times. Trying to communicate complex ideas and distill entire studies into eye-catching […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: Tread lightly to lift the weight of the world
[Image-1] How much stuff will you give and receive this holiday season? Add it to the growing pile—the 30-trillion-tonne pile. That’s how much technology and goods humans have produced, according to a study by an international team led by England’s University of Leicester. It adds up to more than all living matter on the planet, […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: Indigenous people hold the key to caribou survival
[Image-1] When government biologists in Canada want to learn where caribou are, they put radio-tracking collars on some animals and monitor their movements. This gives them a rough idea of where herds are and where they travel, but it doesn’t tell them much about a caribou population’s history—travel routes before their habitat was degraded or […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: Better discourse for a kinder world
[Image-1] The U.S. election was a chilling illustration of the atrocious state of public discourse. It doesn’t bode well for a country once admired for leadership in education and science. As public relations expert and former David Suzuki Foundation board chair James Hoggan writes in I’m Right and You’re an Idiot, “polluted public discourse is […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
SCIENCE MATTERS: Hard work and love trump fear and hate
[Image-1] Now what? Many people in the United States and around the world are dismayed that a bigoted, misogynistic, climate change denier has been elected to the highest office in what is still the world’s most powerful nation. His party controls the House and Senate, meaning pro-fossil-fuel, anti-climate-action representatives who reject overwhelming and alarming scientific […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Heated debates ignore an overheating planet
[Image-1] Scientists worldwide accept that Earth is warming at an unusually rapid rate, that humans are primarily responsible, mainly by burning fossil fuels, and that the consequences for humanity will be disastrous if we don’t take immediate, widespread action. The U.S. Defense Department calls climate change a security risk “because it degrades living conditions, human […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
SCIENCE MATTERS: Food security is important for humans and other animals
[Image-1] As leaves change colour and drop from trees, and a chill in the air signals the approach of winter, many of us are thinking of the fall harvest and hearty soups and dishes that will soon warm our bellies. Not everyone is lucky enough to enjoy such thoughts. About four million Canadians—including more than […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
SCIENCE MATTERS: We can’t dig our way out of the fossil fuels pit
[Image-1] I’ve often thought politicians inhabit a parallel universe. Maybe it’s just widespread cognitive dissonance, coupled with a lack of imagination, that compels them to engage in so much contradictory behaviour. Trying to appease so many varying interests isn’t easy. Rather than focusing on short-term economic and corporate priorities, though, politicians should first consider the […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: Confronting the crisis of violence against Indigenous women and girls in Canada
[Image-1] In late September, Inuit artist Annie Pootoogook died tragically in Ottawa. Pootoogook was an award-winning illustrator from Cape Dorset, Nunavut. Her ink-and-crayon depictions of everyday life in the north—families sitting to eat a meal of seal meat or shopping at the Arctic co-op—received international acclaim. In contrast to the idealized vision many Canadians have […]
