Interdisicplinary symposium focuses on education and climate change

Today, the shared experiences of those working in education and climate change is the central theme of a one-day symposium taking place at York University. Organized by the Faculty of Education, the Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Chair for Reorienting Teacher Education Towards Sustainability, […]

SSHRC-funded book challenges notions about 'normal' sex and the environment

Much of what informs environmental thinking springs from a view that equates nature with sexually straight and queer with unnatural. The editors of a new book Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire, turn those notions upside down. Co-editors Bruce Erickson (PhD 09’) and York environmental studies Professor Catriona Sandilands, Canada Research Chair in Sustainability & […]

Professor Bridget Stutchbury on return of purple martins to Toronto's High Park

After an eight-year absence, North America’s largest swallow has returned to High Park, wrote the Toronto Star June 7. An excerpt of the complete article follows: Two pairs of purple martins, known for the purple-black feathers of mature males, are cohabiting in a colony house on the south edge of Grenadier Pond. The birds are […]

Professor Gail Fraser: Offshore oil board members lack environmental expertise

A biologist and researcher is asking why none of the six men on the board regulating oil activity off Newfoundland lists environmental expertise as a prime credential , wrote The Canadian Press June 6: The head of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board has stressed that environmental protection is a top goal. But Gail […]

York Centre for Asian Research awards six graduate scholarships to fuel innovative research projects

Six York students have won five awards for their research on Asia or Asian diaspora this year from the York Centre for Asian Research (YCAR). Vanessa Lamb (right), a second-year doctoral candidate in geography, is the 2010 Vivienne Poy Asian Research Award recipient. Her research interests include the politics of the environment and development, feminist political ecology […]

From Roman times to today, covered in one mother of a book

The Romans were celebrating mothers in about 1250 BCE when they began honouring Cybele, the mother goddess. Even so, motherhood throughout the ages has not always been given the respect it deserves. That’s something York women’s studies Professor Andrea O’Reilly knows a little about. She is general editor of the recently released Encyclopedia of Motherhood, a […]

Disappearing bees may leave us with a bland diet

Bee expert urges public to create bee-friendly gardens in their yards Breakfast may be toast if we don’t take action to save the bees, according to York biology Professor and bee expert Laurence Packer. “Consider breakfast. Eggs, maybe a slice of watermelon, toast with butter and jam, and a cup of coffee with a dash of […]

Prof Peter Victor says growth shouldn't drive the economy, and has numbers to prove it

Peter Victor, an ecological economist who teaches at York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies, rejects the idea that economic growth is essential to progress, wrote BC’s Grand Forks Gazette May 19 in an article about replacing the growth economy with a more sustainable model: To prove his point he created a computer model that duplicated […]

York professor on Markham councillors' overtuning foodbelt protection proposal

Markham councillors are facing new questions on developer influence after voting by a razor-thin margin to kill the town’s foodbelt proposal, wrote the National Post May 15. Professor Jose Etcheverry has been involved in efforts to preserve the land: Debate ran late into the night at this week’s council meeting and drew a series of […]

Washington State University prof wins Fulbright to lecture at York

A professor of women’s studies at Washington State University (WSU), Noël Sturgeon will lecture and conduct research in York’s Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES) in the fall 2010 term after being awarded a Distinguished Fulbright Lectureship. Sturgeon’s internationally known research on the relationship between environmental and social justice movements, her planned collaborative research with York faculty […]