Non-ecologists, here is your word for the day: biome. It means a very large ecosytem, and the boreal biome comprises about 60 per cent of Canada‘s land area. It includes more than two million lakes and accounts for about 85 per cent of Canada's freshwater and some 25 per cent of global wetlands. Despite the magnitude of this resource, an increasing number of […]
Celebrate the birds and the bees tomorrow at the Pollinators Festival. Learn why the bees are at risk with York Professor Laurence Packer in the Department of Biology and about the social life of honey bees with the Toronto Beekeeping Co-operative. The Pollinators Festival, part of International Pollinator Week, will take place from 8am to […]
York University Professor Peter A. Victor has been appointed chair of Ontario’s Greenbelt Council, which makes recommendations for the protection of more than 1.8 million acres of agricultural and environmentally sensitive land in the Greater Golden Horseshoe. “Dr. Victor brings a wealth of knowledge, experience and insight to the Greenbelt Council,” said Minister of Municipal […]
If a monster iceberg (like those now being formed from the melting of the Greenland ice shield) was to collide with the Hibernia platform, says Michael Klare, a noted American oil expert, author and academic, it could prove to be far more devastating than last year’s BP spill, which dumped almost five million barrels into […]
Which party speaks for urban youth this federal election? Over the past few weeks, media commentators have pointed to two important trends, wrote Simon Black, a graduate student researcher at The City Institute at York University, in the Toronto Star April 28: Polling suggests young people favour the Greens, Liberals and New Democrats: parties that […]
Environmental studies Professor Timothy Leduc (MES ’01, PhD ’07) will be part of a panel discussing the environment, following a free screening of the documentary film Climate Refugees. The screening will take place Friday, April 29, from 6:30 to 8pm in Room 2158 JJR MacLeod Auditorium, Medical Sciences Building, 1 King’s College Circle, University of […]
From the ‘burbs to birds and from social justice to Olympic poetry, the next installment of the York Circle’s popular Lecture & Lunch series returns on Saturday, April 30. It promises plenty of new ideas for inquiring minds. As with previous York Circle Lecture & Lunch events, organizers have planned a full day of inspiring lectures […]
Artists of all stripes from around the world are reducing their carbon footprint in creative ways. Many prominent ones – including the Cirque de Soleil’s Gil Favreau – are coming to York this month to share how at a conference on sustainability and the arts. Hosted by York’s Faculty of Fine Arts, Staging Sustainability: Arts, […]
Eight faculty members of York’s Osgoode Hall Law School recently visited India, where they continued a conversation with their counterparts that began last year on governance in a rapidly globalizing world and the impact on social justice, human rights, international trade and foreign investment, and environmental law. Right: Professor Sanjeev Purshotam Sahni (left), head of […]
The Climate Consortium for Research Action Integration (CC-RAI) will host the first Canadian screening of the Oscar-nominated documentary, Sun Come Up – A story of the world’s first climate change refugees, at York University’s Keele campus on Friday, April 1. Students interested in how climate change will affect people in Canada and abroad are welcome […]
Hosted by the Canadian Studies Program and student club in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, the Canada Like You’ve Never Heard it Before Lecture Series explores everything from economics and indigenous issues to Canadian government and poetry. The next instalment of the series will be delivered by Cate Sandilands, a professor in York's […]
York University students, faculty and staff are getting a jump on Earth Hour 2011 with Earth Hour, Every Hour, a special event tomorrow evening, March 16, from 4:30 to 9pm in the Winters College Master's dining hall. Hosted by the Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS) in collaboration with the Ecologically Conscious Organization and Schulich […]
The risk of a catastrophe on the scale of BP’s offshore Deepwater Horizon disaster happening in Canada poses a real threat to people’s health and the economy. At the Oil: Slick Suits and Sinister Scenarios symposium tomorrow, leading researchers in risk, disaster management, ethics and the environment will provide insights into the murky world of oil and […]
For two weeks in January, two York professors bundled into parkas and flew to Arctic villages along the proposed Mackenzie Valley pipeline. They were delivering valuable cargo – the results of their International Polar Year (IPY) research. Reporting back to the communities was a condition of receiving IPY research funding in 2007, and after three years […]
The Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Canadian governments are reviewing a section of the Atlantic Accords that critics say lets offshore oil and gas operators veto a wide swath of information from being released publicly, including environmental and safety data, wrote Ottawa’s The Hill Times, Feb. 22: Meanwhile, as governments keep talking, operators continue to use the […]
A forum held last week in our community has further raised the profile of pollution and its impact on our health, and underscores the need for a local study on the issue to commence immediately, wrote The Sarnia Observer Feb. 16 in an editorial: The devastating effects of pollution were discussed at the Community Forum […]
Now that the garbage has hit the fan again in Toronto, so to speak, it would have been nice to have seen some serious investigative journalism before an editorial rushing to endorse privatization, wrote Leo Panitch, Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political Economy and Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science in York’s Faculty of Liberal […]
Organizers of an upcoming environmental forum are hoping to engage First Nations youth, wrote The Sarnia Observer Jan. 30: The event, hosted by the Aamjiwnaang First Nations Health and Environment Committee, in partnership with York University, is a follow-up to a 2008 health symposium held in Sarnia to share research findings with members of the […]
A York University professor’s new book aims to integrate the Inuit experience of climate change with Western climate research, and includes an Inuktitut companion to the volume, making it accessible across cultures. Climate, Culture, Change: Inuit and Western Dialogues with a Warming North, released this week by University of Ottawa Press, calls for a shift […]
‘Green jobs’ have been increasingly touted as the solution to job loss and environmental crisis. Will Canada transition to a cleaner economy that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and employs a new generation of workers? Are green jobs the only link between environmental policy and employment policy? Defining green jobs raises further questions. What is a […]