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 […]
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 […]
Organic farms can be more energy efficient than conventional farms that mass produce crops using unsustainable practices, a surprising result from a study co-authored by a York University professor. Researchers analyzed 130 studies to compare the energy use and global warming potential of organic versus conventional farming. They concluded that organic farms were more energy […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 United Way report last week highlighted a problem in Toronto: our city’s poor are increasingly concentrated in crumbling highrise towers, mostly in the inner suburbs, wrote Edward Keenan in EYE Weekly Jan. 20: The report addresses a subject that National Film Board filmmaker-in-residence Katerina Cizek has been studying for two years, while making films on […]
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 […]
York University environmental studies Professor Mark Winfield of the Faculty of Environmental Studies, who sits on a provincial smart growth advisory panel and studies urban sustainability, said the Star’s analysis – the first of its kind – raises important questions about how the 2006 Places to Grow plan is playing out, wrote the Toronto Star […]
If mixed-income neighbourhoods are to work, such as the one proposed for Lawrence Heights, there has to be a mental shift in the way people view renters, said a professor in York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies, wrote InsideToronto.com Jan. 6: “You can’t tell people the way to go is to own property,” said Roger […]
Documentary is affiliated with York's Global Suburbanisms Project Take a glimpse into someone’s life that is otherwise invisible to most, wrote The Globe and Mail Jan. 5 in a story about the groundbreaking, web-based work Out My Window, by the National Film Board of Canada, that offers glimpses of lives within housing developments: Zanillya Maria […]
Excessive phosphorus dumps have become a major problem for Canada’s waterways, says Professor Lewis Molot, an environmental scientist in York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies, wrote the National Post Jan. 6 in a story about a little-known move by the federal government banning the substance: The federal government brought in new regulations last July effectively […]
While researching the historical rights of his First Nation’s community of Listuguj in the Gespe’gewa’gig district of the Mi’gmaw on the southwest shore of the Gaspé peninsula for his doctoral thesis, York PhD candidate Alfred Metallic came to believe there was something missing in what he was doing – an integral piece of a larger […]
It's not enough to plant trees in exchange for carbon emissions in the fight to mitigate climate change, say York environmental studies Professor Anders Sandberg and York environmental studies master’s student Tor Sandberg in their new co-edited book Climate Change – Who’s Carrying the Burden?: The Chilly Climates of the Global Environmental Dilemma. Nor is […]
Conservative leader Tim Hudak slammed the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) as a wasteful entity, wrote the Ottawa Citizen Sept. 24 in a story about an Ontario Energy Board (OEB) decision to allow electricity distributors to make higher profits: The Conservative leader said that, while the agency has expanded, it has yet to fulfil its central […]
Ontario’s electricity system will continue to lurch from crisis to crisis until a long-term strategy focused on environmental and economic sustainability is adopted, concludes a study led by York environmental studies Professor Mark Winfield. It was published in the international journal Energy Policy this month. The study finds that the conventional approaches to electricity system planning […]
A leaked report from the Ontario Fire Marshal’s Office on the eve of the second anniversary of the massive Downsview explosion at Sunrise Propane blames a tank-to-tank transfer of propane for the blast, wrote the North York Mirror Aug. 4: The transfer, which Sunrise had previously been ordered to cease performing, caused liquid propane to […]