Results tagged “globalwarming”

The Personal, the Political, and the Planet

Putting together a concise biography for Severn Cullis-Suzuki is something of a daunting task. Not due to a lack of achievements, but rather because the Vancouver-born environmental and social-justice activist has an incredibly long resumé for someone not yet three decades old. There's so much there, it's hard to whittle down to size.

Photo of Chris Turner at the Greater World Earthship community in New Mexico by Ashley Bristowe.

TTC does end-run around Toronto Preservation Board. The TTC wants the right to redesign 63 of its 69 stations. Heh. We have 69 TTC stations. Never noticed that before. Heh.

You've got less than three weeks to prepare yourself for Earth Hour on Saturday, March 29. That's when people around the world are being encouraged to turn off their lights for one hour to raise awareness about global warming. Toronto was the first Canadian city to sign up for the international event late last year, and has since been joined by most other GTA municipalities, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, and many more—close to 50 cities across the country at last count.

Here's a riddle: What walks throughout Canada, weighs more than a Brit, but less than an American, and can help stop global warming? No, it's not Sasquatch. It's not Kyoto.

Doug Plumb: Delicious

Do you think you can turn your lights off for an hour? The WWF is challenging people around the world to do just that at 8 p.m. local time on March 29. The global event is called Earth Hour, and the goal is to raise awareness of global warming. Last year's inaugural event took place in Sydney, Australia, where more than 2 million people and 2100 businesses turned off their lights. The result was a 10% reduction in the demand for electricity during the hour-long action.

See, all that snow shovelling was just a waste of time. Toronto is expecting record-breaking heat over the next couple of days, with highs expected to hit 13 degrees. The heat wave is expected to give dumbass radio personalities a chance to say things like, "Hey, this global warming thing is OK by me!"

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset.

It might be time to cut back on the brews. Fox News is reporting that old beer fridges, which one in three Canadians keep in their houses, are remarkably inefficient and "contribute significantly" to global warming.

Toronto declares first cold alert of the winter season. John Baird immediately points out how the existence of cold weather might mean that we're all wrong about global warming.

Photo by afiler.

Tomorrow night, November 2nd, a new CaseCamp-format un-conference will touch down in Toronto. Combining two sessions from the art community and one session from a related industry, ArtSmash is a unique speaker series that will generate a room full of creative ideas. The event is being coordinated by Ella Cooper and presented by the Emerging Arts Professional Network.

Will the province take over the TTC? Apparently such rumours are all the buzz in political backrooms. Which are kind of like political bathrooms, except that the backrooms have no toilets or sinks or indeed any serious practical use, which is why they feature so prominently in government. Torontoist's suggestion, from its own backroom: let Pizza Pizza take over the TTC. Then we would at least get Rip-Off Charity Pizza Days more often.

Police are investigating a mysterious purple liquid found seeping around the Don River. When asked for comment, the police stated that they have all their men rolling around in the goo in the hopes that it's radioactive and gives them all superpowers.

While going to York University may seem like a giant hassle (Torontoist recommends you pack a snack for the trip), this year’s Ioan Davies Memorial Lecture is shaping up to be worth the drive or TTC ride to York.

2007_09_05_desert.jpgEnvironment Canada reports that this has been the driest summer in fifty years for Toronto, with the city only receiving around half of its usual rainfall. Short-term predictions suggest that fall will be equally dry, with the the long-range forecast calling for global warming followed by drought, famine, plague and societal collapse. Sounds like great picnic weather!

Though the lineup for this year's Virgin Music Festival is, admittedly, pretty awesome, there are still bound to be individuals for whom a full day of live music (and shameless advertising!) is simply not reason enough to make that ferry boat ride out to the Island. That's where Global Inheritance comes in.

NASA is embarrassed after a Toronto man found an error in their climate reporting. The new data mean that the warmest year on record in the US was 1934, not 1998, and skeptics have seized on the story as proof that the whole "global warming" thing is a hoax. Upon hearing the news, the newly navigable passage through the Arctic Ocean immediately refroze.

2007_08_02_unlucky.jpgEmployees of the Alcohol and Gaming Commission, which now oversees the Ontario Lottery Gaming Corporation, will not be permitted to buy lottery tickets in Ontario. A representative of the affected staffers complained, "why do you think we wanted to work here in the first place?" before shotgunning a 40-ouncer of Absolut and collapsing to the ground.

Chicago prosecutors expected to ask that the book be thrown at Conrad Black. HA HA HA ROT IN JAIL YOU UNKIND GENTLEMAN [Needless to say, the previous two words originally read...uh...differently. They were swears!—Ed.]. Sorry, that was not very objective. Please amend the previous sentence to read "hee hee hee rot in jail you freaking aardvark." In other news, he may also go bankrupt, making this officially the best news story of the year so far.

Nine months into their existence, Porter Airlines chugs along, still under the radar of most. As the Toronto Star recently reported, the young airline is still struggling to find a steady stream of regular business customers. With traffic on the 401 at an all-time high, getting to Pearson during rush hours can potentially take as long as a flight to Montreal. On a weekend getaway, the give-or-take ten hours spent traveling to La Belle Province and back are costly. And with flights available for not much more than a regular fare round-trip on VIA to Montreal, it made sense to give Porter a shot.

News_07June07_Ducks.jpgThe Anaheim Mighty Ducks win the Stanley Cup. Thus finally fulfilling the lifetime goals of Emilio Estevez. Asked to comment, the Ottawa Senators said "aggghhhhhhhhhhccckkk," then scored on their own net again.

This was Toronto’s downtown at 10:30 a.m. yesterday, as seen from Lakeshore Boulevard near the Canadian Exhibition Grounds. Air Quality Ontario’s Air Quality Index measured a daytime high of 54, which put Toronto’s air well into the “Poor” category. The day before, the AQI hit 59.

Parking metre rates to rise by at least 50 cents. City drivers complain that it makes shopping more expensive. City cyclists point at the city drivers and laugh. The city drivers responded by shaking their fists and telling the cyclists to get the hell off the road. At this point, things deteriorated rapidly. Elsewhere, the era of free parking is coming to an end in Missisauga.

Everybody’s talking about the weather—now’s your chance to get out and do something about it. Mayor David Miller is inviting everyone in the city to attend the Climate Change Action Forum this Sunday, April 29 at Exhibition Place.

In a time when Al Gore is predicting that global warming is the coming of the apocalypse, people are looking for creative ways to maintain a sustainable ecosystem without giving up their consumerist lifestyles. Toronto’s first Green Living Show will inspire ways to do just that.

Doctors urged to use tape measure to see if medical advice is necessary due to excess abdominal fat. I'm all for anti-obesity measures, but surely this is counterproductive? Did we really need another reason to dislike going to the doctor for a checkup?

1 2