Alternatives Journal (A\J) has been independently publishing intelligent, informed, and inspiring environmental journalism since 1971. Back then, we were founded with the purpose of and commitment to helping environmental literacy grow in Canada, and now we’re in 2021 – our 50th year. What better time than now to launch a new website and spruce up our online editorial platform to continue fuelling our fire for publishing stories, inspiring action, and engaging with millions of Canadians, each and every day.

Looking back through our 50 years, we have had many incredible achievements and partnerships, a few big changes, and countless amazing contributions. As Canada’s only national environmental media charity, we’ve always welcomed change and innovation with open arms through the decades. Back in the late 80s, when the typesetting printing process was transitioning to desktop publishing, our few staff members at the time were dedicated to evolving A/J with the changing times. Similarly, when digital publishing and online platforms became available, A/J was first in line to jump on the bandwagon of change. Yet, throughout all our growth and advancements, our core mission has remained – to provide reliable insight on environmental topics, to inspire and empower positive action, and to create new bonds and partnerships in the environmental community and enhance existing ones.

We are so proud to be a living, breathing example of the continuing evolution of storytelling. As a leader in Canadian environmental journalism, we continue to be on the leading edge of digital strategies and we are committed to telling stories in the latest and greatest ways to reach as many people as we can. We continue to grow and evolve, build new relationships and foster old ones, and connect environmental conversations across Canada – all because we believe that environmental journalism and communication is needed at the centre of the environmental movement. We need environmental communication to bridge gaps, uplift voices, and empower people. 

In this day and age, our stories are becoming increasingly important to tell. We hope this new online editorial platform provides an enhancement of our storytelling capacities. As always, we will continue striving to present the stories and solutions because the solutions exist and we’re here to share them.

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Our goal is to challenge readers to think about the climate crisis in a different way and start thinking about what they’re going to do in their individual lives and communities to strive for that possible future; we want people to envision the journey. We’re not looking for false hope or optimism, but rather, diverse stories that are grounded in the views of people. We want to share the pathways people have taken and their ancestors have walked, and translate those into a new perspective of looking back from the future, as a type of “letter to our past, 2021-inhabiting selves”.

A\J is seeking volunteer writers who may be interested in contributing a cli-fi, futuristic, intergenerational, utopian/dystopian-related piece for this upcoming issue, 2071. We are looking for NEW VOICES: pitches from BIPOC storytellers, new grads, and most importantly, young writers – the ones who will be living in that future… We want diverse perspectives, new ideas, and interesting story angles to present this vision of 2071.

Opportunities to contribute to a variety of different topics for online articles are also available.

Those who may be interested are asked to email: Siobhan Mullally at siobhan.mullally@alternativesjournal.ca or David McConnachie at david@alternativesjournal.ca.

About A\J

A\J, or Alternatives Journal, is Canada’s national environmental magazine and has been independently publishing intelligent & informed environmental journalism since 1971. A\J is published by Alternatives Media Inc, a registered Canadian charity that is dedicated to publishing hundreds of stories, inspiring thousands of meaningful actions and engaging with millions of Canadians, each and every day.

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The selected candidate will assist the A/J Editorial Team with magazine layout, creation, and accompanying graphics of our next issue, 80 pages plus cover and back. The ideal candidate should have an interest in environmental issues as well as a high proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite and working in a Mac-centric environment.

Interested candidates are encouraged to send their resume, cover letter and a sample of their work (this can include a link to an online gallery) to siobhan.mullally@alternativesjournal.ca

We’re looking to fill this position immediately and this posting will remain open until filled.

Alternatives Journal is an equal opportunity employer and enthusiastically seeks to employ individuals from a variety of backgrounds, identities, and experiences.

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History lessons serve as a starting point to understanding what once was — that is where cartographer and activist Aaron Carapella is trying to make a difference. Carapella, a Native American descendant from Oklahoma, has spent years creating a Tribal Nations Map Series currently being used by hundreds of native and non-native schools within the United States, including the University of Montana. The first of its kind, the maps show the Americas before colonialism. They display traditional names and show tribal territories without political boarders.

“Outside colonization can lead to internal or self-imposed colonization — but only if you let it,” says Carapella. According to him, this map series is one way of stopping self-imposed colonialism.

Aaron Carapella

At an early age, Carapella went out of his way to be involved with indigenous peoples — he lived outside the native community. He attended local tribal meetings and council meetings for tribes that fought for federal recognition just to understand what it means to be a Native American living outside the community. He even joined the American Indian Movement and participated in land occupations and protests. While visiting different communities he saw a “real lack of respect for traditional names of tribes,” which is what inspired him to create the Tribal Nation Map series. Accurate visual representation of the once diverse and prominent culture is a way of reminding people “a set way of life existed before outsiders took over, before we started writing the history of this continent from the victor’s perspective,” says Carapella. 

It is no secret that when the European settlers first arrived, they brought with them disease and violence that wiped out a substantial portion of the Native population resulting in lost culture. Today the general public has a distorted opinion about the original inhabitants of this land and according to Carapella it is due to misrepresentation of the remaining native community, such as “insulting racial mascots.” It has gotten to a point where some native descendants themselves use “names given to them by outsiders, which is offensive to the native community.”

“Losing your name is one facet of why there has been a break down in traditional way,” Carapella said, which makes seeing their tribe names on maps for the first time even more powerful.

Carapella donates his work to underfunded schools and has special pricing for teachers. He believes that when teachers and professors begin to incorporate them in their teaching material, as they have gradually begun to do so, the timeline of history will change. Carapella hopes that children will no longer grow up thinking of their land as young and new but a land with a rich history of unique customs stemming from the millions of people that lived prior to colonization.

Carapella has visited over 250 native communities within the United States in addition to those in Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico. He believes in getting the information right from the source and incase of a dispute he always has given the last word to the tribes. It is a volatile subject, he admits, and he tries his best to remain neutral and not offend anyone in the process.

The mapmaking has hit a few roadblocks with getting in touch with remote tribes, some in Alaska and Upper Yukon area. Carapella’s research also includes accounts by explorers, anthropologist and people from the tribes who have written books about their own histories. Some of his most challenging work has been to do with “Nomadic” tribes, tribes that seasonally change location, although he does have issues with the term itself.

Carapella’s next big project is to work on a 100×50 inch map of the entire western section of the globe. He will work closely with his graphic designer to combine all his maps published so far ensuring their historically and geographically accuracy. Among his smaller projects, he will be working to create regional maps for tribes in California. This project will allow him to add more detail and break down tribal territory into subtribes and villages.  He is also expanding his reach by working on an interactive map that will give more details and correct pronunciations of the tribes as well as links to important issues and websites that can help people learn more about native history. 

While talking about current government involvement, he says that although the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United States recognized 567 Native American Tribes, there are over additional 200 tribes that are fighting just to prove their native ancestry in the United States alone. Federal recognition is one way to keep them from being obliterated from the pages of modern history. Having a map with traditional names and territories is a step towards “uplifting their spirit” and restoring Indigenous hope.

Visit his website to learn more about Aaron Carapella’s work and to purchase his maps.

The post Going Back in Time appeared first on A\J.

Over 21 years of climate change action culminated in December 12th’s historic multilateral agreement. Many will say we have come to a pivotal moment, or to the end of a long road. Some will say it falls short, lacks ambitions and is shameful. Many will say we have failed our frontline communities, those most vulnerable and those who are already suffering — and they will be right. 

The way modern civilizations have organized has proven deeply flawed. We have failed to understand natural limits because our economic, political and social systems have benefited from extracting resources faster than they can be replenished. We have known for decades that this intense growth has catastrophic planetary and social impacts.

We have known this, and yet, our international community has struggled to be able to come to a consensus on how to tackle the challenge. We have watched and waiting during years of stalled negotiations where the divergence between positions was so stark we could not see a way forward. We have been very close to not coming back to the table at all. Despite this international struggle, we have acted in our local communities and made change in our cities and regions. Fundamental shifts in our rhetoric around climate change, the ‘green’ economy, and jobs of the future have occurred. Children born into the climate change generation are learning about sustainable development and clean energy in primary school.

Based on what I have seen and felt this past week in Paris, we have left with a truly remarkable signal

For these reasons and more is why it is important to see this agreement as part of a larger whole. It is just one piece, albeit an important one, in the larger climate movement. I do not think we can expect it to solve all of our problems, nor would that be a realistic assumption. What I expect it to do is to serve as a signal. Based on what I have seen and felt this past week in Paris, we have left with a truly remarkable signal. The international political community has mobilized in a profound way these past few weeks. I have witnessed nothing but strong determination to reach agreement in Paris.

We should accept this agreement as an incredible step forward with many positive elements. While there are some missing pieces, it sets a solid foundation for the road ahead. It was vital that we make international reference to the ultimate goal of 1.5°C of global temperature increase. It was vital that we make pre-2020 ambitions, and set a framework in place to report back to our international community. We did those things. We set the framework in motion. These are the achievements of Paris.

If we expect this text to solve all of our problems we should examine the inputs that would make it possible to be as ambitious as possible. Our leaders are ultimately bound by their constituencies and their political institutions at home. These are their constraints — their processes, their voters and their mandate. Why do we think our leaders cannot come to Paris, or Morocco, or Copenhagen and deliver justice for us? It is obviously because we, the movement, have not done enough at home to convince the people who determine their mandate that this issue is fundamental and worthy of the utmost ambition.

We have an immense challenge ahead of us and work to do swiftly. We know that we have a 10-year “carbon budget” remaining, meaning that in the next 10 years we must achieve deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions or major climate events like droughts, floods, extreme heat and more will wreck havoc on our communities. But now that we have the attention and commitment of 195 countries, I would hazard to say that the work may be less directed at these leaders in the short years ahead, and more directed at our neighbours, our families and our friends. If we start at home, and everyone, not just the environmental activists are demanding action — well then we can say we beat the odds.

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In response to a petition and a brief presented by Toronto350, University of Toronto President Meric Gertler called for an ad hoc advisory committee to review the petition and brief and provide recommendations.

The University of Toronto will become the largest Canadian university to divest from fossil fuels if the institution moves forward with recommendations proposed by their advisory committee.

In response to a petition and a brief presented by Toronto350, University of Toronto President Meric Gertler called for an ad hoc advisory committee to review the petition and brief and provide recommendations.

The petition — released in March of this year — urged U of T to “fully divest from direct investments in fossil fuels companies within the next five years and to stop investing new money in the industry.” 

The Advisory Committee on Divestment from Fossil Fuels recommended in their report that the University divest from “fossil fuels companies whose actions blatantly disregard the international effort to limit the rise in average global temperatures to not more than one and a half degrees Celsius above pre-industrial averages.”

The report does however acknowledge, “that certain activities, though socially injurious, nevertheless offer society indispensable benefits that currently cannot reasonably be gained,” and fossil fuel companies that fall under this category will not be the focus of the divestment recommendations. Therefore, the committee has asked the University to create a criterion that will be used to evaluate the activities of fossil fuel companies to determine if their actions are in blatant disregard to the said threshold.

The committee further recommends U of T halt new investments in fossil fuel companies and advise their investment managers to divest immediately from fossil fuels that are displaying “blatant disregard” for the 1.5-degree threshold. They identified ConocoPhilipps Co. and ExxonMobil, as clear examples of companies whose actions meet the description as mentioned. ConocoPhilipps Co. is listed for their involvement in Arctic extraction activities while ExxonMobil, has made headlines through the discovery that they withheld information about the implications of fossil fuels on the environment.

The advisory committee believes that if the divestment of fossil fuels is implemented, the University will be doing their part for climate change mitigation and adaptation and expect that this decision will have other Canadian universities and institutions will also soon follow suit.

Although divestment campaigns have grown in recent years at many Canadian post-secondary campuses, none have announced a full commitment. 

The University of Waterloo’s Environment Student Endowment Fund (WESEF) board of directors has recently approved a motion to divest from fossil fuels.  The motion will be sent to the university’s board of governor’s finance and investment committee for review. The motion is still in the early stages and it is unknown when the financial committees will announce their decision.

Divest McGill, has been campaigning for the divestment from fossil fuels since 2012. In 2013, McGill University’s Board of Governors rejected their petition stating that there was “insufficient evidence of social injury.” As of earlier this month, the group has received support from the McGill’s Arts faculty and divestment discussion are back on the table. The decision will be ultimately left to the Board of the Governors, who are anticipated to announce a decision next year. 

Some divestment campaigns have not received the same success, with Trent University and Dalhousie University rejecting similar motions in the past year.

In May, the board of Governors at Trent University decided that divestment from fossil fuels would not be the best approach for the institution and instead opted to invest 10 percent of their endowment fund in socially responsible investment options “predicted upon the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI).” This decision has received criticism from an campus student group Sustainable Trent, citing their disappointment but promising to continue to advocate for divestment.

Dalhousie University rejected a proposal to divest from fossil fuels last November. After submissions and presentations from Divest Dal, a group committed to reducing GHG emissions, the Investment Committee decided against the motion. The committee stated that they “did not believe divestment would advance the goal of reduced carbon usage, a conclusion embraced by the Board through its vote.”

In other parts of the world, especially the United States and the United Kingdom, many large universities have already committed to full or partial divestment from fossil fuels. This list includes Syracuse University, University of California, University of Hawaii,  University of Glasgow and Oxford University.

A full list of divestment commitments can be found at gofossilfree.org

The post U of T Could Make Divestment History appeared first on A\J.

A consensus among nations was reached in Paris last Saturday. The agreement has received mixed reviews among the general public with some praising COP21 as the start of a new era of climate action and others criticizing the agreement as weak and incomplete.

The full 31-page draft document can be found here. If you aren’t keen to reading the full document, the CBC and World Resources Institute have outlined five key points of the agreement, complete with an infographic from the WRI.

Some key elements of the agreement include the long-term goal of achieving net zero emissions by “the second half of this century,” and the acknowledgement of the global need to limit global average temperature rise to 1.5°C, a target that many countries and organizations fought hard to have included in the agreement. The agreement also calls for countries to review and strengthen their climate plans every five years and addresses loss and damage and climate financing for developing nations.

Many interesting perspectives have emerged with the release of the agreement. More notable ones include Canadian activist Naomi Klein, who has said in multiple sources that the climate agreement is “scientifically inadequate” and compared it to “agreeing to cut down from five burgers a day to just four.”

Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times, stating that the agreement may have worked in 1995 but as of currently, the 1.5°C target “would require breakneck action of a kind most nations aren’t really contemplating.”

Elizabeth May gave a rundown of the final day at COP21 and along with excitement and optimism ­— calling the Paris Agreement “historic and potentially life-saving” — she shares her concerns regarding the need for immediate action from all nations especially Canada. She urges for Canada to re-vamp and improve the previous Conservative government target, and to “be prepared to do it again in 2020.”

Given that the world is already nearing a global average temperature rise of 1°C , the concerns regarding the 1.5°C target is justifiable. The agreement made in Paris is not the cure-all for climate change. There is still a long way to go and with current climate action pledges deemed inadequate to reaching the “well below” 2°C target, countries need to commit to stronger climate pledges and implement them quickly. Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, we can no longer afford 20 years of climate inaction.   

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The era of climate change denial is over, yet the connection between human consumption and climate change continues to be lost on some consumers. Climate change warning labels on gas pump nozzles provide a low-cost solution to bridge the gap that societies have towards the cause and effect of climate change.

Our Horizon, led by founder and executive Rob Shirkey, is the non-profit organization fighting to make climate change warning labels the law. A\J first discussed climate change warning labels in July 2014 in our Arts and Media issue. Since then, North Vancouver became the first city to pass the legislation making it mandatory for climate change warning labels to be displayed on gas pumps.

Launched in 2013, the climate change warning labels work similar to warning labels on tobacco products. They connect the cause and effect of climate change with consumers, locate responsibility and encourage buyers to seek out the externalities associated with climate change that are not reflected in price of fuel.

“It is not until we’re made to face the reality that we’re up against and it is not until we’re made to feel responsible for this that we will then be able to move forward in meaningful ways,” – said Shirkey at a TEDx conference in Toronto.

The labels get consumers thinking about their contributions to climate change and guide them in seeking out alternatives for their fuel consumption. The hope is that opening up that discussion encourages a shift in consumer demand away from fossil fuels and incentivizes businesses to also seek out fuel alternatives to their products.

After North Vancouver by-law passed last month, a chain reaction of municipalities implementing the legislation has started to occur with cities like Port Moody in BC voting in favour of the legislation. Shirkey says that North Vancouver has led the way in getting other municipalities on board, as there’s sometimes apprehension around leadership in politics. Our Horizon is hopeful that Vancouver and other communities in BC will begin the legislative process in the next year.

However, the climate victory in North Vancouver is just the first step. “We’re going to continue to advocate for the idea at the municipal level,” said Shirkey. “We’re also starting a conversation with provincial and federal government.”

Through a global database currently being built, Our Horizon is planning to “shotgun” their message out to the world and start conversations with global politicians. By informing politicians of the implementation of climate change warning labels in Canadian cities, they hope to inspire countries around the world to implement similar legislations. 

“The neat thing about shotgunning it out to the world is who knows where it might end up,” said Shirkey. “Imagine if this lands in the inbox of some Dutch or Swedish politician who says, “Wow. This is inexpensive, compelling, and governments are starting to do it. Why not do it here?” We think it’s an idea that is destined to spread all over the world.”

Our Horizon is looking for people to volunteer some time to help them build their database to take Climate Change warning labels globally. Sign up at ourhorizon.org/global

Take climate change warning labels to your municipality! Download the Our Horizon Advocacy Action Kit to get started. 

The post Buyer Beware appeared first on A\J.

The Paris climate talks have come to an end, and a historic agreement has been reached. In Canada, environmentalists have breathed a deep sigh of relief as the federal and provincial governments have signalled their plans to collaborate on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, between all the talk about putting a price on carbon, increasing energy efficiency, and building renewable energy capacity, some crucial pieces of the climate change mitigation puzzle have been largely overlooked — electrification and power storage. It is in these related areas that the provinces and Ottawa must show real leadership if Canada is going to succeed in ‘decarbonizing’ the economy.

It is one thing to green the existing electrical grid, it is quite another to facilitate the electrification of those sectors which have traditionally been dominated by fossil fuel use. Governments have overwhelmingly focused on the former, but it is just as crucial (if not more so) to find ways to electrify the machinery that has previously run on oil, gasoline and natural gas. This means greatly expanding electrical generation and storage capacity and introducing rules, regulations and incentives to change the way individuals and businesses carry out everyday tasks, particularly within the industrial, agricultural and transport sectors.

There is no doubt electrification is an enormous challenge, but how much of a gargantuan task must it have seemed in the late 19th Century to bring electricity to Canada’s largest cities at a time when kerosene and whale oil were the dominant fuels?

The norm for the last century has been to use diesel to power our tractors and agricultural vehicles, natural gas (or even oil) to heat our homes, gasoline to power our cars, and any mix of these fossil fuels to run our industrial machinery, construction tools and freight transport. If we want to have any hope of decarbonizing our economy Canada needs to make the shift towards electrification in all of these areas.

Let me demonstrate the absolutely crucial nature of this problem with the following thought exercise: If I told you Canada could completely green the grid overnight – that as of tomorrow only ‘carbon free’ sources of energy (hydro, solar, wind, geothermal, tidal and nuclear) will be used to generate Canada’s electricity, by what percentage would you think the nation’s GHG emissions would drop? It may surprise Canadians to learn that the answer is a measly 12 percent.  In other words, even if we completely eliminate all coal and gas-fired power plants, Canada would still have to find a way to eliminate the vast majority (88 percent) of its GHG emissions.

For many years electrification of this sort simply was not feasible due either to the inability and high cost of storing sufficient quantities of energy effectively in batteries, or the practical dilemmas involved in connecting mobile objects to an electrical current. There is no doubt these challenges persist, yet today significant inroads have been made in power storage technologies. For instance, there is Tesla’s new ‘power wall’ – essentially a large battery powerful enough to energize the typical North American home; or consider the ‘neighbourhood batteries’ that are being used to power entire communities in the UK. While domestic power agencies like Toronto Hydro have begun testing these types of large-scale electrical storage units, there is so much more that must be done at the policy level to facilitate, legislate, fund, and promote electrification and new forms of power storage across the country.The current plans for dealing with that remaining 88 percent focus almost exclusively on improving efficiency (though things like retrofits or new building codes) or putting a price on carbon. These are certainly worthy endeavours, but ultimately these measures will fail on their own because they do not address the reality that energy demand is growing and is forecast to continue growing over the coming decades (both on domestic and global terms). The only clear way to confront the reality of growing energy use while simultaneously reducing emissions is to electrify those sectors and aspects of our daily life that currently rely on fossil fuels.

The transport sector would be a good place to start. The technology exists to make buses, passenger trains and even freight trucks run on electricity, but there is still much in the way of research and development and regulation required to make this goal a reality. The previous federal government claimed climate leadership in September 2014 when it introduced regulations within the transport sector calling on vehicle manufacturers to make more efficient motors. Real leadership, however, would have looked more like the legislation passed at the same time in California, which focused on boosting the electric vehicles market.

There is no doubt electrification is an enormous challenge, but how much of a gargantuan task must it have seemed in the late 19th Century to bring electricity to Canada’s largest cities at a time when kerosene and whale oil were the dominant fuels? Genuine political leadership on climate change must include investment in research, development and innovation in electrification and new forms of power storage, not just in the areas of efficiency, pricing carbon and renewable energy. The latter are important, but we need all the tools in our climate change mitigation toolbox. 

The post The Missing Pieces in Canada’s Climate Change Mitigation Plan appeared first on A\J.

I’ve been living on the Toronto Island since the beginning of September. When I returned to my native city after spending time in more rural places, the idea of moving back to the heart of Canada’s largest metropolis was a little overwhelming. 

I’ve been living on the Toronto Island since the beginning of September. When I returned to my native city after spending time in more rural places, the idea of moving back to the heart of Canada’s largest metropolis was a little overwhelming. 

The Island offers the perfect compromise. Regular ferry access to downtown Toronto makes the Island accessible, while the harbour provides a distance that helps maintain the Island’s small town community feel.

Despite dire predictions of the hardships of Island life, the mild fall we’ve had this year has made the transition to Island living easy. That wasn’t the case when Anne Barber emigrated to Canada and moved onto the Island 23 year ago. 

“Having come in the fall, it’s always around this time of year that I remember what it was like to arrive here,” says Barber of her own transition to a new country and community. 

Barber, a co-founder of the legendary Shadowland puppet theatre troupe, immediately benefited from that close-knit community spirit. “It seems kind of absurd now, but I really had no idea about the extent of a Canadian winter,” she says Barber, “I never really heard of down jackets. Then so many neighbours came and brought warm coats and things like that. My daughter was given an all-in-one snowsuit, which you didn’t have in [the UK]. So there I was stuffing my child into this big snowsuit. I never really knew how essential they would be until winter hit.”

The warmth of community and those jackets would serve Barber and her young family well. “When the kids were small, I had this policy of, we have to go outside every day,” says Barber, “I think on the Island you feel almost obliged to do that in order to get as much out of the place as possible. It didn’t matter what the weather was, no matter how bad it seemed, it was always important to stuff everybody in their coats and get outside.”

I’ve taken Barber’s experience to heart, making sure to structure outdoor adventures into my Island time, in spite of the conditions or how busy I am. There are so many nooks and crannies to explore and it’s a pleasure to be able to get some fresh air and natural stimulation. 
“The Island is the only place I’ve ever lived in Canada,” says Barber, “Right now, the thing that you don’t get quite the same in [the UK] is the beautiful foliage. This year has been especially incredible because we’ve had such nice, sunny days and the leaves have been so vibrant. When you look at the Island, either coming or going on the ferry, it’s this glowing place. It always makes me feel like we’re having this last gift before we get into the winter months.”

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