One obstacle to switching to locally produced food is the cost. People on low incomes cannot afford to give up the savings of shopping at discount supermarkets, where local production is not a priority. It is a sad fact that … Continue reading
Chris Earley is interpretive biologist and education coordinator at University of Guelph Arboretum. He has written four field guides to birds of North America, such as Warblers of the Great Lakes Region and Eastern North America. Chris has led tours … Continue reading
Yesterday Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) Guelph hosted a meeting to discuss its Speed River Project. Guest speaker Dr. Karen Morrison discussed her work on ecohealth, suggesting human well-being is rooted in a sense of place. Communities should be … Continue reading
The air feels cold like late winter, but the light is early spring: more intense, direct and engaged, having shaken it’s winter detachment. My partner and I went to Kensington Café in Kensington Market (Toronto) for brunch. They serve hard-to-find … Continue reading
Where lies the intersection between science and spirituality? As a former evangelical Christian who one day realized he no longer believed in God, I have struggled to define what spirituality means for me now. Can I in fact still call … Continue reading
[slickr-flickr id=”12687067@N00″ type=”gallery” tag=”treezone2″] This winter I got in the habit of feeling tree bark. One weekend on a stroll through cedar woods along the Grand River, I discovered the bark of these trees is extremely soft to the touch … Continue reading
Addressing Why did consciousness evolve? Malcolm MacIver at Science Not Fiction theorizes it arose as animals left the sea and adapted to terrestrial environments. Life underwater requires short reaction times, he argues, because the range of senses, particularly sight, is … Continue reading
Today as I watched footage of the tsunami sweeping away cars, houses, lives and entire towns, a wave of sadness washed over me. Japan was well prepared as any country to minimize damage from such a disaster, but generally people … Continue reading
[slickr-flickr id=”12687067@N00″ type=”gallery” tag=”fernfrost”] It’s too bad we have to worry about energy efficiency. As new windows replace old ones in our homes, fern frost is becoming a lost memory. Fern frost is the stuff that forms on glass when … Continue reading
Here are two stories about people working to protect wildlife in urban setting (with apologies for the advertisements attached to these BBC news clips). The city of Austin, Texas, has protected its two million free-tailed bats, while generating $10 million … Continue reading