Month: November 2006

Safer Homes

- Agasel

A house in West Point, PEI, is the first Canadian home built under the “Designed for safer living” program.  This program is a joint collaboration between the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, the Canadian insurance industry, and home builders.

This slide show details how the house was rebuilt after being badly damaged by fire last spring.  The Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction says it’s unclear how much the improvements added to the cost of the home, because the program is new.

Five more are expected to be built by December 2007, including one in the Prairies that will withstand wildfires, one in Vancouver that will handle earthquakes, and another in Sudbury to deal with wind and storms.

Colon Cancer Cells Identified

- Adam Clare

This is groovy that two teams of scientist who worked independently reached the same basic conclusion. Also, they found the cell type that contributes to colon cancer which will make looking for a cure easier.

“Two groups, working independently, showed that a subpopulation of CD133+ cells within the tumor, representing just a small fraction of the overall cancer mass, behave as cancer-initiating cells, with the ability to maintain themselves in culture in an undifferentiated state, initiate tumor growth after xenotransplantation in mice, and differentiate into cancers that are phenotypically indistinguishable from the original human tumor.”

Save the Environment While Helping the Poor

- Alison 1 Comment

Van Jones, 38, wants to know: Why aren’t environmentalists and social justice activists already working together? He insists this is possible when building an environmentally sustainable economy and healthy environment for all.

Jones is working with politicians, business leaders, educators and community activists to develop such cooperation in Oakland, Calif., where he founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in 1996 to tackle criminal justice issues.

“We are working with community colleges and labor unions and prison re-entry organizations to create a green job corps, where urban youths and workers will be taught to install solar panels, do organic gardening or retrofit buildings so they don’t leak energy.”

Jones believes that the safest communities have the best education and jobs for young people, and is “calling on environmentalists and human rights activists to join in a national drive to save the environment and improve the lives of the working poor”.

2006 A.D. Latornell Conservation Symposium

- Cam Proctor 2 Comments

“Why did the chicken cross the road? Because global warming shifted the climate and the only suitable habitat for chickens is up North.”

“We spent all this money developing tools to identify conservation areas, learning how to manage these areas and trying to acquire enough of them to have some sembelance of an ecosystem, and it was all for naught because of climate change.”

“How do you conserve a species, lets take a bird that eats caterpillars as an example, when climate change causes caterpillars to lay their eggs early and by the time the young birds hatch all the caterpillars are now butterflies?

These are just some of the questions I heard at the 2006 A.D. Latornell Conservation Symposium. This year’s theme was – Creating a Climate for Change – refering to the actions that conservationists are taking in order to meet the challenges of climate change. A lot of really good discussion happened at this conference . Tough questions were asked and the people on the floor stood up to answer them. Canada might not have a government that is working against climate change, but it has at least one dedicated group doing it.

Ship it Good!

- Cam Proctor

Aside from the invasive species catching a free ride every now and again, the transport industry causes a huge volume of carbon dioxide emmissions annualy. A Maryland-based non-profit, Carbonfund.org, came up with a neat way of offsetting these emissions by launching a Carbonfree Shipping program, which allows retailers to reduce some of the carbon footprint created by shipping packages to customers. Four companies — BetterWorld.com, Evogear.com, 3R Living and alonova.com — have joined the program.

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