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[The Alberta Environmental Policy Series highlights the many environmental challenges and related government policies in Alberta. SAGE welcomes feedback on these topics.] In 2020, the 1976 Coal Policy was rescinded without public consultation. Significant areas of the Eastern Slopes land were opened to coal leases, initiating a widespread response from concerned landowners, environmentalists, and Indigenous…
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Solar Panels (photovoltaic, PV) create direct-current (DC) electricity when exposed to the sun. The DC electricity is converted into AC and conditioned so that it may be used in the home or sent to the grid. The grid describes the electricity generation and transmission lines used to distribute electricity to the user, like your home.…
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Windows are an important consideration in reducing heat loss from a home. Designed well, they also allow for passive gains from sunlight entering the home. The main difficulty in assessing the economics of upgrading windows in a home is in the wide range of styles and materials used to make them – styles like bay…
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There has been a lot of interest in using heat pumps for heating and cooling our homes, thereby reducing energy bills and reducing our carbon emission footprint in Canada. The problem is that each location has its own climate, types of energy used, and energy prices – the decision on how best to heat and…
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Letter to Minister Schulz, Minister Sigurdson, Minister Loewen and Minister McIver Recent proposals for over 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres) of irrigation agriculture expansion within the South Saskatchewan River basin have raised several concerns about environmental impacts, including potential loss of native grasslands. Native grasslands are valued by Albertans as habitat for a broad diversity of…
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Bill 18 Provincial Priorities Act, Bill 20 Municipal Affairs Statutes Amendment Act The Guardian (9 May 2024) asked the question: ‘What are the most powerful climate actions you can take?’ From the leading experts queried, the fourth top response was to reduce home heating and cooling emissions. SAGE agrees, and would add that this also…
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Monbiot, G. (2022). Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet. Allen Lane. George Monbiot ambitiously challenges what is perhaps the greatest taboo subject as it relates to ecological impact – the source of our food. Regenesis explores farming as it relates to water pollution, persistent pollutants in the soil, biodiversity loss and climate change…
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Fitch, L. (2024). Travels Up the Creek: A biologist’s search for a paddle. Rocky Mountain Books. Following his Streams of Consequence: Dispatches from the Conservation World, Lorne Fitch offers something new in Travels Up the Creek: A Biologist’s Search for a Paddle. Well not all new. Lorne still shares what can only be described as…
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Vaillant, J. (2006). The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed. Penguin Canada. A fascinating story of our human relationship with the natural world. The Golden Spruce was literally golden due to an inability to hold chlorophyll, a condition that should have killed the tree, but instead it grew for 300 years along the banks of theYakoun river in…
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Vaillant, J. (2011). The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival. Vintage Canada. Take a journey into one of the planet’s most remote areas; Primorye in northeastern Russia, squeezed between The Peoples’ Republic of China and the Sea of Japan. Converging in this area are 4 distinct bioregions marked by Siberian taiga, Mongolian steppes, Korean and…
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Vaillant, J. (2023). Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast. Knopf “Fire has no heart, no soul, and no concern for the damage it does, or who it harms. Its focus is solely on sustaining itself and spreading as broadly as possible, wherever possible. In this way, fire resembles the unspoken priorities of most commercial industries, corporate…