PEREGRINE PULP

I’ve had some wonderful moments out on the quiet of the reef with green sea turtles. (If you’ve never done so, it’s really something you must seek out, even just once. I can recommend some spots.) Because they were abundant where I was, and knowing they’re found all over the planet , throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of every ocean, I never appreciated how threatened they were as a species ( Chelonia mydas ). Accidental catches (mostly fisheries bycatch and aba

The subject of the peopling of the Americas was always messy and it’s getting even more interesting all the time. Some will insist folks...

I was recently looking for some statistics on iatrogenesis . That's just a fancy term for the medical system screwing up and causing harm rather than preventing or relieving it. Think: hospital acquired infections, adverse drug reactions , medical errors, psychological damage ,  and the like. However, as so often happens, I couldn't find what I was looking for but accidentally stumbled upon this extremely interesting study  on the prevalence of ineffective medical treatments

This is what I understood my ancestry to look like: My father’s family name is extremely English and my mother’s maiden name is a sort of anglicization of an Austrian surname, as I understand it. My maternal grandmother’s maiden name is also extremely English while my paternal grandmother’s could only be Scottish. And all of those folks and some of their parents and grandparents, like my parents and myself, were all born in Canada. Everyone else on the family tree I’m aware o

I was wanting to learn about and write something on how leaded gasoline became a thing. But then I came upon the biography  of its inventor.  Thomas Midgley, Jr. was born in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania in 1889. He grew up in Columbus, Ohio and studied engineering at Cornell, earning a Master’s of Engineering in 1908 and a PhD in mechanical engineering in 1911. Five years later he was working for General Motors, at their Dayton Engineering Laboratories (DELCo) subsidiary in Ohi

Some folks really hate Jared Diamond. And those folks love hating Jared Diamond. As any good polymath (with backgrounds in physiology, ecology, evolutionary biology, geography, history, and anthropology, degrees from Harvard and Cambridge, and professorships at UCLA in both medicine and geography) Diamond has written several books. His first popular work came out in 1991 and was titled, The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal . He followed that in

You read that right. I’m all for burning books, as I'm pretty sure you are. Just because you can conjure a pithy line you heard in a film or picked up from someone on social media about democracy or free expression doesn’t make the sentiment true. Yes, there was most certainly a time when books were precious items and libraries temples celebrating and preserving the world’s culture and collective wisdom. And, yes, in that context destroying a book or a library, god forbid, co

On April 12th, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld sent George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice and email titled “Predicting the Future.” The...

Between 1892 and 1954 around 12 million people immigrated to the US via the immigration station at Ellis Island, New York. And any scan...

The United States and 21 other countries pledged on Saturday at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai to triple nuclear energy...

I saw a “safe supply” rally yesterday in Victoria. And I read this article about it this morning, titled “ BC mother runs across province...

Oliver Stone just put out a new film promoting nuclear energy, titled Nuclear Now: Time to look again. So, just as he asks, let’s...

You may have heard something about the Sea Star Wasting Disease (SSWD) epidemic that came to the Pacific coast of North America in 2013....

IS THIS HELPING ANYTHING? ​ • The “Doomsday Glacier” Is Irreversibly Melting, Researchers Say “It could fall apart quickly, in decades.”...

David Suzuki used to have this metaphor he'd use when talking about climate change. He likened the problem and our inaction to a car...

This is a list of films I'd like you to watch. Some of these will blow your mind or lift your spirit; some are more like a pleasant...

Conversations about carbon dioxide and energy have been unavoidable within environmental circles and are increasingly so in the media. In...

In one of our final courses we were asked for an analysis and reflection of major course projects and themes. Here was mine: The Local...

READING Kimmerer, R. (2017, June 12). Speaking of nature. Orion Magazine. https://orionmagazine.org/article/speaking-of-nature/ SUMMARY...

It's happening again. A Forbes article, citing the Australian Koala Foundation (AKF), is reporting that due to recent fires in Australia...

For an assignment prompt we were asked to read the following article about the nutritional and ecological value and ethical superiority...

There's a meme that's been going around for a decade or more that I'd like to see end. There are many variations but they typically...

By Kale McDunitt May 29th, 2022 Austria's Schönbrunn Zoo, the world's oldest continuously operating zoo, went public today with a secret...

Seems every news and information source is offering that we are on the cusp of a global insect mass-extinctions threatening all life on...

One afternoon in Kampala I was out running errands when I decided to hail a boda-boda (a motorcycle taxi and the most common public...

On this day in 1944, D-Day, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade landed on Juno Beach in Nazi-occupied...

We’ve spent two years getting a worker-owned co-op from conception to construction. The business is a for-profit bakery in the heart of...

At 37 I've watched many acquaintances and friends and much of my family die. I feel like I've seen the gamut, and in everyone from the...

The Archbishop of Toronto, Cardinal Thomas Collins, produced and long and insufferable video diatribe on physician-assisted suicide. His...

If you told me, clearly and specifically, that you went to Hawaii to swim with the dolphins and turtles I would say you had swimming or...

I just saw this fun job ad for an outdoor school near Vancouver. The job required a minimum of two years experience working in...

Weirdly, from what I’ve seen in elementary schools, kids are often told they can and should produce a perfect result in one brief...

Earth Hour, an annual event organized by the folks at The World Wildlife Fund, attempts to raise awareness of environmental issues by...

So there’s this thing: this nagging confusion I have that has been with me for as long as I can recall. The first time this confusion...

I was recently given a report called Toward a New Consciousness: Values to Sustain Human and Natural Communities. The work was produced...

You may or may not have noticed that owning a car is one of the entry points to respectable society. And if you turn on the television or...

In 2008 Leila Janah, an attractive, young, globetrotting Harvard graduate founded a not-for-profit called Samasource. She introduced the...