Lucara’s Eira Thomas has a knack for finding huge diamond reserves. Now she wants to disrupt the industryEira Thomas is on the run. The annual results for her company, Vancouver-based Lucara Diamond Corp., are coming out in 11 days, and as its co-founder and chief executive, she is prepping for a round of board meetings and earnings presentations,… Mar 27 20March 27, 2020Article at The Globe and Mail
Why more women are taking up huntingLast week, a self-described "diehard waiting on the big old buck" reassured his modest Twitter following: "Keep calm, deer season is almost here." The advice may have been intended for men, but the biggest response came from a woman: Eva Shockey's… Aug 22 14August 22, 2014Article at The Globe and Mail
What the Rotarians did to help put an end to polioIt's tempting to say it all started with Imelda Marcos. But that's not quite true – it started with a group of businessmen with a connection to the Philippine first lady. About a quarter-century ago, Rotary International, a service club that now has… Sep 13 13September 13, 2013Article at The Globe and Mail
How feeding and caring for 800 million pets hurts Mother NatureThere are 25.5 million pets in Canada, and we're spending more on them than ever before. These stories explore how the animals among us are shaping us all. If man has such an impact on the environment, why not its best friends – especially now that… Aug 02 13August 02, 2013Article at The Globe and Mail
Is denial the secret of humanity’s success?Denial, as the old joke goes, is not just a river in Egypt. It's proof of modern society's deepest sins: delusion, repression, irrationality, cynicism and manipulation. It's the failure to be able to tell fact from fiction, and, worse, the… Jun 07 13June 07, 2013Article at The Globe and Mail
Is Al Gore’s new book political propaganda or a literary legacy?When you write a book boldly titled The Future, your readers have to know what you stand for and why you're saying it before they can embrace your prognostications. And when you are also a former U.S. vice-president, Al Gore, that can be a… Mar 01 13March 01, 2013Article at The Globe and Mail
Will humans someday communicate by thought alone?It was one of the great "eureka" moments in the history of neuroscience, caught on film as it was taking place in London, Ont. The patient, Scott Routley, was severely brain-injured in 1999 after being hit by a police car. Given only two years to… Feb 08 13February 08, 2013Article at The Globe and Mail
Demon Fish: Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks, by Juliet EilperinThere may be no one in the world who knows more about sharks and the intricacies of their relationship to humans than Washington Post reporter Juliet Eilperin. In the exhaustive research for Demon Fish, she goes far beyond the creatures' biology,… Jul 11 11July 11, 2011Article at The Globe and Mail
Here on Earth, by Tim FlanneryHere on Earth A Natural History of the Planet By Tim Flannery HarperCollins, 316 pages, $34.99 If you know what science is telling us about the planet, you know that this is a hinge moment for human civilization. It's one of those rare times in… Apr 15 11April 15, 2011Article at The Globe and Mail
Messing with Mother NatureHe Knew He Was Right: The Irrepressible Life of James Lovelock and Gaia, by John Gribbin and Mary Gribbin, Allen Lane, 240 pages, $42 A curious and disturbing contradiction sits at the heart of He Knew He Was Right: The Irrepressible Life of James… Mar 28 09March 28, 2009Article at The Globe and Mail
Review: Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent, by Andrew NikiforukCanada has no cohesive energy policy. Nor does it have a cohesive environmental policy. Put the two together and you get the tar sands of Alberta, in all their hideous glory. Andrew Nikiforuk's Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent lays… Jan 16 09January 16, 2009Article at The Globe and Mail
The G8 fiddles while petro-civilization burnsTHE HOT TOPIC What We Can Do About Global Warming By Gabrielle Walker and Sir David King Douglas & McIntyre, 276 pages, $15.95 GLOBAL FEVER How to Treat Climate Change By William H. Calvin University of Chicago Press, 337 pages, $22.95 BRING ON THE… Jul 12 08July 12, 2008Article at The Globe and Mail
The Pollyanna of global warmingCOOL IT The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming By Bjorn Lomborg Knopf, 253 pages, $27 In high-school biology class, we used to do an experiment with fruit flies. You put flies and food in a jar, screw the top on tight and wait to… Sep 29 07September 29, 2007Article at The Globe and Mail
Good riddance to us and our bad rubbishOf all the urgent, practical, mind-bogglingly complex scientific questions pressing on humanity right now, the one Alan Weisman chooses to ask in this book is possibly the most important: What would Earth look like if every human vanished? It's… Jul 20 07July 20, 2007Article at The Globe and Mail
Human idiocy, the deadliest plaguePandemonium: Bird Flu, Mad Cow Disease, and Other Biological Plagues of the 21st Century By Andrew Nikiforuk Viking, 304 pages, $34 This book is born of outrage. And not the sort that has matured to sorrow or resignation, but the type that wants to… Sep 02 06September 02, 2006Article at The Globe and Mail
Bacteria enlisted to gobble water toxinsHow do you get rid of the most common toxic contaminants in the ground water of the industrialized world? Until recently, you didn't. Dumped in open waste pits for decades and left to evaporate (instead of being safely recycled, as they mainly are… Dec 13 04December 13, 2004Article at The Globe and Mail
Dion to examine report on pollutionEnvironment Minister Stéphane Dion is vowing to examine a damning report that catalogues a sharp rise in the toxic pollution load coming from Canada's industries. The report, Shattering the Myth of Pollution Progress in Canada, was made public… Dec 09 04December 09, 2004Article at The Globe and Mail
Canada losing pollution fight, report showsCanada's battle against toxic pollution has stalled so badly that the recorded chemical load being dumped into water, land and air has jumped by half since 1995. The figures, which compare only the same chemicals from year to year and from 1995 to… Dec 08 04December 08, 2004Article at The Globe and Mail
Find off B.C. may be tanks of chlorineAfter nearly 30 years of mystery, government scientists believe they have found four rail-car tankers that vanished into coastal waters near Vancouver carrying a lethal load of chlorine. ''We found two blobs that are fairly substantial. They could… Nov 30 04November 30, 2004Article at The Globe and Mail
Just not interestedThere's a new sexual chic on the move, something so radical, so out there, so over-the-top that it has even left its adherents aghast. It's called asexuality. And like hetero, homo and bi, it's a type of sexual orientation, except it's only now… Nov 27 04November 27, 2004Article at The Globe and Mail
