by Mike Commito On December 21st 2011, the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters tweeted a link to a National Post article, “Wild Game Meat not Welcome at Ontario Food Banks,” which reported that a Lanark, Ontario food bank had decided to reject donations of wild game meat. The post piqued my interest for several [...]
Posts under ‘Environment’
Active History on the Grand: Heritage Trees in Ontario
I think that I shall never see, A poem as lovely as a tree. – Sergeant Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918) While many of us may be familiar with the designation of built heritage properties under the Ontario Heritage Act, recently municipalities have been using the Ontario Heritage Act to designate individual trees as heritage trees. Municipalities [...]
Historical 2012 Olympic Tour (1st Edition)
By Jim Clifford British politicians and planners are using the 2012 Olympic games to “revitalize” the Lower Lea Valley, a post-industrial landscape, situated between four inner-suburban boroughs in the East of London, including West Ham, which was the focus of my dissertation research. A century ago R. A. Bray described West Ham “as that of [...]
EHTV Episode 10: A Town Called Asbestos V
On this final episode of a five-part series on the history of asbestos mining in Quebec, Dr. Jessica Van Horssen examines the effects of the decline of the asbestos industry and its impact on the people of Asbestos, QC. Furthermore, she discusses the internationally condemned policy of the federal government to abandon the use of [...]
Funneling Controversy: The Keystone XL Pipeline
Transborder pipelines are nothing new. There is a long history, forgive the pun, of such enterprises in North America. In fact, Canada has historically been a pipeline pioneer. Yet the Keystone XL project has attracted what is likely unprecedented environmental opposition for a transnational pipeline, including protests featuring celebrities and arrests outside of the White House. Perhaps this pipeline has become a potent symbol of wider dissatisfaction with our current petro-regimes and environmental approaches?
EHTV Episode 09: A Town Called Asbestos Part IV
The fourth part in a NiCHE EHTV mini-series, by Dr. Jessica Van Horssen, on the history of asbestos mining in Quebec investigates the decades after the Second World War when global awareness of the adverse health effects of asbestos led to import bans and ultimately the decline of the industry. As medical science unequivocally linked [...]
Population Control and the Environment
by Ryan O’Connor On October 31st the United Nations announced the birth of the seven billionth person. Many stories were published on this event, but to me the most revealing was by David Suzuki, the venerable leader of Canada’s environmental movement. As Suzuki pointed out, the human population has increased three-fold during his lifetime. Nonetheless, [...]
A Town Called Asbestos Part III
In the third installment of this five-part NiCHE EHTV series, Dr. Jessica Van Horssen explores the growth of the asbestos mining industry in Quebec during the Second World War and the post-war period. In particular, she unearths the history of the adverse health effects of exposure to asbestos and the corporate and Canadian government initiatives [...]
EHTV Episode 07: A Town Called Asbestos Part II
This week EHTV continues its five-part series on asbestos in Quebec with the second installation. In Part II of “A Town Called Asbestos”, Dr. Jessica Van Horssen continues her survey of the history of asbestos in Quebec by examining the first asbestos industry boom between 1914 and 1939. The outbreak of war in Europe and [...]
A Town Called Asbestos: a NiCHE EHTV series by Jessica van Horssen
Over the next few Fridays, ActiveHistory.ca is re-posting a five part series of YouTube videos created for the Network in Canadian Environment & History’s EHTV. This week EHTV presents the first part of a fascinating history of Quebec asbestos by Dr. Jessica Van Horssen. For more than one hundred years, Quebecers have mined this unique [...]
