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The most widely used green building rating system in the world.
Start a project

Green building leadership is LEED

LEED provides a framework for healthy, efficient, carbon and cost-saving green buildings. LEED certification is a globally recognized symbol of sustainability achievement and leadership.

How LEED works

LEED certified buildings save money, improve efficiency, lower carbon emissions and create healthier places for people. They are a critical part of addressing climate change and meeting ESG goals, enhancing resilience, and supporting more equitable communities.

To achieve LEED certification, a project earns points by adhering to prerequisites and credits that address carbon, energy, water, waste, transportation, materials, health and indoor environmental quality. Projects go through a verification and review process by GBCI and are awarded points that correspond to a level of LEED certification: Certified (40-49 points), Silver (50-59 points), Gold (60-79 points) and Platinum (80+ points).

Platinum
80+ points earned

Gold
60-79 points earned

Silver
50-59 points earned

Certified
40-49 points earned

LEED system goals

The goal of LEED is to create better buildings that:

Reduce contribution to global climate change

Enhance individual human health

Protect and restore water resources

Protect and enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services

Promote sustainable and regenerative material cycles

Enhance community quality of life

LEED is a holistic system that doesn't simply focus on one element of a building such as energy, water or health, rather it looks at the big picture factoring in all of the critical elements that work together to create the best building possible. In fact, 35% of the credits in LEED are related to climate change, 20% of the credits directly impact human health, 15% of the credits impact water resources, 10% of the credits affect biodiversity, 10% of the credits relate to the green economy, 5% of the credits impact community and 5% of the credits impact natural resources. In LEED v4.1, a majority of the LEED credits are related to operational and embodied carbon. Learn more.

A LEED for every project

LEED is for all building types and all building phases including new construction, interior fit outs, operations and maintenance and core and shell. Unsure of which rating system to use? Check out our interactive Discover LEED tool to get started; then, use the rating system selection guidance to make a final decision.

BD+C
Building Design and Construction

For new construction or major renovations. Includes:

New Construction

Core & Shell

Learn more about building design and construction.

ID+C
Interior Design and Construction

O+M
Building Operations and Maintenance

For existing buildings that are undergoing improvement work or little to no construction. Includes:

O+M also includes applications for Schools, Retail, Hospitality, Data Centers, and Warehouses & Distribution Centers.

Learn more about operations and maintenance.

ND
Neighborhood Development

For new land development projects or redevelopment projects containing residential uses, nonresidential uses, or a mix. Projects can be at any stage of the development process, from conceptual planning to construction. Includes:

Learn more about neighborhood development.

For single family homes, low-rise multi-family (one to three stories) or mid-rise multi-family (four to six stories). Includes:

Homes

Multifamily Lowrise

Multifamily Midrise

Homes and residential buildings that are greater than six stories use LEED BD+C. Learn more about LEED homes.

For entire cities and sub-sections of a city. LEED for Cities projects can measure and manage their city's water consumption, energy use, waste, transportation and human experience. Learn more about LEED for Cities.

LEED recertification is an important step in protecting your building asset. Recertification helps you maintain and improve your building while keeping your sustainability investment in place. Applies to all occupied and in-use projects that have previously achieved certification under LEED - including BD+C and ID+C, regardless of their initial rating system or version. Learn more about recertification.
Recertification guide

Available for all LEED projects certified under the BD+C or O+M rating systems or registered to pursue LEED O+M certification. LEED Zero is for projects with net zero goals in carbon and/or resources. Learn more about LEED Zero.

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The most widely used green building rating system in the world. Start a project LEED provides a framework for healthy, efficient, carbon and cost-saving green buildings. LEED certification is a globally recognized symbol of sustainability achievement and leadership. How LEED works LEED certified buildings save money, improve efficiency, lower carbon emissions and create healthier places for people.

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According to Evelyn Lee on Inhabitat, the 600-square-foot, one-bedroom prefab prototype was built entirely by students, with guidance and input from faculty members. Says Lee, "The goal of the collaboration was to build a prototype prefab conducive to elegant and sustainable living within the heart of the desert landscape." The structure makes use of lightweight panelized construction, rainwater collection and greywater reuse, solar panels, low-consumption fixtures and natural ventilation.

Mod.Fab has won several awards, including Time's Green Design 100 and Sunset magazine's 2010 Best Green Home award. It's a true organic oasis in the desert - one of many simple, efficient, natural homes popping up throughout the American West.

Another such home is a little (very little) structure that designer Dave Frazee calls "Miner's Shelter." This micro-home was built atop an authentic abandoned miner's shelter. "Frazee constructed the home using concrete, steel, and locally sourced wood to reflect the desert environment," writes Ashley Collman on the UK's Daily Mail website. "The original miner's shelter had a concrete chimney ready-built, so Frazee used it as a basis to keep the hut warm on cold nights by putting the door right next to the heat source. [He] designed the home with the desert climate in mind. Pop-out windows allow a breeze to come in and chill the room down on hot days. Inside the home, there's just enough room for a bed."

Frazee, now a member of the Broken Arrow Workshop (made up of Frank Lloyd Wright grads), built the structure as a temporary project while he was a student at Taliesin West. The home has since been approved to remain as a permanent structure.

On the other side of the country, near Pittsburgh, lies what many consider to be Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece: Fallingwater. Built in 1935 for wealthy business owner and philanthropist Edgar Kaufmann, Fallingwater is a brilliant marriage of nature and design.

Britton Marketing & Design Group president Jeff Britton recalls his impressions of this legendary architectural creation: "When I was at Fallingwater, I learned that the color of the house was the same shade as the undersides of the leaves that surround the home. It is a unique shade of yellow-mauve melon. When we were designing our own home, we didn't want to repaint it, so we matched the color of lichen bark and the yellowish tips of new leaves in the spring with the wallpaper and some of the furnishings."

And the Brittons' home, nestled in a beautiful setting that borders a nature preserve in northeast Indiana, can certainly be considered organic in its design. With custom architecture that makes use of large, sunlight-friendly windows, as well as recently added geothermal power, the home peacefully coexists with its surroundings.

Reflecting on the natural aspects of his home, Britton says, "In the summer, there is so much green coming in the windows that if you turn around and look at the white wall, you get flashes of red - the complementary color of green, of course. Red is the opposite of the greenness of the forest. It is why Wright liked that Cherokee red and why the Japanese choose this color for iron work in their gardens - yin yang."

"The building grows out of the landscape as naturally as any plant; its relationship to the site is so unique that it would be out of place elsewhere."

Fallingwater has also inspired some modern Organic Architecture in its own backyard. A grouping of sustainably designed underground eco-cottages now gracefully accentuate the meadow landscape of Bear Run Nature Reserve, a 5,000-acre natural area near Fallingwater. And these cottages are of the earth, literally.

With the soil and grasses of the meadow as the exterior, each cottage is carefully designed within a swell or gentle ridge in the landscape. "In series, cottages form swells and falls of landform. Cottage-form is an intensification of landscape-form," states the cottages' designer, Patkau Architects, on Archello. "Just as Fallingwater is an intensification of the rock outcroppings that characterize Bear Run, the meadow cottages are an intensification of the swelling ground-plane of the meadow."

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Frank Lloyd Wright's Organic Architecture: Green Design Before Its Time - Britton Marketing & Design Group

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According to Evelyn Lee on Inhabitat, the 600-square-foot, one-bedroom prefab prototype was built entirely by students, with guidance and input from faculty members. Says Lee, "The goal of the collaboration was to build a prototype prefab conducive to elegant and sustainable living within the heart of the desert landscape."

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Frank Lloyd Wright

An American architect, designer, writer, and educator, Frank Lloyd Wright promoted organic architecture, which was best exemplified in his most famous work-Fallingwater. During his seventy-year career, Wright designed over 1,100 buildings (seeing over 500 of them realized), authored twenty books and numerous articles, and was a popular lecturer in the United States and in Europe until his death. Already renowned during his lifetime, Wright is now considered the "greatest American architect of all time."

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959)

Frank Lincoln Wright was born in Richland Center, Wisconsin, on June 8, 1867, to William Carey Wright, an itinerant music teacher, composer, and Baptist minister, and Anna Lloyd Jones Wright, a school teacher. Following his parents' divorce in 1885, Frank changed his middle name to Lloyd to honor his mother's family.

Though his ambitious and strong-minded mother decorated the walls of his nursery with pictures of European cathedrals, it was not man-made beauty that initially captivated Wright. Growing up in rural Wisconsin on a plot of land originally settled by his mother's Welsh ancestors, Wright spent his days surrounded by-and indeed a part of-the changing natural landscape. A patchwork of open fields, lush green valleys and rock-edged streams fed by the Wisconsin River all proved influential in the formation of his later organic design philosophy.

Wright's family lived on a farm and, as a boy, his experiences taking care of animals and harvesting a life out of the earth made an indelible impression on him that influenced him consciously and, even more importantly, unconsciously, throughout his life. During his youth, he spent many hours purposefully observing the subtle behavior of sunlight, the shifting shadows of dusk and the changing of the seasons. Enthralled, he later sought out great thinkers whose beliefs affirmed and ultimately refined his, such as Thoreau, Emerson and Whitman.

Wright's reverence for the natural world became the cornerstone of his pioneering theories of "organic architecture" and would shape, define and enhance every project he approached for the rest of his life. Generations would hail Frank Lloyd Wright as a genius...one of the greatest architects who ever lived. But like the sunny fields where he played as a child, his life would also have its shadows.

It has been noted that Wright's career ran concurrently with the birth and evolution of modern architecture. He began his career in 1887 in Chicago, first in the office of Joseph Lyman Silsbee and then at the firm of Adler & Sullivan, under the supervision of the famed architect Louis Sullivan.

When it was discovered he was soliciting his own commissions, he then set up a private practice in his Oak Park home, adding a drafting studio and visitor reception room in 1895. There he perfected his signature Prairie Style, emphasizing open spaces and shallow, sloping rooflines. The Prairie Style, especially houses like that for Frederick C. Robie, was extremely influential in the Midwest especially, and is considered a milestone in the history of modern architecture.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, Frank Lloyd Wright's productivity was matched in intensity by the public's fascination with his personal life. A high-profile affair with a client, the resulting well-publicized separation from his wife, and a year-long sojourn through Europe culminated in his return to the United States in 1911 and his purchase of a plot of ancestral land in Wisconsin, where he would build his renowned retreat and studio, Taliesin.

The valley surrounding Taliesin was originally settled by Wright's maternal family, the Lloyd Joneses, during the Civil War. Welsh immigrants, Wright's maternal grandfather and uncle were Unitarian ministers, and his two aunts had founded the Hillside Home School, a co-educational boarding school. The Lloyd Jones family, their ideas, religion, and ideals, greatly influenced the young Wright, who chose the Welsh word Taliesin, meaning "shining brow" for his sanctuary positioned on the "brow" of a favored hill.

Subsequent sensational events at Taliesin included the murder of seven people, including Wright's mistress at the time, by arson in 1914. Coinciding with the collapse of his second marriage in the 1920s, a second devastating fire at Taliesin in 1925, and the onset of the Great Depression, Wright's career faced a loss of commissions. What was designed as a refuge from public scrutiny soon flourished to become an experimental architectural apprenticeship program as Taliesin slowly grew to encompass the former Hillside Home School buildings when Wright formed the Taliesin Fellowship with his third wife, Olgivanna, in 1932.

Wright used the Fellowship as a way to explore and enact his ideas of organic architecture. Taliesin was riddled with misfortunes, but it was also there that the genesis of Fallingwater took shape. With its extraordinary Wisconsin landscape and romantic relationship with nature, Taliesin signaled a maturity that would fully blossom-only a few years later-among the rhododendron in rural southwestern Pennsylvania.

In 1934, having just returned to the United States from a long stay in Europe, Edgar Kaufmann jr. was introduced to the unique concepts of Frank Lloyd Wright quite by chance. A friend had suggested he read An Autobiography, Wright's 1932 accounting of his life in which the 65-year-old architect opined on his upbringing, his buildings, and the somewhat radical ideas that led to his reputation as a colorful genius and innovator of the "organic" approach to modern architectural design and construction. Instantly captivated by Wright's belief that art has a humane and noble task to serve man in harmony with his natural surroundings, the Kaufmann felt the architect's words "flowed into my mind like the first trickle of irrigation in a desert land." He visited Wright at Taliesin in September 1934, and by October had taken his place among the apprentices there.

Though he had no plans to become an architect, the young Kaufmann also began to enthusiastically discuss Wright's ideas with his parents. Following a visit to Taliesin in 1934, Edgar Kaufmann, Sr., began a casual correspondence with the architect regarding several potential civic projects in Pittsburgh. Kaufmann quickly recognized their mutual passion for new ideas, aesthetic beauty and the relationship between man and the natural world and Wright found a patron that would change the course of his life, his career and, indeed, modern architecture itself.

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Frank Lloyd Wright An American architect, designer, writer, and educator, Frank Lloyd Wright promoted organic architecture, which was best exemplified in his most famous work-Fallingwater. During his seventy-year career, Wright designed over 1,100 buildings (seeing over 500 of them realized), authored twenty books and numerous articles, and was a popular lecturer in the United States...

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Since merging his Vancouver-based firm with us in 2004, Peter has been a driving force across the organization, directing over 100 employees working on projects across Canada, the United States, Europe and the Middle East. Peter created the Sustainable Design Initiative, which provides a framework to make us a global leader in sustainable design. As SDI Advisor, Peter provides sustainable design leadership on all projects across the firm. A Board Member, Peter is deeply involved in our strategic focus and commitment to design excellence. Peter's globally recognized design work, which focuses on sustainable communities and regenerative design, spans market sectors and has been instrumental in the success of our West Coast offices.

As founder and recent Chair of the Canada Green Building Council, Peter initiated the development of LEED in Canada. An outspoken advocate, he has devoted much of his time to his profession, to the community, the development of public policy and the advancement of sustainable education and practices. In recognition of his professional and community contributions, Peter became a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada in 1997 and in 2005 Peter was invested as a member of the Governor General's Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian award that recognizes a lifetime of outstanding achievement, dedication to the community and service to the nation.

Peter holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of British Columbia and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Philosophy from University of Toronto. In 2008, Peter was conferred an Honorary Doctorate in Science by Ryerson University and in 2011 was named a Cascadia Fellow. In 2013, he was elevated to LEED® Fellow, a designation of the US Green Building Council, which recognizes exceptional contributions to the green building community as well as significant achievements within a growing community of sustainable design professionals. Peter was the recipient of the 2014 Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) Gold Medal, an honor which recognizes a significant and lasting contribution to Canadian architecture.

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Since merging his Vancouver-based firm with us in 2004, Peter has been a driving force across the organization, directing over 100 employees working on projects across Canada, the United States, Europe and the Middle East. Peter created the Sustainable Design Initiative, which provides a framework to make us a global leader in sustainable design.

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Many say the pioneer of green design was the irascible Frank Lloyd Wright, whose innovative organic architecture philosophy focused on creating structures that appeared to be part of their surroundings. But others refute this, noting sustainable architecture has been around forever. Or, at the very least, its principles are ancient. Just think of the famous Roman aqueducts, many of which are still used today. The gravity-driven structures not only distributed water and took away waste, but provided renewable water power for mines, forges and mills. And when the ancient Greeks began running low on fuel sources, they began positioning buildings and even entire cities to catch the sun's rays [source: WebEcoist].

No matter when sustainable architecture began, most will agree that today it's in the forefront of our collective minds, for both our homes and places of business. The government's getting in on it, too, with building codes regarding energy efficiency and carbon footprints becoming increasingly stringent. This means everyone involved in construction has to be a little more creative, a little more thoughtful, a little nimbler. Especially the architects and designers, who kick-start the process.

So which architects, past and present, are considered tops in the green game? That's constantly evolving, as more and more designers are attracted to the field. But here are 10 whose contributions can't be denied.

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Many say the pioneer of green design was the irascible Frank Lloyd Wright, whose innovative organic architecture philosophy focused on creating structures that appeared to be part of their surroundings. But others refute this, noting sustainable architecture has been around forever. Or, at the very least, its principles are ancient.

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watch clip

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How We Turn Solar Energy Into Electricity

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Benefits of Geothermal Heating and Cooling

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Ontario Nature | Environmental Conservation Organization in Ontario

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Ontario Nature has been protecting wild species and wild spaces through education, conservation and public engagement since 1931

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Bring exploration to the classroom

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The National Geographic Society is a global non-profit organization committed to exploring, illuminating, and protecting the wonder of our world.

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Impacts of Human Settlements on a Costal Landscape in Mexico 

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Impacts of Human Settlements on a Costal Landscape in Mexico 

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Scholarly

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Impacts of Human Settlements on a Coastal Landscape_ The Case of

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Anthony Swift, director, NRDC Canada Project: Canada's boreal forest is one of the most massive and important forests in the world. It is a forest of enormous cultural and environmental importance.

Vast areas of Canada's boreal forest are untouched and provide refuge to a rich number of species, including endangered species such as boreal caribou, grizzly bears, and wolverines.

I think many people would be surprised at how important the boreal forest is to North America's songbird population. Each year, between three to five billion songbirds go to the boreal forest to nest and then return in places throughout the entire continent and South America as well.

The boreal forest plays a critical role in protecting our climate from carbon emissions. The entire Canadian boreal contains over 300 billion tons of carbon. And in that number, it's hard to get your head around, but it is essentially as much carbon as the world emits over 36 years. So it's very difficult to overstate how important a role the boreal plays in regulating our earth's climate.

The boreal forest is under constant threat from industry. Perhaps the largest threat is industrial logging. Over the last 20 years, 25.4 million acres, an area the size of Kentucky, has been clearcut. Logging results in nearly 20,000 miles of logging road crisscrossing throughout the boreal, isolating forest stands and the species that live there, making them more susceptible to loss of biodiversity and the stands themselves susceptible to loss from forest fires and insect infestations.

We're also seeing the threat of tar sands production in the boreal. Tar sands extraction is an incredibly damaging process that requires clearcutting large tracts of forest for open mines and fragmenting other tracts to extract tar sands oil from deep underground. These industrial sites also pollute the air and water sources of nearby indigenous communities.

I've seen what people can do when coming together and facing an issue head on.

This is a part of the world that's still wild. It's home to a rich biodiversity for North America and is central to the lives and cultural practices of over a million indigenous peoples. It also plays an indispensable role in helping us win the fight against climate change.

And that's why it's so critical that we take every action we can to protect it.

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Why We Must Protect Canada's Boreal Forest

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Anthony Swift, director, NRDC Canada Project: Canada's boreal forest is one of the most massive and important forests in the world. It is a forest of enormous cultural and environmental importance. Vast areas of Canada's boreal forest are untouched and provide refuge to a rich number of species, including endangered species such as boreal caribou, grizzly bears, and wolverines.

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Protecting North America's Boreal Forest 

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Protecting North America's Boreal Forest 

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The vast sweep of boreal forests that crown the northern hemisphere are among the largest tracts of intact ancient forest left on earth. Worldwide, the boreal zone covers 1.9 billion hectares or 33 percent of the earth's forested area [1].

As is too often the case, the health and full functioning of these magnificent landscapes are teetering on the edge. Canopy is working hard to reduce the threats facing the Boreal and secure a hopeful future for these critically important forests.

Named most appropriately after Boreas, the Greek god of the north wind, the Boreal is home to hardy, often threatened creatures and rugged human communities, capable of coping with the unforgiving climate.

However, the natural services Boreal forests provides are critical, not just to forest-dwelling species and communities but to the well-being of the planet as a whole, and of urban residents living hundreds of miles away.

North America's boreal forest provides the largest supply of surface freshwater on earth. Its soils, trees and peatlands are one of the largest storehouses of carbon on our planet, holding an estimated 208 billion tonnes of carbon in Canada's boreal forests alone [1].

Between three to five billion breeding birds and their young rely on the boreal forest and one billion of the Boreal's birds over winter in the United States [1].

Stretching across North America from Newfoundland to Alaska, the Boreal is an incredible landscape of lakes, rivers and coniferous forest of spruce, fir and pine interspersed with stands of poplar and birch. Canada's boreal forest supports 85 mammal species, 130 species of fish, around 32,000 species of insects and over 300 bird species. Home to bears, wolves, bison and highly threatened herds of woodland caribou the Boreal sustains numerous human communities as well. Over 70 percent of Canada's First Nation communities are located in forested regions [2].

Pressure is mounting

Sadly, the boreal landscape is increasingly scarred and fragmented. The logging industry is moving ever northward into previously intact landscapes. The oil and gas sector is criss-crossing the forest with access roads, seismic lines, wells and gas fracking operations.

Some species, such as woodland caribou, that rely on healthy Boreal forest habitat are facing extirpation (local extinction). The best available science on Canada's caribou herds notes that only 30 percent of populations (17 of 57 herds) remain self-sustaining [2].

Woodland caribou are now listed as a threatened species under the federal Species At Risk Act. Unless habitat destruction can be reduced and restoration efforts taken seriously, their survival is far from certain.

As demand for paper lessens, as newspaper circulation declines and book readers turn to tablets, the forest industry is looking for other product options. Increasingly, there is a shift to dissolving pulp, used in the production of textiles.

More than 70 million trees are logged every year around the world to be turned into cellulosic fabric and the dissolving pulp industry is projected by 2050 unless steps are taken now to reverse the trend.

Fortunately, Canopy is taking those steps, both to change the course of the fashion industry, develop alternatives to tree fibre for clothing, paper and packaging, and increase on-the-ground protection in the remaining intact tracts of Boreal forest.

Sources:

1 Natural Resources Canada: http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/forests/boreal/17394

2 North America's Boreal Forest: By the Numbers. Boreal Songbird Initiative, April 2015

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Protecting North America's Boreal Forest

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The vast sweep of boreal forests that crown the northern hemisphere are among the largest tracts of intact ancient forest left on earth. Worldwide, the boreal zone covers 1.9 billion hectares or 33 percent of the earth's forested area [1]. As is too often the case, the health and full functioning of these magnificent landscapes are teetering on the edge.

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Protecting Coral Reefs

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UN Environment is contributing to reversing this trend by promoting international cooperation on the issue. To this end, we work with a wide variety of stakeholders, including the International Coral Reef Initiative, the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network and the Regional Seas Programmes, and also support ongoing projects that help protect our coral reefs.

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This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

These OWL resources will help you learn how to use the American Psychological Association (APA) citation and format style. This section contains resources on in-text citation and the References page, as well as APA sample papers, slide presentations, and the APA classroom poster.

This workshop provides an overview of APA (American Psychological Association) style and where to find help with different APA resources. It provides an annotated list of links to all of our APA materials and an APA overview. It is an excellent place to start to learn about APA format.

APA (American Psychological Association) style is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. This resource, revised according to the 7 th edition of the APA manual, offers examples for the general format of APA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the reference page. For more information, please consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, (7 th ed.).

This poster summarizes APA style in a visual format. For more detailed information, please review the formatting and style guide linked above.

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This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice. Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission.

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Canada’s Nature Legacy: protecting our nature - Canada.ca

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Find out about the progress we’re making in protecting more of Canada’s nature.

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Environmental Policy for Developing Countries 

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Environmental Policy for Developing Countries 

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Most nations lack the infrastructure and expertise necessary to implement the market-based strategies being recommended by the international development banks.

Most developing countries have long since established laws and formal governmental structures to address their serious environmental problems, but few have been successful in alleviating those problems. The development banks, which control resources desperately needed by the developing countries, are promoting the use of economic incentives and other market-based strategies as the key to more effective environmental protection. However, the donors have rarely asked whether the approaches they are urging, which have recently had some success in Europe and the United States, can be implemented effectively in developing countries with limited resources and little experience with market-based policies of any kind.

We worry that these highly sophisticated instruments have been pushed too hard and too fast, and that those who promote them say little about the context and conditions in which they thrive. The targets of this advice should be better informed about everything they would need to do to make market-based instruments work. Otherwise, the cause of environmental protection itself may be dealt a blow when ill-conceived policies divert a country's energies without producing the desired result. Developing-world regulators, already marginalized in their own countries, will have little to show for their efforts in terms of a cleaner environment.

Before imposing a regulatory strategy on the developing world, we should review the experience of the industrialized countries and others that have implemented market-based policies. How extensive is the experience? How successful? What have we learned about the conditions necessary for effective market-based policies? Then we will be ready to consider when and where these policies are likely to work in the developing world.

History

Although incentive-based approaches to environmental control were being developed by economists in the early 1970s when many of the basic environmental laws were being written in the United States, none of the early laws used economic instruments. Market-based tools began to make inroads in the 1980s when regulators at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) saw that they could be useful in dealing with difficult Clean Air Act implementation problems. Each stack at each regulated facility had been given a discharge permit. The EPA innovation allowed firms to trade those permits internally and externally, so that expensive-to-control sources could emit more and cheap-to-control sources would be encouraged to cut back.

A variation of this system was eventually written into law to create the best-known and most successful U.S. market-based instrument. To control acid rain, Title IV of the 1990 Amendments to the Clean Air Act established tradable emission allowances for sulfur dioxide. Starting in January 1995, the electric power industry in the eastern third of the nation was allocated a fixed number of total "allowances." The rules allowed firms to bank allowances for future use, buy allowances to meet regulatory requirements rather than reduce emissions, or sell excess allowances.

Rigorous checks and balances built into the program ensure compliance, system credibility, and integrity. Utilities participating in the program were required to have expensive equipment for continuous monitoring. Every allowance is assigned a serial number. EPA records transfers to make sure that a unit's emissions do not exceed the number of allowances it holds and makes this information available to the public. The transparency in the system provides a level of reassurance to the public and competitors alike. Noncompliance is punished.

Allowance trading has undoubtedly accelerated program implementation and saved money. Utility companies are pleased that they, rather than the government, decide the most cost-effective way to comply.

Although much is made of the success of this program, the reality is that most U.S. environmental programs continue to use traditional regulation because the alternatives pose significant technical and political challenges. Some emissions are too difficult or too expensive to monitor well enough to support trading programs. Equally important, any environmental program must be politically viable. Many in the public interest community oppose economic instruments because they fear that emissions trading cannot be adequately enforced. Some think that market-based approaches provide excuses for polluters to avoid responsibility

A lesson from this brief history is that market-based instruments have been applied gradually and cautiously in the most mature environmental protection regime, the United States. They are limited in application and some are still essentially experimental. Their gradual introduction to resolve specific problems and practical applications has helped to address these concerns and build constituencies for further use.

Many European countries have also implemented economic instruments such as taxes on fertilizer, gasoline, and other polluting inputs. For example, Germany, France, and the Netherlands have effluent charge systems. Most of these innovations are aimed at raising revenue for infrastructure investment rather than encouraging pollution reduction. Charge levels, set too low to provide an incentive for discharge reduction, instead guarantee a fairly regular income stream.

Ironically, there are even examples from the countries of the communist bloc, most of which used fees and fines on emissions as basic tools of environmental protection. However, pollution charges were paid out of the soft budgets of state enterprises and therefore had little chance of influencing enterprise behavior. Ultimately, they have become pay-to-pollute schemes whose revenues support government environment agencies..

After the fall of communism, the multilateral development banks and the Western industrialized countries promoted market-based instruments to a Central European audience eager for alternatives to central planning. They seemed the right targets for this message, as they are in most respects "developed" industrialized economies rather than "developing" countries. Typically, they have excellent universities, high rates of literacy, a technically trained civil service, and an existing system of environmental regulation.

For the most part, economic instruments have not taken hold in the countries in transition. Demonstration emissions-trading and transferable-permit systems with a handful of managed trades were actively pursued in Kazakhstan, Poland, and the Czech Republic. An elaborate Slovak system is scheduled to begin in 2002. But these were only experiments, and they did not deliver on their promise of enabling these countries to avoid the mistakes committed in the name of environmental protection in the West.

With hindsight we can see that these countries simply lacked many of the prerequisites for an effective market-based approach. And we should keep in mind that in many ways these countries are stronger candidates for market strategies than are the developing countries. Among the missing ingredients for success were:

Bone-deep understanding of markets. The actors in complex market transactions must have considerable skills that did not exist in the countries of the former Soviet bloc. Before 1989, scholars studied non-Marxist economics, but industrial managers experienced an economy structured under the rules of state socialism, without profit and loss, Western accounting principles, or a stock market. A few countries had retained a trading mentality in small businesses, but major industry faced a steep learning curve before it could assume the responsibilities of pollution trading.

Reliable recourse when deals fail. Emissions trading is the purchase and sale of paper instruments that represent a right to pollute in the future. These are complex intangible property rights, subject to the normal hazards of commercial transactions. Sellers may default, and buyers may go into bankruptcy. False accounting is a peril that has led to criminal investigations in the United States. Someone must police trades and ensure their integrity. This arbiter can be the environmental authority, another administrative body, or the courts, but it must exist.

We must develop a better understanding of the conditions in each country that influence the performance of specific policy instruments.

Donor advice on emissions trading, however, did not distinguish between countries with working legal systems and those without. In the early days of the transition in particular, such institutions were in short supply. Some of the westernmost countries in transition were beginning to re-establish a European legal system free of political and economic "safety valves," as Daniel Cole of Indiana University Law School has characterized the "legal means of last resort" by which party and state authorities avoided their own rules throughout the period of Soviet dominance. To the east, Russia and the other parts of the Soviet Union never really had rule-of-law traditions.

Ensuring integrity. Everyone, particularly the public, must believe that trading partners are honoring their commitments. In the United States, where environmental regulation is a very contentious subject, trust is developed through high levels of transparency. Permit requirements, emissions data, and the transactions themselves are all available for inspection by the public. The relative ease with which they can monitor specific transactions and know whether industry is meeting its commitments has helped to convince numerous stakeholders, including economic competitors, nongovernmental organizations, and the public interest community, to go along with unconventional programs.

When trades are made under public scrutiny, there are fewer reasons to be concerned that differential treatment of polluters will provide opportunities for corruption. But the experience of the citizens of the Soviet bloc countries over the past 45 years leaves most citizens acutely aware of how quickly discretion can be hijacked to serve the purposes of people in power, rather than the environment. Emissions trading programs might work without as much transparency as the United States demands. In Western Europe, the public is more tolerant when industry and government sit down to negotiate. But it is clearly an issue that architects of any trading program must consider, and it requires special consideration in countries struggling with endemic corruption.

Knowing the real cost of compliance. In the United States, industry is motivated to participate in emissions trading by the economic pain firms have experienced in investing in compliance. Industry's capacity to sort this out was honed by a century of experience with cost accounting. One reason firms comply is because they have a clear expectation of consistent and reliable enforcement.

The hard realities of environmental compliance were basically unknown to industry in the Soviet bloc countries. Regulatory bodies were weak. The laws were characterized by scholars as "aspirational," stating idealistic ambitions not connected with day-to-day reality. Environmental requirements were routinely excused in favor of meeting production goals.

When firms must grapple with authentic-rather than theoretical-environmental regulation, they develop a good grasp of the real costs to them of regulation and of what it takes to reach compliance. This motivates firms to look for cheaper ways to reach the required standards. We have seen no evidence that industries will theoretically come to the conclusion that emissions trading will be a cheaper way of achieving compliance than directed regulation. Why try to save money on regulation if you are not expending any to begin with and don't expect to in the future? Compliance practices are beginning to change in a few of the countries in transition, but even today, in most countries environmental enforcement is no more rigorous than it was during the Soviet period, and is likely weaker because of the general confusion.

Genuine monitoring. Any system with the goal of regulating firms releasing pollution to the environment requires knowledge-not a guess- of what each plant is actually discharging. Trading complicates the situation by sanctioning changes in the amount of permitted discharge from each source. Regulators and the public must be assured that real pollution reductions are being traded.

Monitoring in the former Soviet bloc usually measured ambient air quality, not what pollutants plants released at the end of their discharge pipes. In truth, no one could be sure what particular factories were emitting and whether they were meeting legal requirements. For some purposes, there are alternatives to monitoring, such as emissions estimates using the sulfur content of coal. But the accuracy of estimates depends on a number of assumptions, including that the pollution control equipment has been turned on and has been maintained so that it is capable of performing the assumed level of removal. These are not always safe assumptions in countries with rampant corruption and systematic noncompliance.

This brief review makes clear that the former Soviet bloc had considerable economic, cultural, and political baggage that was directly relevant to the introduction of any state-of-the-art environmental tools, including market-based instruments. Nevertheless, the donor and assistance literature we have reviewed was content to limit discussion of these critical issues to vague comments, such as that market-based instruments are effective "if implemented under the right conditions," according to publications sponsored by the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe. The advice suggests a naiveté about the audience. Many of the promoted solutions would have required fairly fundamental commitments on the part of governments-not just environment ministries-that had no interest in the environment.

One could argue that no harm is done in encouraging countries to aim for the most sophisticated policies, but the reality is that resources and political will are limited. These countries cannot afford the luxury of failed experiments. An opportunity was lost to invest that time and money in less ambitious projects that might have produce a sense of accomplishment and some small environmental gains. The donors' failure to admit the serious shortcomings in the recipient countries, or to point out the many issues that surrounded the limited introduction of market-based instruments in the United States, had a cost. Environmental professionals in the countries in transition should have been informed that they could not make this leap without constructing supporting institutions.

What about the developing world?

The key elements discussed above-accurate monitoring, transparency, a working legal system, and a realistic incentive to trade-are at least as scarce in the developing as in the transitioning world. Corruption, favoritism, and poor environmental enforcement are features of both landscapes. In addition, the developing world may present its own unique challenges. There are fewer trained people, and the best people tend to be concentrated in capitals rather than in field posts; equipment for monitoring and data gathering is scarce, and basic data are unreliable.

None of these factors seem to have discouraged advocates for economic instruments. Unfortunately, by arguing, as Harvard University economist Theodore Panayotou has, that market-based instruments "in effect transfer [important responsibilities] from bureaucrats to the market," some of the literature has suggested that capacity limitations are a reason for, rather than an obstacle to, the adoption of market-based instruments.

Proponents of economic incentives for developing-country environmental management usually start with the appealing proposition that market-based instruments relax the trade-off between the goals of economic growth and environmental quality. They argue that in the short run, the instruments offer the cheapest solutions and ones that can be achieved without specific knowledge of the technology or pollution-reduction costs of polluting sources. At the same time, the instruments will produce revenue for chronically poor governments. Their final argument is that incentive-based approaches will spur technological advances that, in the long run, make it cheaper to reach better environmental quality. The cost of not adopting market-based policy instruments rests on the entire argument.

Cheapest now. The proponents assume that if each source faces the same price per unit of discharge, either as charge or as the price of a tradable permit, the total cost of meeting some given air or water quality standard will be minimized. For many, although not all, situations, however, the location of each source matters to the environmental results, as many economists have noted. Where location does matter, it is necessary to tailor charges to each source's location and take account of each source's costs to achieve "cheapest-now"solutions: not an easy matter in the developing world. To do this with a tradable permit system would require a special kind of permit that grants the right to change the quality at particular points in the region rather than to discharge a particular quantity of pollutants at the source's location. This is a complex business and has never been tried as a real policy.

No information needed. If it were true that a single-price system produced cheapest-now, it is conceivable that the required price could be found via trial and error. But in the world in which location matters, a trial and error approach is not even conceivable if there are more than a couple of sources. To make matters worse, however, there will almost always be numerous sets of individualized sets of charges that produce the desired environmental quality. Finding any one of these is not the same as finding the cheapest-now set. The responsible regulatory body would have to check out a great many such successes by adding up the costs incurred by the sources in order to know when it was closest to cheapest-now.

Only the highest functioning countries should attempt the most difficult economic approaches such as tradable permits.

The alternative is to find the cheapest-now prices by using mathematical modeling. The model would have to include information about source location and costs of discharge reduction, and to fit each source within a representation of the regional environment. The complexity and data requirements of the effort involved would present a formidable challenge for underfunded, poorly staffed environmental ministries of the developing world..

New sources of revenue. Pollution charges and auctioned permits generate income, an appealing idea for governments needing tax revenue. But even where tax revenues are not in short supply, there is a policy argument for taxing pollution.

A simplified version of this is that it is, in principle, better to tax activities that are undesirable, rather than tax labor or "goods." Taxes on activities that government should be encouraging distort the market outcome from what would be socially optimal in the absence of the tax; too little of the good is made or too little labor is offered. Pollution is something that society wants to discourage, and reducing it below the free-market amount is what pollution-control policy is all about. The revenue is in that sense "free," and everyone is better off if society substitutes it for other taxes, at the same time as it reduces discharges.

There is no question that successful emission charges or periodically auctioned and tradable permits to emit pollution will produce revenue for the responsible agency or for the entire government at the same time that they influence pollution discharges. But the revenue must be put into perspective. First, exactly because pollution discharge levels can be adjusted in response to these incentives, the relation between those levels and the revenue will be complex. There is no reason to expect that the charge or auctioned level chosen to produce maximum revenue is easy to find or is the same as a level that allows ambient standards to be met at lowest cost. Second, it is unlikely that very much revenue can be raised this way. Calculations based on figures from Sweden's carbon tax suggest that raising more than 1 to 2 percent of a government's budget requirements is most unlikely. Although this is not insignificant, it is also not a major source of revenue. Third, if the charge has its expected effect of changing behavior in the short run and encouraging a shift toward less-polluting technology in the longer run, revenue will decline over time. Fourth, there is nothing easy about collecting this revenue. If a country has trouble collecting sales and income taxes because it has difficulty monitoring sales or wages or because of corruption, there is no obvious reason why it will find it easier to monitor emissions and collect the appropriate taxes or enforce the actual purchased permits. Indeed, the record keeping necessary for ensuring that taxes work is probably much easier for sales and income, because they can be audited against a paper trail. Pollution discharges generally must be measured by special equipment as the pollution is created, and this monitoring capability does not exist in much of the developing world. In view of these differences, pollution "tax" revenue is likely harder to obtain.

The final concern here is political reality. Instituting taxes, particularly those that bite, often requires significant expenditures of political capital, as demonstrated by the U.S. experience with proposed energy tax increases. Environmental policymakers must ask whether the governments in developing countries and the countries in transition, facing steep unemployment and weak industries, will undertake this act of courage, particularly when they rank environmental issues very low among their priorities. Poland reduced its pollution charges in the mid-1990s in response to industry protest when the charges began to rise to a level that might have changed behavior.

Even cheaper in the future. The extra cost imposed by charges or auctioned permits provides a continuing incentive for industry to seek out and adopt new, less-polluting technology to avoid paying some charge amount or purchasing permits. In contrast, traditional nonmarketable permits to discharge are said to lack the incentive to innovate. But saving money is still desirable so long as the cost of achieving the saving is less than the saving. The difference is that there is no incentive to reduce discharges below the level set in the permit.

In any case, the argument assumes that governments will be willing to impose and actually collect charges significant enough to change behavior and that there will be adequate monitoring, political will, and consistent timely collections not eroded by inflation. It does not consider the many countries that insulate firms from the market place with the equivalent of soft budget constraints or who use their banks for loans that support friends or government objectives, irrespective of sound business principles or sober assessment of credit. All these must be assumed away to make the theory plausible.

Other arguments. A few experts argue that using economic instruments can reduce or eliminate the need for regulatory bodies and enforcement programs by, as Harvard's Panayotou argues, taking full advantage of the self-interest and superior information of producers and consumers "without requiring the disclosure of such information or creating large and costly bureaucracies."

Comparing economic instruments as a group, he argues that they substitute for efforts to force compliance through enforcement and that they "tend to have lower institutional and human resource requirements than command and control regulations." Developing countries cannot afford the "generous" infusion of "resources such as capital, government revenue, management skills, and administrative and enforcement capabilities" that are demanded by command and control requirements, but not by market-based instruments.

This argument flies in the face of the empirical evidence of the U.S. experience and the complications and qualifications discussed above. Despite the fact that Panayotou acknowledges that "the informational requirements of economic instruments are not insignificant," the proponents of market-based incentives in the developing and transitioning world are not telling the entire story. When the details are taken into account, much less is given up by postponing the drive for economic incentives than is claimed.

Songs of experience

Many countries that have been the target of development assistance have one or more versions of market-based instruments on their books, and most of the communist bloc countries, as noted earlier, used pollution charges as a primary tool of environmental protection. We have not seen any convincing evidence that these policies have changed behavior or achieved their environmental goals.

A number of country- or region-specific reports claim to portray "ground truth," but they rarely grapple seriously with the institutional issues surrounding the introduction of market-based instruments or discuss results and impediments. At best, there are brief allusions to "difficult" enforcement problems, as in many of the Environment Discussion Papers that came out of Harvard Institute for International Development's Agency for International Development-funded Newly Independent States Environmental Economics and Policy Project.

The few studies that go more deeply into a single country's experience sometimes do reveal the difficulties of applying environmental instruments, acknowledging, for example, inadequate monitoring and the problem of corruption. An example from University of Windsor geographer V. Chris Lakhan in the Electronic Green Journal documents Guyana's experience: "The inherited legacy of environmental problems and current environmental abuses will not disappear with the mere [passing of laws and development of plans]. Success in environmental protection...will depend on addressing...administrative neglect and unethical practices, fragmentation of environmental institutions, shortages of professional and technical environmental personnel, paucity of financial resources, and the uncontrolled development practices of local and foreign investors."

But more often, as exemplified by reports on Colombia's experiment with charges on water pollutants, such studies resemble advocacy for the recommended programs rather than disinterested evaluation.

Donors and advisors should encourage development of credible behavioral rules, verification mechanisms, and a culture of compliance.

In sum, it is almost impossible to evaluate the actual experience of developing countries with market-based environmental policy instruments. These gaps in understanding are, unfortunately, not unusual. There are, similarly, only limited reports on the success or failure of other environmental development efforts, such as the promotion of National Environmental Action Plans, basic environmental law drafting, and various efforts to introduce technology.

There is no universally right choice of instrument for managing a nation's environment. All policy instruments require monitoring capability, enforcement resolve, and control of corruption. Unfortunately, no single instrument provides a magic way around these concerns. More fundamentally, even the cheapest way of meeting some targets may be too big a commitment for some countries. Reaching environmental targets requires a politically tough collective decision to impose costs on the influential few for the benefit of the faceless many and to stick with the decision for a sustained period. It is therefore not surprising to see uneven implementation and slippage from time to time.

Our most urgent suggestion is that in this difficult situation, policy selection should not be a function of fad or ideology. The donors, advisors, and the countries themselves must invest energy in setting realistic targets and putting into place procedures that make some steady progress toward the ultimate goal. They must increase their attention to the importance of institutional reform and develop better understandings of the conditions in each country that influence the performance of specific policy instruments.

This suggests other ways of proceeding that are more consistent with scarce institutional resources and might promise some environmental returns that could in time become significant. One approach would be to emphasize incremental improvements in pursuit of pragmatic goals, particularly ones that help to build a transitional system that will take account of existing capabilities and institutions. Taking more measured steps does not have the same sense of adventure as a great environmental leap forward, but it might result in real, although small, initial environmental gains and could be accomplished without losing sight of the ultimate goal of developing the most efficient ways to manage the environment.

A concrete way to way to think about this would be a tiered approach. Countries with the lowest institutional capability level might start with simple discharge-control technology requirements, which are hard enough when experience and funding are lacking. The basis for selection would be to ask what is achievable and relatively easy to monitor. Ideally, success will breed regulatory confidence and more success.

Countries with a bit of experience under their belts could move to technology-based discharge limitations similar to those found in the U.S. Clean Water Act. They might establish discharge standards, such as plume opacity, which can be easily monitored, or put in place deposit-refund systems, not only for beverage containers but also for car batteries, tires, and dry-cleaning fluid. Only the highest functioning countries should attempt what we consider the most difficult of the economic instruments: making discharge permits tradable or charging per unit of pollution discharged.

The most important thing the donors and advisors can do is to encourage the development of credible behavioral rules, mechanisms for verifying and encouraging compliance, and a culture in which compliance is the first choice of action rather than the last.

Institutional capacity should not be an eternal barrier. Regulatory capacity and confidence can be developed in a number of ways. Institutions, like people, must practice to learn, and environmental policy is a particularly good practice ground because clean air and clean water are something most societies want. But setting the standard for success too high defeats confidence and confuses common sense. We believe this is what has happened with the effort to move the countries of the developing world directly to sophisticated market-based instruments for environmental protection.

Recommended reading

Ruth Greenspan Bell, "Environmental Law Drafting in Central and Eastern Europe," XXII Environmental Law Reporter, News & Analysis (September 1992).

Ruth Greenspan Bell, Reaching Across the Communication Gulf: Reflections on the Challenges of Environmental Assistance Programs, Discussion Paper 01-05, Resources for the Future, Washington, D.C., January 2001.

Allen Blackman and W. Harrington, "The Use of Economic Incentives in Developing Countries: Lessons From International Experience With Industrial Air Pollution," Journal of Environment and Development 9, no. 1 (2000): 544.

Peter Bohm and Clifford S. Russell, "Comparative Analysis of Alternative Policy Instruments," in Handbook of Natural Resource and Energy Economics, A. V. Kneese and J. Sweeney, eds. (New York, North-Holland, 1985).

D. H. Cole and P. Z. Grossman, "When Is Command-and-Control Efficient? Institutions, Technology, and the Comparative Efficiency of Alternative Regulatory Regimes for Environmental Protection," Wisconsin Law Review 5 (1999): 887938.

J. B. Opschoor, Managing the Environment: The Role of Economic Instruments (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris, 1994).

Theodore Panayotou, Economic Instruments for Environmental Management and Sustainable Development, report prepared for the United Nations Environment Programme, December 1994.

Clifford S. Russell and William J. Vaughan, "The Choice of Pollution Control Policy Instruments in Developing Countries: Arguments, Evidence and Suggestions", in International Yearbook of Environmental and Resource Economics, vol. VII, T. H. Tietenberg and H. Folmer, eds. (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, forthcoming).

Ronaldo Serôa Da Motta, Richard M. Huber, and H. Jack Ruitenbeek, "Market-Based Instruments for Environmental Policymaking in Latin America and the Caribbean: Lessons from Eleven Countries," Environment and Development Economics 4, no. 2 (1999): 177201.

World Development Report, World Bank 1992a [New York, Oxford University Press (for the World Bank), 1992].

Ruth Greenspan Bell ([email protected] ), a lawyer formerly at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, directs international institutional development and environmental assistance at Resources for the Future in Washington, D.C. Clifford Russell ([email protected] ) is a professor of economics and director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

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Environmental Policy for Developing Countries | Issues in Science and Technology

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RUTH GREENSPAN BELL CLIFFORD RUSSELL Environmental Policy for Developing Countries Most nations lack the infrastructure and expertise necessary to implement the market-based strategies being recommended by the international development banks.

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The World's most eco- friendly countries 

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The World's most eco- friendly countries 

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To mark Earth Day (April 22), we've mapped the world according to each country's eco-credentials, as outlined in the 2016 Environmental Performance Index (EPI). Produced by the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy, the annual ranking is based on an assessment of the policies of 180 nations, reflecting whether they meeting internationally established environmental targets or, in the absence of agreed targets, how they compare to one another.

Top of the eco-chart is Finland. According to the 2016 EPI report, Finland's ranking "stems from its societal commitment to achieve a carbon-neutral society". It adds: "Finland's goal of consuming 38 per cent of their final energy from renewable sources by 2020 is legally binding, and they already produce nearly two-thirds of their electricity from renewable or nuclear power sources."

Following close behind are Iceland, Sweden and Denmark, three countries renowned for their sound environmental policies. More surprising, perhaps, is the presence of Slovenia, Spain, Portugal and Malta in the top 10. One might also expect Germany do to be doing more to replicate its green policies; it ranks well below France, Denmark, Switzerland and Austria in 30th place.

The 20 most environmentally-friendly countries

1. Finland - EPI rating: 90.68

2. Iceland - 90.51

3. Sweden - 90.43

4. Denmark - 89.21

5. Slovenia - 88.98

6. Spain - 88.91

7. Portugal - 88.63

8. Estonia - 88.59

9. Malta - 88.48

10. France - 88.2

11. New Zealand - 88

12. United Kingdom - 87.38

13. Australia - 87.22

14. Singapore - 87.04

15. Croatia - 86.98

16. Switzerland - 86.93

17. Norway - 86.9

18. Austria - 86.64

19. Ireland - 86.6

20. Luxembourg - 86.58

The UK places 12th, with an EPI score of 87.38. The US is 26th, with 84.26. Bosnia and Herzogovina has the worst rating of any European country, placing 120th with a score of 63.28 - below the likes of Iraq, Syria, Libya and China.

It will not come as a shock to see many countries with torrid recent histories populating the bottom of the index. War and civil unrest usually pushes environmental concerns off the agenda. Somalia props up the table, while Eritrea, Afghanistan and Mali also occupy the bottom 10.

A handful of countries do not feature in the ranking; they appear on the map in grey.

Credit: GETTY

The world's most polluted countries

We've covered the world's most polluted cities before. Delhi is in a league of its own, as this reporter can attest to; half an hour of sightseeing is enough to leave you with a sore throat. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the average concentration of PM 2.5 particles in the Indian city is 150 micrograms per cubic metre of air. PM 2.5 refers to fine particles (2.5 micrometres or smaller in diameter) produced by combustion, including motor vehicles, power plants, forest fires, and some industrial processes. By comparison, London's average is 16.

But what of the most polluted countries? Pinpointing them is a little more problematic. The WHO tracks air quality at 1,622 locations in 92 countries - but all are urban areas. So while Pakistan, Egypt and Mongolia are among the most polluted countries according to the map below, this only refers to pollution in its cities. Air quality in the Karakoram mountain range or the Gobi Desert will, of course, be pristine. Similarly, Russia appears to be among the worst performing countries - but its ranking is based only on air quality in Moscow.

The website aqicn.org crunched 2014 WHO data to help us produce the map above. It shows countries according to the average concentration of PM 2.5 particles in its cities, with figures weighted according to the population of each city. So, if a country's largest city has good air quality, but a handful of small cities have bad air quality, it will perform better overall. Tap on or hover over a country to reveal further statistics, including levels of coarse dust particles (PM10), the result of crushing or grinding operations and dust stirred up by vehicles.

Pakistan's urban areas are, on average, the world's most polluted, followed by Qatar and Afghanistan. Europe's most polluted cities are found in Turkey, Bulgaria and Serbia.

Credit: PAWEL OPASKA

The 20 countries with the most polluted urban areas
The countries doing most to protect their land

According to data compiled by the World Bank, 14.8 per cent of the world's land is currently protected; that's an improvement on 1990 when that figure was just 8.2 per cent.

Despite being one of the most dangerous and politically volatile countries on the planet, it is Venezuela that leads the way when it comes to conservation, having designated 53.9 per cent of its territory as protected.

Slovenia and, equally surprisingly, the millionaire's playground that is Monaco, came second and third on the list, having protected 53.6 and 53.4 per cent of their territory, respectively.

Credit: Alice Nerr - Fotolia

Countries with the most protected areas

1. Venezuela (53.9% of total land area)

2. Slovenia (53.6)

3. Monaco (53.4)

4. Bhutan (47.3)

5. Turks and Caicos Islands (44.4)

6. Liechenstein (44.3)

7. Brunei Darussalam (44.1)

8. Seychelles (42.1)

9. Hong Kong (41.8)

10. Greenland (41.2)

The countries that produce the most (and least) CO2 per capita

The map below shows the world according to how much CO2 is produced by each country.

So which is the biggest offender? Well, Qatar belches out more CO2 per capita than anywhere else, followed by Curacao and Latvia. The UK sits 41st, which is poor when you consider that some of our European neighbours are at the cleaner end of the list.

In fact, Denmark is the clear leader when it comes to keeping its emissions down; it produces less CO2 per capita than anywhere else on Earth, followed by Finland and Nigeria.

Countries that belch out the most CO2 per capita Countries that belch out the least CO2 per capita

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Mapped: The world's most eco-friendly countries - where does the UK rank?

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To mark Earth Day (April 22), we've mapped the world according to each country's eco-credentials, as outlined in the 2016 Environmental Performance Index (EPI). Produced by the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy, the annual ranking is based on an assessment of the policies of 180 nations, reflecting whether they meeting internationally established environmental targets or, in the absence of agreed targets, how they compare to one another.

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The Indigenous world view vs. Western World view 

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The Indigenous world view vs. Western World view 

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The Indigenous world view vs. Western world view

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Why indigenous people are key to protecting our forests

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Why indigenous people are key to protecting our forests

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Why indigenous people are key to protecting our forests

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There's a first time for everything: in its preamble, the Paris Agreement on climate change recognized the intrinsic relationship between indigenous people and their environments. Whether they're in Taiga, the Sahel or the rain forests of Africa, America or Asia, what all indigenous people have in common is a deep connection to the natural environments in which they live.

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Oren Lyons: On The Indigenous View of World 

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Oren Lyons: On The Indigenous View of World 

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Oren Lyons on the Indigenous View of the World

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From parasites to crabs and living slime affectionately dubbed "rock snot," invasive species can wreak havoc when introduced into a new habitat. The U.S. administration is taking steps to fight one of the worst offenders, the Asian carp, pledging $50 million US in 2012 to keep them out of the Great Lakes.

We take a look at 10 non-native plants and animals that are disrupting ecosystems in Canada.

Asian carp

Silver carp, native to Asia, can grow to be up to 1.3 metres long and weigh up to 50 kilograms while bighead carp are a little smaller. Both are types of Asian carp, several species of which have been multiplying rapidly through the Mississippi, Iowa and Illinois river systems since the 1990s when flooding allowed them to spread throughout the Mississippi watershed. Since then, bighead carp have been caught a mere 10 kilometres downstream from Lake Michigan, beyond barriers built to keep them out, and a type of Asian carp DNA has been found in Calumet Harbour on Lake Michigan. Under the U.S. administration's new plan, water samples will now be taken to see whether the carp have established a foothold in the Great Lakes. Officials told the Associated Press new plans to prevent a carp invasion include increased trapping and netting in rivers that could provide access to the lakes, field tests of chemicals that could be used to lure carp in order to capture them and an acoustic water gun used to scare the fish away from waterways that flow into Lake Michigan.

European green crab

The European green crab preys on mussels, clams and other crabs, threatening shellfish stocks on the Atlantic coast. It's a naturally aggressive and territorial crab species, found near Prince Edward Island, Quebec's Magdalen Islands, Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island and the waters off southern Newfoundland, where it was first discovered in 2007. According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, unless controlled, the crab's impact will surely be felt in Newfoundland's ecosystem.

Purple loosestrife

Purple loosestrife, a European invader introduced to Canada in the 1800s, degrades wetlands. It can decimate and choke out native plants that make up the habitats where fish, birds and animals feed, seek shelter and rear their young. A single plant can produce over 300,000 seeds. The plant grows in ditches, irrigation canals, marshes and even standing water. In some locations, purple loosestrife has also begun invading dry habitats like pastures and cropland.

Zebra mussel

Industries with operations on the Great Lakes spend millions of dollars a year dealing with zebra mussels, which multiply so quickly that they clog intake pipes and sink navigational buoys. They also filter out large amounts of phytoplankton, affecting the local food chain. They can also end up strewn over beaches, leaving behind sharp shells and foul odours when they die and decay. The mussels are native to the Black Sea and Caspian Sea regions of Asia.

Sea lamprey

The sea lamprey is a primitive, parasitic fish that has made its way from the Atlantic Ocean into our waterways by stowing away on cargo ships. These eel-like creatures with suction-cup, bloodsucking mouths can kill more than 18 kg of the fish they prey on during their 12- to 20-month adult life stage. Their circular mouths puncture through the skin of fish, ensuring that prey die from blood loss or the after-effects of the wounds. Sea lampreys entered the Great Lakes through a man-made canal system and by 1938 were present in all five Great Lakes.

Emerald ash borer

The transport of firewood is banned in certain parts of Quebec and Ontario to curb the spread of this beetle. The emerald ash borer originated in eastern Asia and was first found in Canada in 2002 in Windsor, Ont. Its larvae burrow through the inner bark of ash trees while the young beetles feed on leaves, damaging and eventually killing the tree. The pest is very difficult to detect early, as infested trees often aren't found until a year or more after the infestation occurs.

Didymo

Also known as "rock snot," this single-celled algae forms slimy mats and clumps in rivers that make the water look polluted. Although didymo is native to North America, it has now spread to many parts of the continent where it hadn't been seen before, such as Vancouver Island. Didymo blooms may affect the growth of other algae and change the types of invertebrates in the ecosystem. The didymo isn't toxic but is still undesirable because of its ability to mask as a pollutant.

Gypsy moth

Larvae of the gypsy moth are known to eat the leaves of about 300 plants, causing widespread damage. The European species was first introduced in the 19th century and is considered a major pest. The moths are well established in Ontario and Quebec and have been threatening parts of southern New Brunswick and Nova Scotia for many years. Birds and small mammals are gypsy moth predators and useful as natural enemies of the bug. The gypsy moth will also eat blueberries, hazelnuts and several other important crops.

Asian long-horned beetle

This beetle from China attacks hardwood trees such as maples. It first appeared in North America in 1996 in New York state. In Canada, it was first found in 2003 in an industrial park between Toronto and the city of Vaughan. Officials are trying to eradicate it, and affected areas are placed under strict quarantine. The pest is believed to have been brought to North America in packaging materials used in shipping. Canada's temperate climate is well suited to the insect, whose larvae spend winters burrowed deep within trees to protect themselves from harsh winter conditions.

Round goby

This aggressive fish is known for stealing bait from fishermen. It was introduced to Ontario's St. Clair River from eastern Europe in the late 1980s and has multiplied so quickly that there are now more than 100 per square metre on the lake or river bottom in some areas.

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10 invasive species threatening Canadian habitats | CBC News

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From parasites to crabs and living slime affectionately dubbed "rock snot," invasive species can wreak havoc when introduced into a new habitat. The U.S. administration is taking steps to fight one of the worst offenders, the Asian carp, pledging $50 million US in 2012 to keep them out of the Great Lakes.

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If the rain keeps up, the deserts and burn scars will soon explode with acres of colorful poppies, lupines, lilies and other ephemeral flowers

smithsonian.com

In the next few weeks, parts of Southern California may experience a superbloom, which is when the desert landscape comes alive with blossoming wild poppies, verbena, lilies, primroses, prickly pear and dozens of other species of ephemeral native spring wildflowers, reports Evan Nicole Brown at Atlas Obscura.

The term superbloom is used to describe years when excess rain causes chaparral and desert landscapes to produce more flowers than normal, with carpets of wildflowers sometimes covering entire landscapes for a brief period, explains Eleanor Imster at . The seeds of desert wildflowers are made to last-they often have thick or waxy coatings and are able to survive in a dormant state for years or decades. Tiffany Camhi at KQED reports that the best superblooms occur after extended drought has had time to kill off invasive weeds that compete with native wildflowers for sunlight, followed by above average rainfall. When the excess rain soaks and softens the seed coats-as they did in 2017-the plants germinate en masse, producing acres and acres of blossoms.

In some desert areas, rare species that only bloom every few years, or even decades, can pop up. "In super blooms you can get flowers, which in some cases, are thought to be extinct," Richard Minnich, a professor of earth sciences at University of California, Riverside says.

The massive Woolsey Fire that burned 96,949 acres in Los Angeles and Ventura scorching 88 percent of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area will also help to produce a bumper crop of flowers in southern California. That's because many wildflower species, including poppy, popcorn-flower, lily, lupine, snapdragon, and some sunflowers only germinate under these exact conditions. Mark Mendelsohn, a National Park Service biologist the Recreation Area tells Brown that circumstances are right for a unique superbloom in the region.

"Either the heat or the smoke physically causes the seed to germinate," he says. "Steady, but not necessarily heavy, rains throughout our normal wet season of November through March ... encourage most of our species to bloom in a given year... We are at ~100 to 150 percent (maybe even 200 percent) our normal rainfall up to this point."

Jenna Chandler at Curbed Los Angeles has been fielding reports from around the region, and so far all signs point to conditions favorable for a massive bloom. Casey Schreiner, editor of Modern Hiker tells Chandler that the burned areas from the Woolsey fire are full of new growth. Paramount Ranch, Circle X Ranch, Chesebro Canyons and other burned areas are ripe for greenery. Joshua Tree National Park has greened up too and already has some early species blooming. "Malibu Creek State Park will be really, really hot, because it burned quite a bit, and there's a high diversity of species there," Mendelsohn says. "That will be the crème de la crème."

That is, if the rain continues on and it doesn't get too hot too quickly. That flush of growth could wither away without blooming if the weather changes for the worse.

But flower lovers are remaining optimistic that the blossoms will arrive shortly. In 2017, the superbloom began in desert areas in early March and ran through April. According to J. Harry Jones at The Los Angeles Times, the bloom, which could be seen from space, brought with it hundreds of thousands of extra tourists to small towns, like Borrego Springs, that weren't prepared for the influx of people. This year, however, restaurants and area stores are stocked up and ready to serve petal peepers if and when the blooms show up for "Flowergeddon 2."

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Southern California Will Soon See Another Booming Superbloom

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smithsonian.com In the next few weeks, parts of Southern California may experience a superbloom, which is when the desert landscape comes alive with blossoming wild poppies, verbena, lilies, primroses, prickly pear and dozens of other species of ephemeral native spring wildflowers, reports Evan Nicole Brown at Atlas Obscura .

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How does a forest fire benefit living things?

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How does a forest fire benefit living things?

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Despite the damage that can occur to property and people, good things can come out of forest fires, too.

Forest fires are a natural and necessary part of the ecosystem. Even healthy forests contain dead trees and decaying plant matter; when a fire turns them to ashes, nutrients return to the soil instead of remaining captive in old vegetation.

And, when fire rages through dry underbrush, it clears thick growth so sunlight can reach the forest floor and encourage the growth of native species. Fire frees these plants from the competition delivered by invasive weeds and eliminates diseases or droves of insects that may have been causing damage to old growth. Wildflowers begin to bloom abundantly.

Most young, healthy trees are resilient enough to survive a forest fire and will soon have a growth spurt, thanks to flames that thin light-banning canopies above [source: National Geographic]. And scientists report young-growth forests recovering from fire are home to more diverse species, in both plants and animals [source: Krock]. This is because the remnants of burned trees offer attractive habitats to birds and small mammals, and nutrients from burned vegetation continue to leach into the soil to fuel the birth of new plants [source: Pacific Biodiversity Institute].

At Tall Timbers Research Station in Tallahassee, Fla., an experiment that lasted nearly 40 decades provided telling results. The 23-acre (9.3-hectare) swath of land was not allowed to burn during that time. Plant diversity fell by 90 percent and one species of bird, red-cockaded woodpeckers, disappeared entirely [source: Eilperin]. In order to thrive, this ecosystem, like many others, needed fire.

Controlled forest fires can be financially beneficial, too. Prescribed burns are less expensive than mechanical thinning -- the logging of small-diameter trees to reduce tree density and underbrush -- which costs around $28 an acre [source: Eilperin].

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How does a forest fire benefit living things?

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Despite the damage that can occur to property and people, good things can come out of forest fires, too. Forest fires are a natural and necessary part of the ecosystem. Even healthy forests contain dead trees and decaying plant matter; when a fire turns them to ashes, nutrients return to the soil instead of remaining captive in old vegetation.

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Editor's note: The following guest post is from Rich Reid, an outdoor photographer based in Ojai, California. Rich recently returned from an assignment for Nature Conservancy magazine documenting the regrowth of a forest after a controlled burn.

The Nature Conservancy's Chuck Martin pulled up in his white truck and introduced himself in his friendly southern accent as I photographed a historic tobacco-drying log cabin on the 4,000-plus-acre Moody Forest Natural Area that he manages. The wealth of Chuck's ecological and historical knowledge made this preserve in southern Georgia come to life. After decades of turpentine harvesting from the longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) and loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), plus altered land use for over a century, the Conservancy and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources partnered to create this woodland preserve in 2001 with the help from the Moody Family.

I found myself in this beautiful old-growth forest on a unique mission: document the changes of a controlled burn using time-lapse photography. The Conservancy has been using controlled burns as a method to restore native habitats and control invasive plants for over 50 years on their lands. My assignment sounded simple enough... what could go wrong?
Moody's Diverse Natural Communities
Driving down the narrow sandy road through this longleaf pine and blackjack oak forest, Chuck points out the burrows of the threatened gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus). As we past each "unit" I could see the obvious burn chronology on the fire-managed forest he was describing. We glided past the 32-acre scheduled burn site on our way to a beautiful cypress and tupelo slough that recently flooded from an overflowing Altamaha River. The large carnivorous yellow pitcherplant (Sarracenia lava) grew in patches of recently burned underbrush as white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) leaped through the well-managed forest.

On our ride I reflected on the preparation that went into pulling off this long-term time-lapse video assignment. Not only did I have to build a fire-proof camera housing for my Nikon D7000, it had to survive two months out in the elements as it recorded the forest regrowth after the burn. Challenges were met each day; software limitations, hardware problems, battery issues and long days in the field.
Burn a Forest to Save a Forest
Chuck handed out satellite maps and safety briefed his professional fire crew as they measured conditions. The small test fire passed inspection so the "back fire" was light with drip torches along the trail and burned predictable into the north breeze. Now for the impressive part: the fire crew scripted with precision the lighting of the "head fire" connecting the "back fire" precisely where my three cameras were filming, capturing every lick of flame.

All three cameras were surrounded by fire at one point but remarkably, only a lens hood melted and the safety straps shrunk. Once it was safe to enter they burn zone, I swapped new cards and batteries to record a time-lapse of the full moon casting long shadows through the smoky forest. At sunrise, I returned for the final time to retrieve data and set up two of my cameras for two months recording the regrowth in the burn zone.

Two months and one week later, I was really excited to see a large box on my porch that Chuck shipped containing my two cameras. Not a day went by without thinking about my equipment 2,500 miles away strapped to a tree "supposedly" clicking away. Anxiously I opened the box that contained the answers and unbelievably they performed as planned; 1850 RAW files on one camera and 1,200 jpegs on the other.

After months of planning and executing this assignment, ecstatic is the only way to describe seeing a lush green forest on the last images on each card. This couldn't be the same forest I left a few months ago? Not only was I amused with the prolific regrowth but also amazed my cameras survived this adventure. After hand selecting the forest images, I used a range of software to auto-align, color correct and assemble thousands of still images into these time-lapse videos. Enjoy.

Special thanks to Chuck Martin and Erick Brown from The Nature Conservancy and their fire crew for keeping me safe and providing this incredible opportunity to document fire in a positive way. Your work benefits the wildlife and people that depend on healthy forests.
[Video and images © Rich Reid for The Nature Conservancy]

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How Fire Can Restore a Forest (TIME LAPSE VIDEO) | Conservancy Talk

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Editor's note: The following guest post is from Rich Reid , an outdoor photographer based in Ojai, California. Rich recently returned from an assignment for Nature Conservancy magazine documenting the regrowth of a forest after a controlled burn.

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The deserts of southern California erupted in color earlier this year as a carpet of purple sand verbena, white dune evening primroses, orange poppies and other wildflowers emerged in a super bloom that one ranger called "flower-geddon."

"This kind of huge bloom happens maybe once a decade," says Jim Dice, research manager at the Anza-Borrego Desert Research Center who hasn't seen so spectacular a bloom since 2005.

Spring made an exuberant entrance after an unusually wet winter and consistent rainfall through 2016 after a five-year drought. Much of Southern California teems with flowers, but the 630,000-acre Anza-Borrego State Park is alive with color. The nearby community of Borrego Springs more than doubled in size as 5,000 people poured into the area on Saturday, an influx that filled motels, prompted the sheriff to close miles of road, and sparked a fistfight over a pork Cubano.

If you can't make it to SoCal, take out your phone and open Instagram, because it has almost as many photos of the blooms as Anza-Borrego has flowers. Check out #superbloom, #superbloom2017, and #eschscholziacalifornica to get started. And if you go to the desert, you might want to bring your own sandwich.

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9 Magical Photos of California's Wildflower Super Bloom

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The deserts of southern California erupted in color earlier this year as a carpet of purple sand verbena, white dune evening primroses, orange poppies and other wildflowers emerged in a super bloom that one ranger called "flower-geddon."

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Ocean Conservancy is working with you to protect the ocean from today's greatest challenges. We create science-based solutions for a healthy ocean.

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The world's oceans produce more than half of the oxygen that sustains life on the planet and are also the main source of protein for about one billion people around the world. Canada has the world's longest coastline-bordering the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans. Learn more.

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While the best Socratic seminar questions may seem simple, they are also highly strategic - designed to engage students with a text, challenge them toward increasingly complex thinking, and inspire them to explore big ideas.

What makes a good Socratic seminar question?

Good Socratic questions are always open-ended, thought-provoking, and clear.

Student in a Socratic seminar

Open-ended: Questions are designed to elicit multiple perspectives. Numerous answers can be correct as long as the students stay on topic.

Thought-provoking: To start, questions should spark numerous responses. Then, they should challenge students to evaluate and synthesize their ideas.

Clear: Participants should be able to understand right away what the facilitator is asking. This means phrasing questions carefully to keep them short and simple, even when the topic is complex.

Find Socratic Seminar lesson plans

Questioning strategies for Socratic seminars

Facilitators should plan their questioning strategy ahead of time, preparing questions to engage students in dialogue. A lesson plan should include opening questions, core questions, and closing questions.

Seminar topic: M.C.'s Escher's Convex and Concave

Opening questions and closing questions ask the students for their personal perspective. These questions are known as maieutic, from the Greek word for midwifery, because they encourage students to give birth to their own ideas.

During the core of the dialogue, questions are more analytical than personal, requiring careful observation of the text and attention to logic.

Teachers should also be ready to ask students follow-up questions, and they should allow students to shape the dialogue by asking questions of each other.

Opening questions: What is the text about?

The goal of opening questions is to engage all of the participants in identifying the main ideas in a text.

What word or phrase is most important?

Which character is meant to be the hero or protagonist?

What is the most surprising statement in the text?

What is the most striking image or metaphor?

What would be another good title for this piece?

A round robin format is a good way to get all of the participants involved at the the beginning. Students can go around in a circle to give their answers or try "hoppin robin," by jumping in when they choose, as long as everyone responds. Opening questions should be designed for short answers.

Core questions: What do you think about ideas in the text?

The goal of core questions is to have the participants analyze the seminar text and develop their ideas about it.

Why is the argument structured in this way?

What evidence does the author use to back up his or her point of view?

What do the authors mean when they say ________________________?

How would the original audience have interpreted this statement?

What is the relationship between __________ and ______________ ?

During the seminar, facilitators ask increasingly demanding questions. They may ask students to support their ideas with evidence from the text; to respond to another student's point of view; to identify the assumptions behind their thinking; or to re-evaluate their ideas, considering other perspectives or evidence.

Closing questions: What does it mean to you?

The goal of closing questions is for participants to consider the ideas and values from the text, in real-world applications.

What additional points should be included in this text?

How would our daily lives be different without this concept or idea?

In your opinion, is it morally right to take the action described in this text?

Based on this story, do you think people's actions are determined by fate or by choice?

Which character are you most like? When have you behaved like the other character?

Closing questions can form the basis for follow-up writing assignments or exercises, allowing students to develop the ideas they explore through the seminar.

Resources for Socratic seminar teachers

Learn more
Our website offers an introduction to teaching Socratic seminars in elementary, middle and high school.

Find lesson plans
Our seminar lesson plans integrate Socratic dialogue with today's state standard curriculum goals. You can search for lesson plans for your grade level, for English and Language Arts, Math, Science, or Social Studies classes.

Take a training
We offer professional development opportunities for teachers, including workshops, conferences, and on-site trainings.

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We'll send you news from Paideia classrooms and updates on professional development events for teachers.

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While the best Socratic seminar questions may seem simple, they are also highly strategic - designed to engage students with a text, challenge them toward increasingly complex thinking, and inspire them to explore big ideas. What makes a good Socratic seminar question? Good Socratic questions are

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Acid rain: causes and effects - Canada.ca

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Information on the causes and effects of acid rain. Why acid rain is a problem in Canada, and what areas of the country are affected.

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The Kyoto Protocol was adopted on 11 December 1997. Owing to a complex ratification process, it entered into force on 16 February 2005. Currently, there are 192 Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.

In short, the Kyoto Protocol operationalizes the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by committing industrialized countries and economies in transition to limit and reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions in accordance with agreed individual targets. The Convention itself only asks those countries to adopt policies and measures on mitigation and to report periodically.

The Kyoto Protocol is based on the principles and provisions of the Convention and follows its annex-based structure. It only binds developed countries, and places a heavier burden on them under the principle of "common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities", because it recognizes that they are largely responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere.

In its Annex B, the Kyoto Protocol sets binding emission reduction targets for 37 industrialized countries and economies in transition and the European Union. Overall, these targets add up to an average 5 per cent emission reduction compared to 1990 levels over the five year period 2008-2012 (the first commitment period).

Doha Amendment

In Doha, Qatar, on 8 December 2012, the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol was adopted for a second commitment period, starting in 2013 and lasting until 2020. However, the Doha Amendment has not yet entered into force; a total of 144 instruments of acceptance are required for entry into force of the amendment.

The amendment includes:

New commitments for Annex I Parties to the Kyoto Protocol who agreed to take on commitments in a second commitment period from 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2020;

A revised list of GHG to be reported on by Parties in the second commitment period; and

Amendments to several articles of the Kyoto Protocol which specifically referenced issues pertaining to the first commitment period and which needed to be updated for the second commitment period.

On 21 December 2012, the amendment was circulated by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, acting in his capacity as Depositary, to all Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in accordance with Articles 20 and 21 of the Protocol.

During the first commitment period, 37 industrialized countries and economies in transition and the European Community committed to reduce GHG emissions to an average of five percent against 1990 levels. During the second commitment period, Parties committed to reduce GHG emissions by at least 18 percent below 1990 levels in the eight-year period from 2013 to 2020; however, the composition of Parties in the second commitment period is different from the first.

The Kyoto mechanisms

One important element of the Kyoto Protocol was the establishment of flexible market mechanisms, which are based on the trade of emissions permits. Under the Protocol, countries must meet their targets primarily through national measures. However, the Protocol also offers them an additional means to meet their targets by way of three market-based mechanisms:

These mechanisms ideally encourage GHG abatement to start where it is most cost-effective, for example, in the developing world. It does not matter where emissions are reduced, as long as they are removed from the atmosphere. This has the parallel benefits of stimulating green investment in developing countries and including the private sector in this endeavour to cut and hold steady GHG emissions at a safe level. It also makes leap-frogging-that is, the possibility of skipping the use of older, dirtier technology for newer, cleaner infrastructure and systems, with obvious longer-term benefits-more economical.

Monitoring emission targets

The Kyoto Protocol also established a rigorous monitoring, review and verification system, as well as a compliance system to ensure transparency and hold Parties to account. Under the Protocol, countries' actual emissions have to be monitored and precise records have to be kept of the trades carried out.

Registry systems track and record transactions by Parties under the mechanisms. The UN Climate Change Secretariat, based in Bonn, Germany, keeps an international transaction log to verify that transactions are consistent with the rules of the Protocol.

Reporting is done by Parties by submitting annual emission inventories and national reports under the Protocol at regular intervals.

A compliance system ensures that Parties are meeting their commitments and helps them to meet their commitments if they have problems doing so.

Adaptation
The Kyoto Protocol, like the Convention, is also designed to assist countries in adapting to the adverse effects of climate change. It facilitates the development and deployment of technologies that can help increase resilience to the impacts of climate change.

The Adaptation Fund was established to finance adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries that are Parties to the Kyoto Protocol. In the first commitment period, the Fund was financed mainly with a share of proceeds from CDM project activities. In Doha, in 2012, it was decided that for the second commitment period, international emissions trading and joint implementation would also provide the Adaptation Fund with a 2 percent share of proceeds.

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The Kyoto Protocol was adopted on 11 December 1997. Owing to a complex ratification process, it entered into force on 16 February 2005. Currently, there are 192 Parties to the Kyoto Protocol. In short, the Kyoto Protocol operationalizes the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by committing industrialized countries and economies in transition to limit and reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions in accordance with agreed individual targets.

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http://riversideeddy.ca/the-controversy-behind-bottled-water/

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Canada is known for its water. After all, we have an abundance of rivers, lakes, and even three oceans, and we're home to the largest fresh water lakes in the world.

But having access to so much water - so much clean water - has its consequences, one of which could be taking it for granted.

You're likely guilty of it yourself: leaving the tap running to get colder water; using the washing machine for a shirt or two, when you could hand wash it or taking long, hot showers.

So how much water do you waste and how much do we have left in Canada?

Here are some facts you don't know about water in the Great White North.

Water, water everywhere

Canada is home to one-fifth of the world's freshwater. But that doesn't mean we can waste it. In fact, there are some regions whose water is threatened.

Where it all goes

We use a lot of water. The average Canadian uses about 65 per cent of it in their bathrooms.

What's better?

Many people think that baths are better on water use than showers. But that's not necessarily the case. The average eight-minute shower can use more water than a bathtub.

However, you can make your shower even more efficient by cutting down on time and using energy-efficient shower heads.

Wasted water

We've all experienced the annoying leak of a faucet. But it can be more than just annoying: it can be costly.

So next time you're running the tap, or revelling in that hot shower, remember: water isn't an infinite resource.
Follow @NebulousNikki

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Canada is known for its water. After all, we have an abundance of rivers, lakes, and even three oceans, and we're home to the largest fresh water lakes in the world. But having access to so much water - so much clean water - has its consequences, one of which could be taking it for granted.

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Carrying capacity refers to the number of individuals who can be supported in a given area within natural resource limits, and without degrading the natural social, cultural and economic environment for present and future generations. The carrying capacity for any given area is not fixed.

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Ultraviolet (UV) rays are a form of invisible high-energy light produced by the sun. There are three kinds of UV rays:

UV-A is the weakest form, but can still cause skin damage, including sunburn, and skin aging. It can also damage outdoor plastics and paint.

UV-B is much stronger than UV-A. It is the main cause of sunburns and skin damage that can lead to skin cancer. UV-B also reduces the growth of plants and may affect the health of domestic animals and wildlife. The ozone layer absorbs much of the UV-B that enters our atmosphere, but not all of it. The UV Index measures the sun-burning portion of the UV-B rays that reach the Earth's surface.

UV-C is extremely powerful. Fortunately, it is completely absorbed by the ozone layer and never reaches the Earth's surface.

Follow our sun protection tips to protect yourself from both UV-A and UV-B.
The ozone layer: Earth's natural sunscreen
The ozone layer is found in the stratosphere, in the upper atmosphere, about 20 to 40 km above the Earth's surface. This layer absorbs most of the sun's UV rays, providing a natural sunscreen that protects life on earth.

During the 1970s, scientists became aware that certain industrial chemicals were destroying ozone in the stratosphere. By the mid1980s, thinning of the ozone layer was enabling more UV to reach the Earth's surface. Scientists were also surprised to find a large ozone hole developing over the Antarctic, where up to 60% of the ozone was lost each spring.

Global concern over the threat to the ozone layer led to the signing of the Montreal Protocol in Canada in 1987. The agreement committed nations around the world to phase out the use of ozone-destroying chemicals. As a result, the use of these chemicals has decreased considerably, and levels of the most damaging substances (CFC-11 and CFC-12) have declined significantly in the atmosphere. The fire extinguishing chemicals, known as halons, were also a significant threat to the ozone layer, and they too, are being phased out under the Montreal Protocol.
Is the ozone layer recovering?
The ozone layer is beginning to show signs of recovery. Outside the polar regions, the layer is no longer thinning, and has stabilized at about 3% less than normal, and average summer UV values across Canada remain a few percent higher than they were before 1980.

In the Antarctic, the ozone hole continues to form every year during the southern spring, while in the Arctic, less severe depletions occur occasionally. In March of 2011, a record ozone hole in the high Arctic showed an ozone loss of up to 40%.

A complete recovery of the ozone layer is not expected for decades. Many ozone-destroying chemicals can remain in the atmosphere for years after they have been released. There is a need to remain vigilant, since some ozone-depleting chemicals have not yet been completely phased out, and new chemicals need to be reviewed to ensure they do not pose additional threats. Scientists are also concerned that the recovery of the ozone layer could be complicated by other factors, such as climate change.

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Ultraviolet (UV) rays are a form of invisible high-energy light produced by the sun. There are three kinds of UV rays: UV-A is the weakest form, but can still cause skin damage, including sunburn, and skin aging. It can also damage outdoor plastics and paint. UV-B is much stronger than UV-A.

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E. coli may have put Walkerton on the map, but the disaster's legacy may be a much keener appreciation of just how fragile our water supply can be.

Canada's worst-ever outbreak of E. coli contamination took hold 10 years ago in a typically quiet town in the rural heartland of Bruce County, Ont.

The community of Walkerton, population less than 5,000 at the time, saw 2,300 people fall ill, and seven die, after breakdowns in the local water system. The region's public health officer later said the catastrophe was probably preventable.

Here is a timeline of the events:

May 15, 2000

Walkerton's local public utilities commission (PUC) takes routine sample of the water supply.

May 17, 2000

First symptoms of contaminated water appear, including diarrhea and flu-like illnesses. PUC receives a fax from a lab confirming E. coli contamination in May 15 water sample. The utilities commission does not notify public-health officials, however.

May 19, 2000

Region's Medical Health Office (MHO) first notified about several patients with bloody diarrhea. The MHO later finds out that local doctors had been treating patients with symptoms including bloody diarrhea, vomiting, cramps and fever since May 17.

PUC, run by Stan Koebel, assures health officials that the water is safe. MHO begins looking for other source of contamination, such as food.

May 20, 2000

As many as 40 more people report to hospital with bloody diarrhea.

PUC reassures officials at least twice that Walkerton's water supply is safe.

May 21, 2000

With more cases of illness reported, MHO officially warns residents not to drink untreated tap water. MHO also takes independent water samples, despite being told by PUC there is no contamination.

May 23, 2000

MHO's own lab confirms water is tainted with E. coli.

After confronting PUC with test results, MHO is finally told about May 17 fax. Health officials are also informed that the equipment used to put chlorine into at least one drinking well has not worked for some time.

Steve Hrudey, a water expert and professor emeritus at the University of Alberta, sat on the Walkerton inquiry panel. Hrudey tells CBC News about Canadian water safety since Walkerton and the kinds of improvements that still need to be made to ensure access to safe drinking water.

May 24, 2000

The first four deaths, three adults and a baby, are reported as a result of the E. coli outbreak. Local schools are closed.

May 25, 2000

A fifth person dies after being infected with E. coli.

Dr. Murray McQuigge, the region's medical officer of health, stuns the country with his revelation on CBC Radio that the PUC knew there was a problem with the water several days before they told the public.

The regional police force asks the Ontario Provincial Police to conduct a criminal investigation into the origins of the outbreak.

May 26, 2000

Ontario Premier Mike Harris visits Walkerton, saying, "We have a terrible tragedy here." The rest of his comments - including blaming the previous, NDP government - anger residents. Within the week, he orders a public inquiry.

May 27, 2000

The president of water-testing firm GAP EnviroMicrobial Services, Garry Palmateer, says that sampling done in January turned up evidence of coliform bacteria - an indication that surface water was seeping into the well water. He says his company notified the Ontario Environment Ministry about the problem five times.

May 29, 2000

A clearly shaken Environment Minister Dan Newman calls a news conference to announce changes to ensure that the province's water supply remains safe.

May 30, 2000

The deadly bacterial outbreak claims its sixth victim, an elderly patient who was being cared for at a local hospital.

May 31, 2000

A hospital 140 kilometres south in London, Ont., confirms that a 56-year-old woman has died, bringing the final fatality count in the contaminated-water catastrophe to seven. Nearly 2,300 people fall ill at some point from the water.

Water background

October 2000

The public inquiry begins into the tainted-water catastrophe.

Jan. 9, 2001

Walkerton-area councillors vote to dissolve the public utilities commission, the body that managed the town's drinking water.

Council postpones voting on former PUC manager Stan Koebel's $98,000 severance package.

Key witness Dr. Murray McQuigge, the regional medical officer of health, testifies at the inquiry. McQuigge says the disaster could probably have been avoided if Koebel had not kept critical laboratory tests a secret.

Inquiry counsel Paul Calvalluzzo questions McQuigge about why he didn't invoke emergency procedures. McQuigge responds that it was the mayor's responsibility.

Jan. 10, 2001

McQuigge testifies that the mayor, David Thomson, "was letting our credibility hang out there in the wind" by not telling what he knew.

McQuigge suggests cutbacks and the privatization of water-testing labs by the Ontario government were partly to blame for the water contamination.

Feb. 1, 2001

A compensation deal is offered to Walkerton residents, whereby every one of them would receive a minimum of $2,000 from the Ontario government to settle a class-action lawsuit. The payments aren't capped: Those who fell seriously ill or had relatives die would be eligible for even more money, as would be anyone who suffers health problems down the road.

March 19, 2001

Ontario Superior Court Chief Justice Patrick Lesage rules on the settlement to the class action suit, ending all civil litigation among the 13 parties involved.

The Walkerton Compensation Plan aims to "do the right thing for the victims of this tragedy," Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MPP Bill Murdoch says. "Now people can get on with rebuilding their lives."

CBC Archives looks back at the poisoning of Walkerton. This special report contains TV and radio reports from 2000 to 2004.

April 23, 2001

Walkerton town council votes to pay Stan Koebel $84,000 in severance rather than face him in court. Under their original deal announced in the fall, he was to receive $98,000.

May 10, 2001

The Ontario government announces it will spend $25 million on safe drinking water and clean air in the provincial budget.

May 15, 2001

The one-year anniversary of the E. coli outbreak in Walkerton. Part 1B of the public hearings continues. They are expected to conclude in late June or July.

June 29, 2001

Premier Mike Harris testifies before the Walkerton inquiry, becoming the first premier to testify before a judicial inquiry in Ontario in more than half a century.

Aug. 16, 2001

A lawyer for the government of Ontario blames the Walkerton contamination on Stan Koebel, the former PUC manager, in his closing statements at the inquiry.

Aug. 22, 2001

In his closing statements, Bill Trudel, Koebel's lawyer, argues that several events contributed to the Walkerton tragedy and tells the inquiry "the blame game has got to stop."

Aug. 25, 2001

Investigators for the Walkerton water inquiry search Premier Mike Harris's office for a third time. A spokesman for the inquiry says the search of the office's computer servers was to make sure the collection of government documents was as thorough as possible.

Nov. 26, 2001

A report commissioned by the inquiry estimates the economic impact of the Walkerton disaster to be $155 million. The total includes household and corporate spending on bottled water and disinfection equipment, the crisis's effect on real estate values, costs to fix the water system, and lost business revenues.

Jan. 3, 2002

Walkerton town councillors hold a meeting to discuss the future of Frank Koebel, Stan's brother and the ex-foreman of the PUC.

Jan. 16, 2002

First inquiry report by Justice Dennis O'Connor leaked to the public four days earlier than its scheduled release.

Jan. 17, 2002

The Ontario government asks police to investigate the leak of the Walkerton report.

Jan. 18, 2002

Justice O'Connor issues a scathing report saying Canada's worst E. coli outbreak could have been prevented by the Ontario government and Walkerton's water supply managers. Had Stan Koebel properly monitored chlorine levels in the town's drinking water, and had the provincial government not cut Environment Ministry funding, illnesses could have been prevented, O'Connor says.

January 2002

Inquiry continues to investigate files from the office of Premier Mike Harris.

May 23, 2002

A second report is released to lay out more comprehensive recommendations covering all aspects of the province's water system.

March 25, 2003

Ontario announces it will resume scrutinizing the laboratories that monitor Ontario's drinking water.

Stan and Frank Koebel are charged in the public-health disaster. They face one count each of public nuisance, uttering a forgery and breach of public duty.

Nov. 30, 2004

Stan and Frank Koebel plead guilty to common nuisance. The charge carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison. Crown attorneys drop the forgery and breach of trust charges in exchange for the guilty pleas.

Dec. 20, 2004

Stan Koebel is sentenced to a year in jail. Frank Koebel gets nine months' house arrest. Ontario Superior Court Judge Bruce Durno stresses there was never any intent on the part of the Koebels to harm anyone, but he finds them negligent in discharging their duties.

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Inside Walkerton: Canada's worst-ever E. coli contamination | CBC News

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E. coli may have put Walkerton on the map, but the disaster's legacy may be a much keener appreciation of just how fragile our water supply can be. Canada's worst-ever outbreak of E. coli contamination took hold 10 years ago in a typically quiet town in the rural heartland of Bruce County, Ont.

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Considering that its policies are woven into all the General Plans of the cities and counties,it's important for people to know where these policies are coming from.While many people support the United Nations for its 'peacemaking' efforts, few know that they have very specific land use policies that they expect to see implemented in every city, county, state and nation.The specific plan is called United Nations Agenda 21 Sustainable Development, which has its basis in Communitarianism.By now, most Americans have heard of sustainable development but are largely unaware of Agenda 21.

In a nutshell, the plan calls for governments to take control of all land use and not leave any of the decision making in the hands of private property owners.It is assumed that people are not good stewards of their land and the government will do a better job if they are in control.Individual rights in general are to give way to the needs of communities as determined by the governing body.Moreover, people should be rounded up off the land and packed into human settlements, or islands of human habitation, close to employment centers and transportation.Another program, called the Wildlands Project spells out how most of the land is to be set aside for non-humans.

U.N. Agenda 21 cites the affluence of Americans as being a major problem which needs to be corrected. It calls for lowering the standard of living for Americans so that the people in poorer countries will have more, a redistribution of wealth. Although people around the world aspire to achieve the levels of prosperity we have in our country, and will risk their lives to get here, Americans are cast in a very negative light and need to be taken down to a condition closer to average in the world. Only then, they say, will there be social justice which is a cornerstone of the U.N. Agenda 21 plan.

Agenda 21 policies date back to the 1970's but it got its real start in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro when President Bush signed onto it.President Clinton signed it later and continued the program in the United States. Agenda 21 is 'soft-law' and did not have to be voted on by the Congress. A non-governmental organization called the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives,ICLEI, is tasked with carrying out the goals of Agenda 21.Over 600 cities in the U.S. are members, and that number is growing. The costs are paid by taxpayers.

It's time that people educate themselves and read the document and related commentary. After that, get a copy of your city or county's General Plan and read it. You will find all sorts of policies that are nearly identical to those in U.N. Agenda 21. Unfortunately, their policies have advanced largely unnoticed and we are now in the end game. People need to identify their elected officials who are promoting the U.N.'s policies and hold them accountable for their actions. Only when we've identified who the people are and what they are trying to do will we be able to evaluate whether or not we approve of the policies they are putting forward. Some people may think it's appropriate for agencies outside the United States to set our policies and some people will not. The question is, aren't Americans able to develop their own policies? Should we rely on an organization that consists of member nations that have different forms of governments, most of which do not value individual rights as much as we do? It's time to bring U.N. Agenda 21 out in the open where we can have these debates and then set our own policies in accordance with our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Ok, you say, interesting, but I don't see how that really affects me. Here are a few ways:

No matter where you live, I'll bet that there have been hundreds of condos built in the center of your town recently. Over the last ten years there has been a 'planning revolution' across the US. Your commercial, industrial, and multi-residential land was rezoned to 'mixed use.' Nearly everything that got approvals for development was designed the same way: ground floor retail with two stories of residential above. Mixed use. Very hard to finance for construction, and very hard to manage since it has to have a high density of people in order to justify the retail. A lot of it is empty and most of the ground floor retail is empty too. High bankruptcy rate.

So what? Most of your towns provided funding and/or infrastructure development for these private projects. They used Redevelopment Agency funds. Your money. Specifically, your property taxes. Notice how there's very little money in your General Funds now, and most of that is going to pay Police and Fire? Your street lights are off, your parks are shaggy, your roads are pot-holed, your hospitals are closing. The money that should be used for these things is diverted into the Redevelopment Agency. It's the only agency in government that can float a bond without a vote of the people. And they did that, and now you're paying off those bonds for the next 45 years with your property taxes. Did you know that?

So, what does this have to do with Agenda 21?

Redevelopment is a tool used to further the Agenda 21 vision of remaking America's cities. With redevelopment, cities have the right to take property by eminent domain---against the will of the property owner, and give it or sell it to a private developer. By declaring an area of town 'blighted' (and in some cities over 90% of the city area has been declared blighted) the property taxes in that area can be diverted away from the General Fund. This constriction of available funds is impoverishing the cities, forcing them to offer less and less services, and reducing your standard of living. They'll be telling you that it's better, however, since they've put in nice street lights and colored paving. The money gets redirected into the Redevelopment Agency and handed out to favored developers building low income housing and mixed use. Smart Growth. Cities have had thousands of condos built in the redevelopment areas and are telling you that you are terrible for wanting your own yard, for wanting privacy, for not wanting to be dictated to by a Condo Homeowner's Association Board, for being anti-social, for not going along to get along, for not moving into a cramped apartment downtown where they can use your property taxes for paying off that huge bond debt. But it's not working, and you don't want to move in there. So they have to make you. Read on.

Human habitation, as it is referred to now, is restricted to lands within the Urban Growth Boundaries of the city. Only certain building designs are permitted. Rural property is more and more restricted in what uses can be on it. Although counties say that they support agricultural uses, eating locally produced food, farmer's markets, etc, in fact there are so many regulations restricting water and land use (there are scenic corridors, inland rural corridors, baylands corridors, area plans, specific plans, redevelopment plans, huge fees, fines) that farmers are losing their lands altogether. County roads are not being paved. The push is for people to get off of the land, become more dependent, come into the cities. To get out of the suburbs and into the cities. Out of their private homes and into condos. Out of their private cars and onto their bikes.

Bikes. What does that have to do with it? I like to ride my bike and so do you. So what? Bicycle advocacy groups are very powerful now. Advocacy. A fancy word for lobbying, influencing, and maybe strong-arming the public and politicians. What's the conection with bike groups? National groups such as Complete Streets, Thunderhead Alliance, and others, have training programs teaching their members how to pressure for redevelopment, and training candidates for office. It's not just about bike lanes, it's about remaking cities and rural areas to the 'sustainable model'. High density urban development without parking for cars is the goal. This means that whole towns need to be demolished and rebuilt in the image of sustainable development. Bike groups are being used as the 'shock troops' for this plan.

What plan? We're losing our homes since this recession/depression began, and many of us could never afford those homes to begin with. We got cheap money, used whatever we had to squeak into those homes, and now some of us lost them. We were lured, indebted, and sunk. Whole neighborhoods are empty in some places. Some are being bulldozed. Cities cannot afford to extend services outside of their core areas. Slowly, people will not be able to afford single family homes. Will not be able to afford private cars. Will be more dependent. More restricted. More easily watched and monitored.

This plan is a whole life plan. It involves the educational system, the energy market, the transportation system, the governmental system, the health care system, food production, and more. The plan is to restrict your choices, limit your funds, narrow your freedoms, and take away your voice. One of the ways is by using the Delphi Technique to 'manufacture consensus.' Another is to infiltrate community groups or actually start neighborhood associations with hand-picked 'leaders'. Another is to groom and train future candidates for local offices. Another is to sponsor non-governmental groups that go into schools and train children. Another is to offer federal and private grants and funding for city programs that further the agenda. Another is to educate a new generation of land use planners to require New Urbanism. Another is to convert factories to other uses, introduce energy measures that penalize manufacturing, and set energy consumption goals to pre-1985 levels. Another is to allow unregulated immigration in order to lower standards of living and drain local resources.

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Considering that its policies are woven into all the General Plans of the cities and counties,it's important for people to know where these policies are coming from.While many people support the United Nations for its 'peacemaking' efforts, few know that they have very specific land use policies that they expect to see implemented in every city, county, state and nation.The specific plan is called United Nations Agenda 21 Sustainable Development, which has its basis in Communitarianism.By now, most Americans have heard of sustainable development but are largely unaware of Agenda 21.

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The importance of wetlands The Wise Use of wetlands Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar Sites) International Cooperation History

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There are two ways to extract bitumen from the oil sands: either mine the entire deposit and gravity separate the bitumen, or extract the bitumen in-place (or in-situ) using steam without disturbing the land. The technique used depends on the depth of the deposit.

About 10% of the world's oil reserves are located in the Alberta oil sands. These deposits are estimated to hold almost 2 trillion barrels of oil, but less than 10% (about 166 billion barrels) are recoverable with current technology. Over 96% of Canada's total oil reserves are contained in the oil sands.

Oil sands are a loose sand deposit which contain a very viscous form of petroleum known as bitumen. Oil sands are actually found all over the world and are sometimes referred to as tar sands or bituminous sands.

Alberta's oil sands contain on average about 10% bitumen, 5% water and 85% solids. Most of the solids are coarse silica sand. Oil sands also contain fine solids and clays, typically in the range of 10-30% by weight.

Bitumen is a heavy complex hydrocarbon, contained within the oil sands deposit. Bitumen is almost solid at room temperature and has a tar-like consistency. As will all heavy oils in general, Alberta bitumen has a relatively higher concentration of nitrogen, sulphur and heavy metals.

DID YOU KNOW? About 80% of the world's oil reserves are state-owned. Only 20% are open to private investment, almost 50% of which are located in the Alberta oil sands.

PROCESS OVERVIEW

Petroleum products are produced from the oil sands through 3 basic steps:

1. Extraction of the bitumen from the oil sands, where the solids and water are removed

2. Upgrading of the heavy bitumen to a lighter, intermediate crude oil product

3. Refining of the crude oil into final products such as gasoline, lubricants and diluents.

Traditionally, a majority of the bitumen produced in Alberta was upgraded into synthetic crude oil before being sold to refineries on the open market. However, some bitumen is good enough to send directly to a high-conversion refinery that has the ability to process heavy/sour crude. Examples of diluted bitumen sold directly to refineries includes product from in-situ facilities around the Christina Lake and Cold Lake areas, diluted bitumen from Imperial Oil's Kearl Lake Mine and upcoming production from Suncor's Fort Hills project.

Currently about 40% of the bitumen produced in Alberta is upgraded to synthetic crude oil. The remaining 60% is diluted with condensate and sold directly to market, without an intermediary upgrading step.

BITUMEN EXTRACTION

The Alberta oil sands hold an estimated 166 billion barrels of recoverable oil, representing over 96% of Canada's total reserves. The method used to extract bitumen from the oil sands depends on the depth of the deposit. If the deposit is near the surface, the oil sands is mined and sent to a bitumen processing plant. For deposits that are deep below the surface, bitumen is extracted in-situ (or in place). Both facilities produce a relatively clean bitumen product which is mostly free of sand and water.

The deposit is mined and trucked to a main processing plant. Hot water is added to the oil sands, producing a pumpable slurry. Bitumen is recovered through a gravity separation process.

LEARN MORE ABOUT IN-SITU →

LEARN MORE ABOUT MINING →

About 20% of Alberta's bitumen reserves are close enough to the surface to be mined. The remainder are much deeper and can only be recovered in-situ. Although in-situ production traditionally had lower recovery rates, recent advancements in technology have significantly improved bitumen recovery. In-situ extraction is expected to lead the growth in bitumen production over the coming decades.

PRODUCTS DERIVED FROM THE OIL SANDS

Bitumen naturally contains a large fraction of complex long chain hydrocarbon molecules. The fraction depends on the geology of the reservoir and process used to extract the bitumen.

About 40% of bitumen produced from the oil sands requires an intermediate upgrading step for partial removal of the heavy hydrocarbon fractions and conversion into light synthetic crude oil (SCO). The SCO is then sold to refineries on the open market.

The remaining 60% of bitumen produced is blended with a lighter hydrocarbon (diluent) and sold directly to the open market. Many North American refineries are now designed to accept heavy oil streams, as long as the solids and water content is kept relatively low (less than 0.5%). Non-upgraded bitumen is also sour, containing a relatively high sulphur content.

LEARN MORE ABOUT OIL SANDS PRODUCT STREAMS →

BITUMEN UPGRADING

Bitumen produced from the oil sands is too heavy to be sent directly to a conventional refinery due to its high asphaltene and sulphur content. Depending on the extraction process used, bitumen can sometimes contains as much as 2% water and solids, which does not meet pipeline specifications for long distance transport. This product is therefore upgraded into a light synthetic crude, which is then sold on the open market.

Upgrading is a process by which bitumen is transformed into an lighter and sweeter crude by fractionation and chemical treatment. This improves the quality of the oil, reducing its viscosity and sulphur content. The SCO product is then sent to a downstream refinery for conversion into final product. About 40% of Alberta's bitumen is currently upgraded before being sold to market.

LEARN MORE ABOUT BITUMEN UPGRADING →

CRUDE OIL REFINING

Refineries convert crude oil feedstock into value added final products for consumer and industrial use. These refined products include fuels such as gasoline, kerosene and diesel, as well as other consumer products such as oil lubricants and asphalt.

Not all refineries are built the same. Simple refineries can only process light crudes with a low sulphur content (sweet). Complex refineries have the ability to process heavier feedstock with a much higher sulphur content (sour).

Due to the rising production of heavy crude oil from Canada, Venezuela and Mexico, most Gulf Coast refineries have been modified to better handle heavier crude streams, which are generally less expensive than light/sweet crude. These refineries are known as high-conversion refineries and have the ability to accept sour crude oil streams with up to 10% heavy fractions, as long as the water and solids content is kept relatively low.

As more and more refineries around the world convert to heavy oil feedstock, there is less of a demand for stand-alone bitumen upgrading. The economics of upgrading therefore lies in the price differential between heavy diluted bitumen and light crude oil.

PRODUCTS DERIVED FROM A BARREL OF CRUDE OIL

SOURCE: CAPP

DID YOU KNOW? The world's unconventional heavy oil reserves are much bigger than conventional light oil. That's why more refineries are being built (or retrofitted) to process heavy, sour feedstock.

TRANSPORTATION

Crude oil from the Alberta oil sands (including diluted bitumen) is commonly transported to US and Canadian refineries by pipeline. About two-thirds of Alberta's exports to the US are destined for the Midwest area, centred around Chicago.

Due to constraints in pipeline capacity and routing, crude oil transport by rail has become increasingly popular in recent years, climbing from near-zero in 2011 to almost 200,000 bbl/day by the end of 2014. Shipment by rail to the US was mostly destined for the US Gulf Coast. However, expansion of pipeline capacity to Quebec, Ontario and the US Midwest has reduced demand for rail transport. Nonetheless, crude-by-rail remains an important back-up mode of transport if new pipeline capacity does not come online in the next few years.

DID YOU KNOW? At the end of 2016, Canada's crude-by-rail loading capacity was approximately 775,000 bbl/day.

AIR EMISSIONS

The oil sands emit about 60 megatonnes of greenhouse gases (GHG) per year, representing 8.5% of Canada's total emissions and 0.13% of global GHG emissions.

About 80% of the GHGs contained in a barrel of oil are emitted by the end user during combustion. Bitumen extraction, upgrading and refining account for the remaining 20%.

In-situ bitumen production has a slightly higher carbon footprint due to its heavier reliance on steam production. Bitumen produced from mined oil sands is 2% more GHG intensive than the average barrel of oil processed in the US versus a 5% difference for in-situ bitumen.

LEARN MORE →

WATER CONSUMPTION

Every barrel of bitumen produced from mined oil sands requires about 3 barrels of fresh water, mostly sourced from the Athabasca River. Mine operators account for about 0.5% of Athabasca River flows, far below their allocated water supply.

In-situ bitumen production requires only 0.3 barrels of water per barrel of bitumen, sourced mostly from ground water aquifers.

About 85-90% of process water used for bitumen production is recycled.

LEARN MORE →

LAND USAGE

Alberta's oil sands covers a total of 142,000 km², only 3% of which is close enough to the surface to be mined. The remaining 97% can only be extracted in-situ with minimal land disturbance.

Oil sands mining accounts for about 900 km² of land disturbance, representing 0.6% of total oil sands surface area and 0.028% of the entire Canadian boreal forest. That includes both tailings ponds and mine pits.

Mine operators are legally required to reclaim and remediate disturbed land once the mine is depleted and the tailings pond is no longer in use.

LEARN MORE →

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About 10% of the world's oil reserves are located in the Alberta oil sands . These deposits are estimated to hold almost 2 trillion barrels of oil, but less than 10% (about 166 billion barrels) are recoverable with current technology.

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Rick Mercer in Oil Sands

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We're already seeing the effects of human-caused climate change - but nature can help.

We're already seeing the effects of climate change, but thankfully, we're equipped with the most effective tool to mitigate and adapt to it: nature. Protecting nature today means a better planet for future generations. Share these facts about climate change and help make a difference:​

​

© Gong​ Hangxu

408 part​s per million.
The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO 2)​​​​​​​ in our atmosphere, as of 2018, is the highest it has been in 3 million years.

​Tweet This

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Climate change: 11 facts you need to know

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We're already seeing the effects of human-caused climate change - but nature can help. We're already seeing the effects of climate change, but thankfully, we're equipped with the most effective tool to mitigate and adapt to it: nature. Protecting nature today means a better planet for future generations.

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Home - Kortright Centre for Conservation

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Located 10 minutes north of Toronto, on 325 hectares of pristine woodlands, the Kortright Centre for Conservation combines a natural oasis with some of the most leading-edge sustainable education programs and events in Canada.

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DEANNA BURGART

President, Indigenous Engineering Inclusion Inc.

Our energy future requires us all to realize that, whether or not we work in the energy sector, we are part of the energy system. As producers, consumers, conservers and change-makers, and we must work together to achieve what the future requires of us; renewable and non-renewable; Indigenous and non-Indigenous; the solutions will require collaboration which transcends polarizing viewpoints.

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DEANNA BURGART President, Indigenous Engineering Inclusion Inc. Our energy future requires us all to realize that, whether or not we work in the energy sector, we are part of the energy system. As producers, consumers, conservers and change-makers, and we must work together to achieve what the future requires of us; renewable and non-renewable; Indigenous and non-Indigenous; the solutions will require collaboration which transcends polarizing viewpoints.

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Off-Grid or Stand-Alone Renewable Energy Systems

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Off-Grid or Stand-Alone Renewable Energy Systems

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Some say the future isn't what it used to be. Here's a different view. The future is going to be better than it used to be -- at least when it comes to the human connection to nature.

In "Last Child in the Woods," I described what I called "nature-deficit disorder." I hesitated (briefly) to use the term; our culture is overwrought with medical jargon. But we needed a language to describe the change, and this phrase rang true to parents, educators, and others who had noticed the change. Nature-deficit disorder is not a formal diagnosis, but a way to describe the psychological, physical and cognitive costs of human alienation from nature, particularly for children in their vulnerable developing years.

In the four years since publication of "Last Child" (with an updated and expanded edition in 2008), the gap has grown wider.

Consider the 2008 Recreation Participation Report," released this month. The report is based on a survey of more than 60,000 Americans, covering 114 different outdoor activities; it represents a collaborative effort by The Outdoor Foundation, Sporting Goods Manufacturing Association, and other outdoor recreation groups. Among its findings: adult participation is up slightly -- very slightly. But the survey also found a decline of more than 11 percent of participation in outdoor activities among young people age 6 to 17, with the sharpest decline among youngsters ages 6 to 12. We already knew that kids were becoming more disconnected in nature in recent decade -- but that's an additional 11 percent decline in a single year.

Consider, too, the decision by the publisher of the Oxford Junior Dictionary to replace dozens of nature-related words like "beaver" and "dandelion" with "blog" and "MP3 player." As noted wildlife artist and conservationist Robert Bateman observed, "If you can't name things, how can you love them? And if you don't love them, then you're not going to care a hoot about protecting them or voting for issues that would protect them." In a few words, literally, this story illustrates the urgency to connect children directly to the natural world, and our ultimate goal - deep cultural change.

Still, there's reason for hope. Just look how far the children and nature movement -- or the No Child Left Inside movement, as it's sometimes called -- has come in such a short time. The real miracle is the rapidly growing network of thousands of individuals, families and organizations that have made this movement their own.

We have a long way to go, but the grassroots are growing; and so are the netroots.

We've seen evidence of this miracle in the growth of regional campaigns across the country, as reported and encouraged by the Children & Nature Network. Between 2006 and 2008, C&NN helped galvanize o ver 50 regional and statewide campaigns in North America. We've watched the environmental organizations take this issue to heart, with the Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, the Conservation Fund, National Audubon, Hooked on Nature, the Trust for Public Land and many other groups supporting more programs that connect kids to nature and promote changes in public policies.

Last year's most visible legislative success came in September, when the U.S. House of Representatives passed the No Child Left Inside Act, sponsored by the No Child Left Inside Coalition. If approved this year in the Senate, the bill will -- hopefully, in some form -- help the states support environmental education.

In Canada, the Nature Child Reunion and the Robert Bateman Get to Know Program, are quickening their strides. And through the efforts of C&NN President Dr. Cheryl Charles, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, at its World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, officially designated connecting children with nature as an international priority.

These are just a few of our shared milestones.

Now comes 2009, and the beginning of a new era - with new opportunities to strengthen ties and build new relationships.

The Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA), for example, has presented recommendations to President-elect Obama. AFWA listed children and nature as No. 2 in their roster of five Priorities of a National Agenda for State Fish and Wildlife Agencies. Other conservation-related initiatives are in the works.

We're pleased that the incoming Obama administration has indicated there will be expanded federal emphasis on early childhood education.

With that in mind, many of us believe that the child-nature connection and environmental literacy should be considered as fundamental elements of children's cognitive development, as well as their psychological and physical health. Future education reform must widen the definition of the classroom. To help young people learn in nature, not just about nature, policy-makers must view parks, wildlands, farms and ranches as the new schoolyards. We'll push for an expansion of the number of nature-oriented preschools, including experiential education and greened schoolyards in Head Start.

This month, in an article titled " Nature Makes a Comeback in Wisconsin Schools," the Wisconsin State Journal reported: "To reconnect children to nature, school districts are expanding school forests around the state while also developing low-cost, small projects such as rain gardens that can be effective even in poor urban areas."

Many of us would like to see more progress like that.

In 2009, education reform must also be about a reformation of values, not just the distribution of more information.

Consider the words of Oberlin professor David Orr, one of the world's foremost proponents of environmental literacy and a leading voice on climate change. In his seminal essay, "What Is Education For,"he describes "the way our education has prepared us for how to think about the natural world." Orr argues correctly that more education "is no guarantee of decency, prudence, or wisdom. More of the same kind of education will only compound our problems." The worth of education "must now be measured against the standards of decency and human survival. The truth is that many things on which your future health and prosperity depend are in dire jeopardy: climate stability, the resilience and productivity of natural systems, the beauty of the natural world, and biological diversity."

Orr has also taken note of nature-deficit disorder -- which belongs on this list, and is linked to each of these priorities. A growing movement will continue to make the case that a meaningful human relationship with nature, shaped in children's formative years, is crucial to our society's practice of stewardship, its sense of community, and the strength of family bonds. We also believe that natural play will increasingly be recognized as a key element in any successful effort to turn the tide on child obesity.

The emerging body of scientific knowledge supports these theses, but more research is needed. In November, the first National Children and Nature Research Summit, co-sponsored by Yale University, the University of Minnesota, and the Children & Nature Network, brought together 20 eminent scholars and practitioners from throughout the United States to address the importance of nature in children's lives, to identify strengths and gaps in current knowledge, and to establish general principles and guidelines for inquiry.

In the meantime, C&NN continues to report the growing body of correlative research. Among the studies published in major journals in recent months: a new one from Andrea Faber Taylor and Francis Kuo showing that children with ADHD concentrate better after walking in a park; UK research finding that living near parks and woods boosts health, regardless of social class; and in October, researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine-Purdue University and the University of Washington reported that greener neighborhoods are associated with slower increases in children's body mass, regardless of residential density. One reason that last point is important, as Kuo says, is that it dispels the mistaken assumption that more green equals more sprawl.

We need nearby nature everywhere, especially in the most urban neighborhoods.

That principle must be among the central precepts of any planning for the future of urban design, education, and health care - and should be at the forefront of any discussion of child obesity by agencies of the Obama Administration. As Howard Frumkin often says, "Yes, we need more research, but we know enough to act."

This brings us to the need to examine how we act. In the current economic climate, we need a new model for change - and new tools to stimulate cultural transformation. That transformation is most likely to occur at the personal and neighborhood level, where we live, work and play -- through what might be called "social-nature networking."

Across the country, urban planners, neighborhood organizations and community action groups, along with such organizations as the Trust for Public Land, are beginning to join forces to protect the remaining islands of urban nature - and create new ones. One possibility: neighbors working with conservancy groups to establish what might be called "nearby-nature trusts."

Using new and old tools of social networking, families can band together to experience outdoors adventures -- two, three, five families agreeing to meet, say, at a county park on Saturdays. Coming soon: an easily downloaded C&NN Family Nature Clubs Tool Kit designed to give families the tools and inspiration they need to take action in their own lives - without waiting for programs or funding. Also coming in 2009: campaigns to engage grandparents and young people themselves as leaders in the movement. These initiatives will be featured as part of the upcoming Children and Nature Awareness Month, in April.

Think how the lives of our children - our lives, too - would improve if such social-nature networking were to spread as quickly as book clubs and Neighborhood Watches did in recent decades or the use of social networking tools did during the 2008 presidential campaign.

In the coming years, young people will discover or create fulfilling careers in the fields and professions that connect people to nature; they will become biophilic architects and urban designers, nature therapists, natural play organizers and natural teachers -- and assume careers that have yet to be named.

Despite the current rash of bad news, we may be seeing the emergence of a new landscape: the fading of our society's nature-deficit disorder, and the rise of human restoration through nature. Farfetched? Maybe. But as the poet Emily Dickinson wrote: "Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul/And sings the tune without the words/And never stops - at all."

The future: better than it used to be.

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Richard Louv is chairman of the Children and Nature Network. He is the author of "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder."

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Some say the future isn't what it used to be. Here's a different view. The future is going to be better than it used to be -- at least when it comes to the human connection to nature. In "Last Child in the Woods," I described what I called "nature-deficit disorder."

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Earthquakes in Eastern Canada

There are, on average, over 4,000 earthquakes in Canada each year. Many of those earthquakes occur in Western Canada, but Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic Provinces also see their fair share of seismic events. On this episode, we'll be speaking with a seismologist who has spent over 30 years studying earthquakes in Eastern Canada.

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There are, on average, over 4,000 earthquakes in Canada each year. Many of those earthquakes occur in Western Canada, but Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic Provinces also see their fair share of seismic events. On this episode, we'll be speaking with a seismologist who has spent over 30 years studying earthquakes in Eastern Canada.

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Co-founder and author Richard Louv introduced the term "Nature-Deficit Disorder" in 2005 with the publication of his best-selling book, "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder." He coined the phrase to serve as a description of the human costs of alienation from nature and it is not meant to be a medical diagnosis (although perhaps it should be).

Louv's 2011 book, "The Nature Principle: Reconnecting with Life in a Virtual Age," extended the conversation to include adults, and explored this key question: "What could our lives and our children's lives be like if our days and nights were as immersed in nature as they are in technology?"

Although human beings have been urbanizing, and then moving indoors, since the introduction of agriculture, social and technological changes in the past three decades have accelerated that change.

Among the reasons: the proliferation of electronic communications; poor urban planning and disappearing open space; increased street traffic; diminished importance of the natural world in public and private education; and parental fear magnified by news and entertainment media. An expanding body of scientific evidence suggests that nature-deficit disorder contributes to a diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, conditions of obesity, and higher rates of emotional and physical illnesses. Research also suggests that the nature-deficit weakens ecological literacy and stewardship of the natural world. These problems are linked more broadly to what health care experts call the "epidemic of inactivity," and to a devaluing of independent play. Nonetheless, we believe that society's nature-deficit disorder can be reversed.

Recent studies focus not so much on what is lost when nature experience fades, but on what is gained through more exposure to natural settings, including nearby nature in urban places.

Abstracts to many of these studies, often linked to the original research, can be found at our research section. T he Children & Nature Network was created to encourage and support the people and organizations working to reconnect children with nature. We believe more research is necessary to better define the influence of nature experiences on human development. But as Dr. Howard Frumkin, Dean of the School of Public Health, University of Washington, and a member of our Board of Directors says, "we know enough to act."

By taking a lead role in the international movement to connect children, families and communities to the natural world, we are striving to reinforce the critical link between researchers and individuals, educators and organizations dedicated to the health and well-being of children, families and communities.

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Co-founder and author Richard Louv introduced the term "Nature-Deficit Disorder" in 2005 with the publication of his best-selling book, "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder." He coined the phrase to serve as a description of the human costs of alienation from na

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One of Brazil’s most valuable assets is its dense covering of rainforests. Of course, the Amazon Rainforest is the most significant of these, covering a vast portion of the country and providing the ideal habitat to approximately one-third of all animal species in the world.

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Going to the fridge and grabbing a bottled water seems like a normal thing to do, but the consequences of just one water bottle are a lot more severe than what it's worth.

Over 500 billion bottles of water are distributed yearly, and only one out of five are recycled. What does that mean exactly? To put it into perspective, a bottle of water takes 1000 years to biodegrade, meaning if it is not recycled, it will sit and pollute the environment for all of that time. Although most water bottles are made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), some are not. If you're drinking out of a water bottle not made from polyethylene terephthalate that means your bottle of water will most likely not be recycled, but if the bottle is made from PET, the bottles will be reused.

Bottled water consumers are not the only ones at fault, but so are companies such as Nestlé Waters North America Inc. They have caused a lot of concerns for Canadians protesting the fact that it is a large corporation that bottles water from Canada's resources, often limiting local use to the water and causing environmental strain. As well as for ethical reasons, Nestlé has also been sued for false advertising back in 2003. The company claimed that their water comes from natural springs, when in reality it is extracted from heavily treated common ground water.

But what can you do to help the war against bottled water? Easy, don't buy them. According to Readers Digest, more than 25% of bottled water comes from tap water that is treated and purified, which is basically glorified tap water that is marked up and sold. When you buy bottled water you're paying mostly for the plastic and label, not the actual water. But if you're a person who doesn't like the idea of tap water, the simple solution would be to buy a water filter. You fill up a jug of water and it filters through it. Which is the better alternative than buying a bottle of water that takes 1000 years before it biodegrades.

Grade 12 student, Phoenix Mang, had her own opinion once finding out the facts behind bottled water. "I think it's really sad how uninformed I was, and don't get me wrong, I do drink bottled water, but I didn't understand the severity of it. My mom has a filter that she uses for her bottles of water, so I will probably start using that," said Mang.

Riverside Secondary has started to reduce bottled water consumption throughout the school with the water station. There are two water stations around the school that both allow for students to put their personal water bottles under a tap and it automatically fills it. As well as that, it also counts the exact amount of bottles it has filled, putting into perspective how many students have chosen to not buy bottled water from the vending machines.

Once taking the facts into consideration, you can decide whether or not buying a bottle of water is truly worth the impact it can have on the environment.

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Going to the fridge and grabbing a bottled water seems like a normal thing to do, but the consequences of just one water bottle are a lot more severe than what it's worth. Over 500 billion bottles of water are distributed yearly, and only one out of five are recycled.

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Fight over water- residents vs global for giant 

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Fight over water- residents vs global for giant 

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Controversy after Nestle given new permit to bottle more Michigan water

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Nestle has been bottling water outside Grand Rapids for almost 20 years and was recently given a new permit for just $200 to nearly double their pumping capacity. The public, still shaken by the water crisis in Flint, submitted more than 80,000 comments about the deal, with just 75 in favor.

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4 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Water, as intrinsic to our lives as the air we breathe, is becoming increasingly rare and valuable. We must stop taking it for granted.

The water situation in California is dire, and some experts predict that the state -- our largest agricultural producer -- is destined to become a desert. As politicians and businesses fight it out in court over aquifer rights, towns are drying up.

The Cadiz Water Project is smack in the middle of the controversy.

At the heart of the controversy is a California law that allows landowners to tap into an aquifer their land sits upon, even if the aquifer extends under property belonging to others. A handful of investors have made fortunes by investing in the state's most valuable natural resource.
Related: These Start-ups are Coming up with Smart Initiatives to Recycle Waste
Cadiz is a private corporation sitting on roughly 70 square miles of property in the Mojave Desert over a deep aquifer. In 2012, the company agreed to sell water to Santa Margarita Water District (SMWD) in Orange County and other local providers. The company proposes to pump enough groundwater from beneath its property to supply 100,000 homes in the heavily drought-impacted Southern California area. California's eastern Mojave Desert, where the project is located, could see tremendous benefit.

Cadiz CEO Scott Slater told me the project would empower the local community by adding 5,900 new local jobs without harming the environment. "We've studied this issue from every angle, and what we propose will not drain the aquifer or significantly impact the local ecology," he said. "What it will do is generate approximately $1 billion in economic growth and provide much needed water to an area parched by the long drought."

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), strongly opposes the project, citing environmental concerns and long-term sustainability. On June 6, she sent a letter to David Bernhardt, President Trump's nominee for Deputy Secretary of the Interior, asking him to recuse himself from overseeing the Cadiz water extraction project. Sen. Feinstein cites conflict of interest since his law firm, though not Bernhardt, is paid to lobby for the company.
Related: Business Leaders Slam Trump's Decision to Withdraw From Paris Climate Agreement
Winston Hickox, former California Environmental Protection Agency secretary, disagrees with the Senator. In an op-ed for the Sacramento Bee, Hickox writes, "The project will conserve enough water for 400,000 Californians each year for 50 years without causing a single adverse environmental impact. The best scientists and engineers assured that sustainability and protection of the environment were paramount. The project was approved in accordance with the toughest environmental law in America, the California Environmental Quality Act. It was challenged in court, but judges in 12 separate opinions affirmed the project and its protections and rejected the flawed positions represented by the senator's op-ed. The desert will not be destroyed, nor will the bighorn sheep, desert tortoises, springs or wildflowers."

What's at stake?

Why does a company fight the government for 15 years? Could water, a resource most of us take for granted, be that valuable?

Water is big business. The global water industry is predicted to reach $1 trillion by 2020. As massive as the bottled water industry is, its volume pales in comparison to tap water. U.S. public water systems supply more than 1 billion gallons of tap water an hour, every hour of the day. Twelve percent of municipal water is provided by private water systems, and they serve 36 million people in the U.S.

The average American uses 176 gallons of water per day, and municipal water prices have increased 27 percent over the past five years. Advocacy group Food & Water Watch says private companies charge 59 percent more than public utilities, or $185 more per year, per household.

Crisis like the one in Flint, Mich.,, demonstrate that public water sources are not always the best option.

Conservatives like to claim that over-regulation stifles business. Liberals -- including me -- are primarily concerned with environmental impact over profiteering. In the end, this story comes down to evaluating the greater good.
Related: There's a New Threat to Small Business: Water Scarcity
For the first time in a long time, I'm coming down on the conservative side. Water is still pretty cheap, and most households will pay just $15 more per month from a private source. Given a choice between shortage and rationing that comes with it, and shelling out less than the cost of a cup of Starbucks every week, most people are unlikely to object.

Generally speaking, most municipal water comes from aquifers. What environmental difference does it make if a private or public company pumps it? I'm simply not sure the objections hold water (pardon the pun).

Photo Credit: katkaZV

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The Fight Over Water: When Business and Politics Collide

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4 min read Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Water, as intrinsic to our lives as the air we breathe, is becoming increasingly rare and valuable. We must stop taking it for granted. The water situation in California is dire, and some experts predict that the state -- our largest agricultural producer -- is destined to become a desert.

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From 24/7 Wall St.: The agriculture and food production industry employed more than one billion people as of last year, or a third of the global workforce. While the industry is substantial, a relatively small number of companies wield an enormous amount of influence.

In its 2013 report, "Behind the Brands," Oxfam International focused on 10 of the world's biggest and most influential food and beverage companies. These corporations are so powerful that their policies can have a major impact on the diets and working conditions of people worldwide, as well as on the environment. Based on the report, these are the 10 companies that control the world's food.

In an interview with 24/7 Wall St., Chris Jochnick, director of the private sector department at Oxfam America, discussed the impact that these 10 companies have on the world. "If you look at the massive global food system, it's hard to get your head around. Just a handful of companies can dictate food choices, supplier terms and consumer variety," Jochnick said.

These 10 companies are among the largest in the world by a number of measures. All of them had revenues in the tens of billions of dollars in 2013. Five of these companies had at least $50 billion in assets, while four had more than $6 billion in profits last year. Additionally, these 10 companies directly employed more than 1.5 million people combined - and contracted with far more.

Nestle is the largest of these 10 companies. Converted into dollars, Nestle had more than $100 billion in sales and more than $11 billion in profits in 2013. The Switzerland food giant alone employed roughly 333,000 people.

Many of these companies and their brands are extremely well known. One reason is that they often spend huge sums on advertising. Nine of these 10 companies were among the 100 largest media spenders in the world in 2012. Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), the world's sixth largest advertiser, spent more than $3 billion in 2012 on advertising. Unilever's media expenditure, at $7.4 billion, was the second-highest worldwide.

With such scale, many of these companies' policies - including advertising, food ingredients, environmental impact, and labor practices - have an significant impact on millions of lives. Often, these companies have been reluctant to address issues related to their environmental impact and the quality of life of workers in their supply chain. According to Jochnick, many of these companies are "unaware of the social and environmental impact that they are creating or facilitating."

However, not all the companies are reluctant to address these problems. None of the 10 companies was better-rated by Oxfam than Nestle, which was closely followed by Unilever. Still, even these companies had problems, according to Oxfam's 2013 report. In 2011, Nestle discovered cases of children working in its cocoa supply chain, as well as instances of forced labor. A supplier of palm oil for Unilever was accused of illegal deforestation and forcible land grabs.

A strong public profile, as well as consumer awareness, may lead these companies to address issues of concern. "A company that is good and trusted ought to be a company that is aware of, and taking steps to avoid, serious human rights or social or environmental problems that it is part of," Jochnick said.

Some companies have taken steps towards becoming better corporate citizens. General Mills and Kellogg, which have been among the 10 companies Oxfam studied, have implemented new policies to address important issues such as climate change. Both companies recently committed to disclosing and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years.

Based on Oxfam International's 2013 report, "Behind the Brands: Food justice and the 'Big 10' food and beverage companies," 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the 10 companies that control the world's food. We also added information on each company's revenue, net profit, total assets, and employee count from their most recent annual report. Data were translated from foreign currencies based on the exchange rate on the final date of each company's reporting period. Information on companies' brands come from corporate websites and Oxfam. Data on 2012 advertising expenditures are from Advertising Age's report, "Global Marketers 2013," and are estimates. Estimates for Mars Incorporated, which is privately held, are from Forbes' report "America's Largest Private Companies 2013."

These are the companies that control the world's food, according to 24/7 Wall St.:

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These 10 Companies Control The World's Food

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From 24/7 Wall St.: The agriculture and food production industry employed more than one billion people as of last year, or a third of the global workforce. While the industry is substantial, a relatively small number of companies wield an enormous amount of influence.

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Water is arguably the most important commodity on Earth. As important as crops, metals and energy are to the planet, none of them is possible without water.

Every agricultural crop that feeds the planet needs it to grow. Farmers couldn't raise chickens, cows, pigs or any livestock without massive quantities of it. Miners couldn't extract and process metals without it, and energy companies couldn't generate fuel without it. In fact, human beings couldn't survive without water. Yet despite these realities, many overlook water as an investment.

Although 71% of the Earth's surface is covered with water, only 0.3% of this water is usable by humans. The rest is in oceans, soils, icecaps or the atmosphere. Of the amount that is usable, an even smaller quantity is easily attainable from sources such as rivers and streams. In fact, rivers and streams contain 300 cubic miles of water, which represents 1/1000th of 1% of the total found on Earth.

Most of the water we consume and use in industry comes from deep underground aquifers, which are underground layers of porous stone. About 30% of liquid fresh water is found in aquifers, while more than 69% is stored in glaciers and icecaps. Tapping into the supply of fresh groundwater requires natural springs or pumps.

How Did Modern Water Treatment Develop?

The history of using stored water for agricultural and human consumption dates back more than 10,000 years.

In 8,000 BC, farmers in Egypt and parts of Asia trapped rainwater for their crops. By 2,000 BC, farmers in Egypt and Peru were using irrigation canals to transport underground water to crops, and by 1,000 BC, a city in modern-day Jordan built aqueducts - artificial channels for conveying water from one place to another - to supply water to its population.

Surprisingly, civilizations throughout history showed awareness of the need to maintain a clean source of drinking water.

Ancient Sanskrit and Egyptian manuscripts advised that drinking water should be stored in copper vessels, placed in sunlight and filtered with charcoal. The Greek physician Hippocrates, considered the father of modern medicine, advised that water should be boiled and strained through cloth. However, for many years, people drank untreated water from rivers and streams.

With the Industrial Revolution and the expansion of population in European cities, sources of drinking water were increasingly contaminated. Sewage dumped in rivers and streams led to outbreaks of cholera, typhoid and other water-borne diseases in the 1700s, and cities urgently sought solutions to these deadly afflictions.

In 1800, British chemist William Cruikshank discovered that chlorine could disinfect water, and by the 1890s, many cities discovered that filtering water through beds of sand could trap many deadly bacteria. By the early 1900s, public outcries led to the installation of water treatment facilities in most major US cities.

Despite the advent of water treatment facilities, rampant industrialization was creating problems for the water supply. Contaminants such as lead, arsenic, and pesticides were finding their way into drinking water. This led the US government to pass the Water Pollution Control Act of 1948. Eventually, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) produced even tougher water pollution standards.

What Are the Different Types of Treated Water?

Water in its purest form consists of molecules with two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. However, most water contains other impurities and is classified according to the presence of various minerals, salts and suspended particles.
The water treatment process at most modern facilities involves 10 steps: Collection
Groundwater or surface water is collected using drilling wells or dams. It is then carried to the treatment facility in open canals or closed pipes. Some water treatment facilities are located hundreds of miles from the water source. In these cases, the water may be stored in intermediate reservoirs.
Disinfection
In most European plants, ozone-rich air is used to disinfect water followed by a small dose of chlorine. Most American plants simply use chlorine.
Coagulation
Flash mixers circulate the water particles with chemicals called coagulants. The chemicals cause suspended particles in the water to adhere to each other and form flocs.
Settling
Settling tanks separate flocs from the partially cleaned water.
Filtering
The partially cleaned water is filtered further using sand and pulverized coal.
Adsorption
Some plants use an additional filtration process to trap more impurities.
Aerating
In areas with large amounts of manganese, iron or dissolved gases, water treatment plants use an aeration process to remove these impurities.
Fluoridating
In some areas, fluoride is added to the water to prevent tooth decay.
Neutralizing
Some treatment facilities add other chemicals to reduce corrosion of plumbing pipes and fixtures.
Distributing
Treatment plants add small doses of chlorine to the water as it leaves their facilities. Covered tanks or reservoirs store the treated water to protect it from contamination.

Renewable water resources are the best measure of how much "water wealth" a country possesses:

Statistics for water usage vary by country, but in the United States, nearly 85% of the water withdrawn from natural sources is fresh water. Excluding the thermos-electric industry, which utilizes both fresh and saline water, the amount of water withdrawn from freshwater sources is over 99%. Fresh water has many uses:

What Drives the Price of Water Investments?

Unlike most commodities, there are not liquid and well-developed water futures markets in most regions of the world.
Having said that, the factors that move this market include the following:

1. Climate

2. Agricultural Demand

3. Electricity Demand

A forwards trading platform called Waterfind commenced trading in Australia in 2014 and has expanded to other regions. However, the lack of liquidity in futures makes a physical investment in water moot for most areas of the world.

Climate

Severe drought conditions, which are more common in a dry country like Australia, can cause major spikes in water demand, while periods of excessive rainfall can reduce demand. One of the most intriguing reasons some traders find water attractive is global warming. As the planet heats up, it could reduce the volume of available water sources and raise prices.

Agricultural Demand

The agriculture sector is one of the largest users of water. In addition to irrigation for crops, livestock farming uses an enormous amount of water. It takes 1,799 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef and 576 gallons to produce a pound of pork. By comparison, the water usage for a pound of corn and soybeans is 216 gallons and 108 gallons, respectively.

Electricity Demand

So much energy is used to cool electricity-generating equipment that it would be difficult to ignore the impact of this industry on water prices. Electricity demand is a function of overall economic activity, so water prices should react favorably to a strong economy.

There are several water-themed ETFs that invest in shares of water companies. The companies that comprise these funds operate in many business segments of the water industry.

Examples of water businesses include utilities that provide water service, water equipment manufacturers, wastewater disposal and water infrastructure manufacturing.

Because of the diversity of these businesses, it is impossible to generalize about what factors move these investments. Complicating this analysis further is the fact that most utilities are regulated entities and, therefore, have restrictions on how much they can raise prices.
However, utilities that provide water react mostly to these two factors:
Therefore, when an event like a drought, for example, causes water scarcity, utilities do not necessarily benefit.

Interest rates

Waterworks companies constantly invest in infrastructure and rely heavily on bond issuance to fund these projects. As a result, utility shares are very sensitive to a rise and fall in interest rates since changes in rates affect their borrowing costs.

Dividends

Most utilities are regulated entities and operate as monopolies or duopolies. In exchange for the lack of competition, they have restrictions on how much they can raise prices. As a result, they tend to generate steady, consistent returns, which they pay in the form of dividends to shareholders. Changes in dividends (increases and decreases) can have a big effect on water utilities' share prices.

3 Reasons You Might Invest in Water

1. Emerging Market Growth

2. Climate Change

3. Portfolio Diversification

Companies that manufacture water equipment, dispose of water waste and build water infrastructure are likely to benefit from the factors listed below. In addition, should a global futures market begin to mature, these factors are also likely to lift physical water prices:

Emerging Market Growth

The growth of the global economy is a significant factor that could lift both the shares of water equipment manufacturers as well as physical water prices. As emerging countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia modernize their economies, the need for clean, potable water for irrigation, drinking, electricity and industry will grow.

Climate Change

Climate change has the potential to be the biggest catalyst for a rise in physical water prices. As global temperatures rise, glaciers could melt and rivers and streams could recede. These events have the potential to create major water shortfalls across the globe.

Portfolio Diversification

Investing in a vital natural resource can add diversification to a portfolio. In many cases, factors that move water investments are different than the factors that affect stock and bond prices.

Should I Invest in Water?

There are several ways to gain exposure to the water industry, and traders should consider the factors that move each of these investment vehicles.

Since most traders don't have access to the new and illiquid futures markets, the most practical way they can gain exposure is through shares or ETFs.
There are three reasons water equipment manufacturers' shares could perform well in the years ahead:

1. Emerging Market Growth

2. Climate Change

3. Infrastructure Demand

Waterworks utilities are one vehicle for investing in the sector. However, while they pay hefty dividends and have low risk, they probably have less potential upside than investing in companies making equipment for water collection and treatment.

Emerging Market Growth

China, India, Brazil, the Middle East and Africa are among the many fast-growing countries and regions that will have enormous food and energy needs in the years ahead. Demand for water should grow as these economies expand.

Climate Change

Global warming is a positive catalyst for water prices. Higher temperatures will diminish the global supply of fresh water and could lead to a water crisis.

Infrastructure Demand

The United States has not invested in major infrastructure in decades. Pipes and equipment that carry water require upgrades in many developing Western economies. Water equipment manufacturers should benefit from an infrastructure overhaul.

It is difficult to envision bearish scenarios for the water industry. However, an economic slowdown that affects emerging markets or a reversal of global warming could put pressure on water equipment manufacturers.

Expert Opinions on Water

Leading experts believe water-related investments could produce profits in the years ahead.

A leading international body ranked water crises as some of the great threats facing global civilizations:

"Climate change risk will, in practice, flow through either excess or lack of water with the potential for severe impacts to societies globally."
World Economic Forum annual report

A leading investment research firm concurs that investing in water assets is a timely and profitable idea:

"Demand for fresh water - which accounts for a meager 2.5% of the world's total water content - is growing along with urbanization and an ever-increasing global population. Today, a major part of water infrastructure in the United States is approaching the end of its useful life."

Zacks Equity Research

How Can I Invest in Water?

Investors have mostly indirect ways to gain exposure to water prices. The previously mentioned Waterfind Australia offers water forwards through which traders can purchase parcels of water in different irrigation regions across Australia. However, geography and liquidity for the platform are limited.

Water ETFs

These financial instruments trade as shares on exchanges in the same way that stocks do. There are several ETFs that invest in companies involved in the water industry including the following:

Shares of Water Companies

There are many publicly traded companies that have various levels of exposure to water. While investing in companies can be a leveraged way to gain exposure to water prices, many of these companies can react to other factors such as regional demand for their products, competition, production costs and interest rates. In addition, factors such as company management and the overall stock market can also affect these investments:

CFDs

Another way to invest in shares of water companies is through the use of a contract for difference (CFD) derivative instrument. CFDs allow traders to speculate on the price of companies involved in the water industry. The value of a CFD is the difference between the price of the shares at the time of purchase and their current price.
Start Trading at Plus500.com
Some regulated brokers worldwide offer CFDs on shares of water companies. Customers deposit funds with the broker, which serve as margin. The advantage of CFDs is that traders can have exposure to share prices without having to purchase shares, ETFs, futures or options.
Important: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. Between 74-89% of retail trader accounts lose money when trading CFDs. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
CFD Service. 80.6% lose money.

Further Reading

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Water Investing Simplified - Commodity.com

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ContentsWhy is Water Valuable?How Did Modern Water Treatment Develop?What Are the Different Types of Treated Water?How is Water Treated?What Drives the Price of Water Investments?3 Reasons You Might Invest in WaterShould I Invest in Water?Expert Opinions on WaterHow Can I Invest in Water? Why is Water Valuable?

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Green Roof Industry Survey - Green Roofs for Healthy Cities

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The Best Green Roofs in Toronto

The Best Green Roofs in Toronto

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Having a green roof in Toronto is great for the environment because it helps improve air quality and divert waste from landfills. In this city, green roofs also create lovely public spaces and even urban farms that grow a slew of fruits, veggies and herbs.

Here are the best green roofs in Toronto.
Photos of City Hall by Gabriel Li in the blogTO Flickr pool.

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The Best Green Roofs in Toronto The Best Green Roofs in Toronto Stay in the loop Unsubscribe anytime or contact us for details. Having a green roof in Toronto is great for the environment because it helps improve air quality and divert waste from landfills.

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As the world discovers new ways to meet its growing energy needs, energy generated from Sun, which is better known as solar power and energy generated from wind called the wind power are being considered as a means of generating power. Though these two sources of energy have attracted the scientists for a very long time, they are not able to decide, which of the two is a better source to generate power. Now scientists are looking at a third option as well. Scientists at Washington State University have now combined solar power and wind power to produce enormous energy called the solar wind power, which will satisfy all energy requirements of human kind.

Advantages of Solar wind power.

The scientists say that whereas the entire energy generated from solar wind will not be able to reach the planet for consumption as a lot of energy generated by the satellite has to be pumped back to copper wire to create the electron-harvesting magnetic field, yet the amount that reaches earth is more than sufficient to fulfill the needs of entire human, irrespective of the environment condition.

Moreover, the team of scientists at Washington State University hopes that it can generate 1 billion billion gigawatts of power by using a massive 8,400-kilometer-wide solar sail to harvest the power in solar wind.

According to the team at Washington State University, 1000 homes can be lit by generating enough power for them with the help of 300 meters (984 feet) of copper wire, which is attached to a two-meter-wide (6.6-foot-wide) receiver and a 10-meter (32.8-foot) sail.

One billion gigawatts of power could also be generated by a satellite having 1,000-meter (3,280-foot) cable with a sail 8,400 kilometers (5,220 miles) across, which are placed at roughly the same orbit.

The scientists feel that if some of the practical issued are solved, Solar wind power will generate the amount of power that no one including the scientists working to find new means of generating power ever expected.

How does the Solar wind power technology work?

The satellite launched to tap solar wind power, instead of working like a wind mill, where a blade attached to the turbine is physically rotated to generate electricity, would use charged copper wire for capturing electrons zooming away from the sun at several hundred kilometers per second.

Disadvantages of Solar wind power

But despite the fact that Solar wind power will solve almost all the problems that we were to face in future due to power generating resources getting exhausted, it has some disadvantages as well. These may include:

Brooks Harrop, the co-author of the journal paper says that while scientists are keen to tap solar wind to generate power, they also need to keep provisions for engineering difficulties and these engineering difficulties will have to be solved before satellites to tap solar wind power are deployed.

The distance between the satellite and earth will be so huge that as the laser beam travels millions of miles, it makes even the tightest laser beam spread out and lose most of the energy. To solve this problem, a more focused laser is needed.

But even if these laser beams reach our satellites, it is very doubtful that our satellites in their present form will be able to tap them. As Greg Howes, a scientist at the University of Iowa puts it, "The energy is there but to tap that energy from solar wind, we require big satellites. There may be practical constraints in this."

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Solar Wind Power: Generating Power In The Future

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As the world discovers new ways to meet its growing energy needs, energy generated from Sun, which is better known as solar power and energy generated from wind called the wind power are being considered as a means of generating power.

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Located in the Lower Don River watershed, Don Valley Brick Works Park is a shining example of the power of ecological restoration work. This former industrial site now contains a number of different habitat types, including wild flower meadows, woodlands, wetlands, and steep cliff faces. The City of Toronto has established a network of trails throughout the site so that visitors can enjoy the diversity of plant and animal life that now flourishes in this park.

History & Ecological Restoration

From 1889 to 1989, Don Valley Brick Works Park was the site of a large-scale brick making and distribution operation. Bricks were forged using water from Mud Creek and clay from the Brick Works quarry. The bricks made at this site are used in buildings throughout Toronto, including Casa Loma, Massey Hall, the Ontario Legislature, parts of the University of Toronto's St. George campus, and numerous private homes.

In 1989 the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) acquired the Don Valley Brick Works site, and in 1995 the City of Toronto and TRCA began restoration work. A series of wetland environments have been constructed to provide habitats for aquatic plants and wildlife, as well as to allow Mud Creek (a previously buried Creek) to be filtered naturally before it flows into the Don River, and ultimately Lake Ontario. With the help of dedicated volunteers and strong partnerships with external groups, the City of Toronto has successfully introduced wetland, dry wildflower meadow, and forest plant communities to different parts of the Don Valley Brick Works site, creating a variety of ecosystem types.

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Located in the Lower Don River watershed, Don Valley Brick Works Park is a shining example of the power of ecological restoration work. This former industrial site now contains a number of different habitat types, including wild flower meadows, woodlands, wetlands, and steep cliff faces.

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Foundation for Environmental Stewardship 

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Foundation for Environmental Stewardship 

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Empowering Canadian Youth

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SDGs | Canada | Foundation for Environmental Stewardship

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Foundation for Environmental Stewardship (FES) is a youth-led, youth-serving sustainable development organization.

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How Architects Help the Environment and Save Energy
Len Calderone for | AltEnergyMag
For mankind to preserve the planet's ecological health, we must change our perception of what our homes and industrial buildings should look like, and blend these with nature, rather than replacing nature with concrete. Architects need to make buildings more green and adaptable to our surroundings. They need to avoid the sick building syndrome and create buildings that are energy efficient.

Green design is everywhere but there is a long way to go before it is the customary way of doing business. Many times economics and environmental aspects of a building tend to conflict with each other, as one is exchanged for the other. Architects need to design ecosystems to be healthier and lessen the pollution impact on the earth.

The tea-pavilion Posbank is designed by architect Bjarne Mastenbroek and located in the national park Velume Zoom near Rheden, Netherlands. Nature inspired the architect. The façades are as transparent as possible. The construction is made of beams and almost invisible bars of steel while the grass roof is part of the route through the building. The insulation is made of sheep's wool and the toilets are flushed with rainwater.

Efforts have been made to become more in harmony with nature and the tea-pavilion blends in with its environment at the end of a range of hills formed in the last ice age. From the entrance, the floor rises in a continuous spiral that wraps itself around a group of trees ending in a 46 foot cantilever.

Today, our apartments are tied to a set location, but architect, Felipe Ca mpolina , combined eco-friendliness with the mobility of a trailer. In this dynamic building concept, green roofed, transportable, stackable dwellings make mobile a real concept in a high-rise environment.

The exoskeleton structure that houses the individual units has three major components. One is a lift for the modules to move up and down, as needed by the tenant. The next is a tower with a staircase, elevator and water storage space. A lattice-like structure between each tower provides a place for units to slide into their levels and pivoted into designated slots. There are six slots per floor.

Each unit is built using OSB plates with thermal and acoustic insulation bound by a rigid steel frame. The unit is comprised of two boxes, one inside the other, that telescope when in place. The modules contain a living room, dining room, bathroom and bedroom with a magnificent view. Each module can pivot twenty degrees without disturbing a neighbor.

If the owner of one of these modules wants a break from city life, he or she can simply lower the home down onto a truck and take it to the countryside, or if they are just tired of the neighborhood, the module could be moved to a new location in a similar building.

There is a system of small robots that would regulate building facades, including energy usage, by checking thermostats, closing windows, adjusting blinds, etc. They would even communicate with building users who they identify as wasting energy.

Edge Monkey

The use of "edge monkeys" allows us to re-examine the notion of the use of robots in the environment, by situating them in local building habitats. The architect / engineer can design both robot and habitat, creating a secure ecology with a role in which the robots might succeed. Edge conditions are very specialized habitats where the occupants can communicate and co-operate to regulate energy use. Edge conditions of buildings are complex boundaries.

Recently, facades act as double skin systems where substantial gaps between the inside and outside faces exist to assist airflow in heating and cooling. The boundary is a crucial area in the design of buildings, both technically and aesthetically. This boundary could be a place for the edge monkeys, which are designed together with the boundaries that they serve. Edge monkeys are visible, as they have a job to do in the boundary zone; they also have the power of communicating beyond it, because they are energy misers. Part of their role is to signal to internal occupants when the internal occupants are clearly wasting energy, for example, keeping the blinds down and the lights on when this is unnecessary.

Edge monkeys could create Mexican waves and similar façade effects to entertain passers-by. The edge monkeys can be delightful to watch as they perform their daily assignments. Now, you won't have to go to the zoo to watch a monkey swing on bars.

Notice robotic arms on each side

Eco Pods are an architectural design that can act as a temporary algae bio-reactor in a vertical way. This concept was designed for Boston and features robotic arms, powered by a micro-algae system, which will constantly reorganize the pods to different positions to ensure the best possible growing situation for the algae. Moreover, these eco-pods are intended to inform the public about the potential of producing micro-algae vertically. In this case, the building was empty. This design element can be placed in a variety of locations around Boston, filling empty building sites.

Green architecture describes environmentally aware designs and techniques in architecture.

There is a growing demand for eco-design, eco-climate and bio-climate design which combines elements of design and esthetics with sustainability and ecology. The plants are not only on the outside of this building, but continue throughout the building itself, giving a contrast between the white walls and the green plants.

Germany is home to an unbelievable amount of excellent green roof projects. Here more than anywhere else, ecological architecture is consistently achieved by means of landscaped rooftops.

No. This is not middle earth, home of the Hobbits. These ecological houses in Switzerland were designed by Peter Vetsch, and are truly eye catching. Covered with earth, the houses are protected from rain, low temperatures, wind and natural abrasion.

Google Headquarters

One of the world leading landscape architects is SWA, leaders in planning and urban design. They create exceptional places for their clients, such as Google's headquarters and the eco-corridor in China. They have a strong commitment to design that synthesizes aesthetics and sustainability.

Ningbo East New Town Eco-Corridor

Architects are now able to take advantage of their sophisticated artistic visions, while minimizing the negative environmental impact of their structures. Green architecture is full of prospects for the future from both a creativity perspective, as well as ecological requirements. Because of modern technology, architects can not only preserve the environment but improve it

For additional information:

1. http://products.construction.com/swts_content_files/510/282474.pdf

2. http://www.usgbc.org/Docs/Resources/BDCWhitePaperR2.pdf

3. http://www.snowdonhopkins.com/PHILOSOPHY_files/WhitePaperSustainGreenArch.pdf

4. http://www.healthybuilding.net/healthcare/Vittori_Green_and_Healthy_Buildings.pdf

5. http://www.bordbia.ie/aboutgardening/GardeningArticles/Documents/Plants%20in%20Green%20Buildings.pdf

6. http://environs.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/28/1/delpercio.pdf

About Len

Len has contributed articles to several publications. He also writes opinion editorials for a local newspaper. He is now retired.

This article contains statements of personal opinion and comments made in good faith in the interest of the public. You should confirm all statements with the manufacturer to verify the correctness of the statements.

The content & opinions in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent the views of AltEnergyMag

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How Architects Help the Environment and Save Energy | AltEnergyMag

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Len Calderone for | AltEnergyMag For mankind to preserve the planet's ecological health, we must change our perception of what our homes and industrial buildings should look like, and blend these with nature, rather than replacing nature with concrete. Architects need to make buildings more green and adaptable to our surroundings.

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Harvard Design Magazine: Five Reasons: To Adopt Environmental Design

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A profound and wide-ranging reappraisal of material culture, initially hijacked by geeks and hippies, is being developed within the disciplines of political ...

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Inside Frank Lloyd Wright’s Iconic Fallingwater House | Condé Nast Traveler

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In the United States, many conceive of the 20th century as a time when man successfully separated humanity from nature. One of the most obvious examples of this can be found in popular visions of modern architecture.

After World War Two, the American economy thrived and suburban development quickly churned out homes to meet nationally increasing demand. And thus the suburbs as we think of them today were born. American city growth continued to expand outside of city centers and by the 1980s, suburbia was not just a growing reality but an ideal destination for many.

But some were uncomfortable with the cost of suburban sprawl. It seemed that homes grew bigger at the risk of habitat destruction and energy waste, while giving way to an aesthetically unpleasing uniformity.

Born out of the 1970s environmental movement, contemporary architects have injected the concept of sustainability into their designs, seeking not to use the home to separate people from nature but as a device to re-integrate the two. For these designers, new home plans are focused on native material usage, energy efficiency, recycling and blending nature with human construction. But this isn't completely a new concept; it's a rediscovery of earlier principles.

But in the early to mid 20th century, innovative architect and designer Frank Lloyd Wright was guided by these very conventions. Wright focused on harmony of parts in relation to the whole, and believed that a home shouldn't overcome its surrounding landscape like the Addams Family mansion. Rather, it should blend with the environment in an act of architectural transcendentalism. Landscaping was crucial to his designs, as were windows and outdoor spaces that convened nature and living areas.

Wright championed his concerns about energy consumption in his designs. His Usonian houses were small and single-storied, focusing on liveability in minimum space, and giving owners unique designs at moderate cost. Wright utilized existing natural elements like sunlight and wind, and combined them with design to provide heating and cooling. These cost-effective features remain a significant part of sustainability architecture today.

As Wright said, "The architect must be a prophet - a prophet in the true sense of the term - if he can't see at least ten years ahead, don't call him an architect." Obviously a visionary, these three houses signify Wright's philosophy and convey the history of a sustainability movement that began almost a century ago:

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Frank Lloyd Wright Practiced Sustainable Design Before It Was A Movement

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In the United States, many conceive of the 20th century as a time when man successfully separated humanity from nature. One of the most obvious examples of this can be found in popular visions of modern architecture. After World War Two, the American economy thrived and suburban development quickly churned out homes to meet nationally increasing demand.

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As professionals, we struggle to balance our time and energy to make sure we get our tasks done. Yet, there are days when we push ourselves to exhaustion just to discover we've accomplished little at the end of the day. This makes us feel anxious and stressed, sometimes even close to burning out. In situations like these, the Pomodoro Technique can be a useful tool to help us buckle down and get more things crossed off our to-do lists.

What is the Pomodoro Technique?

The Pomodoro Technique is a simple yet effective way to manage your time and improve your work habits. It helps you break down your workload into small, manageable chunks. This technique helps you stay focused on tasks that require long periods of concentration.

Who invented this technique?

The Pomodoro Technique was created by software developer and entrepreneur Francesco Cirillo. He named the system after a tomato-shaped kitchen timer that he used to keep himself focused and productive when he was a university student.

"Every day I went to school, attended classes, studied, and went back home with the disheartened feeling that I didn't really know what I'd been doing. The exam dates came up so fast, and it seemed like I had no way to defend myself against time. I was easily distracted and unable to focus. So I decided to give myself a challenge: study without interruption for 10 minutes" Cirillo said.

How does it work?

Each 25-minute work block is called a Pomodoro. The principle behind it is to have you focus for a short period of time, then take a break afterwards. Most sources suggest linking four Pomodoros together, and then taking a longer break.

The Rules:

A Pomodoro can't be interrupted; it marks 25 minutes of pure work.

A Pomodoro can't be split up; there is no such thing as half of a Pomodoro or a quarter of a Pomodoro.

If a Pomodoro is definitively interrupted by someone or something, that Pomodoro should be considered void, as if it had never been set; then you should make a fresh start with a new Pomodoro.

You are not allowed to keep on working "just for a few more minutes" even if you're convinced that in those few minutes you could complete the task at hand.

When the Pomodoro rings, mark an X next to the activity you've been working on and take a break for 5 minutes.

How To Use The Pomodoro Technique

We begin by creating a list of the things we want to accomplish. Then, estimate how much time it would take us to accomplish each task. Cirillo suggests we call this list the Activity Inventory Sheet. Then, sort all these tasks according to priority and put them in a separate sheet called the To Do Today list.

Each time the Pomodoro rang (which marked the end of a 25-minute limit), I placed an X on those activities that I worked on. After every 25-minute block, I took a 5-minute break.

Taking Breaks

After completing a Pomodoro, take a short break to "disconnect" from your work. Stretching, brewing coffee, or getting the mail in are some options for your breaks. Never engage in activities that call for heavy mental effort during breaks.

Cirillo explains that tasks like talking to a colleague about work-related issues or writing important emails will reduce alertness at the start of the next Pomodoro.

At the end of the day, create another sheet to visualize and analyze the day's work.

Dealing with Interruptions

Experience shows interruptions can happen when you're in the middle of a task. Cirillo designed an effective strategy for minimizing unhandled interruptions while increasing the number of Pomodoros that can be accomplished consistently.

There are two kinds of interruptions: internal and external.

Internal interruptions occur when you initiate the interruption. These actions are often associated with having little to no concentration to focus on the task at hand. Standing up to look for something to eat, or checking your Facebook feed are internal interruptions.

Meanwhile, external interruptions happen when others disrupt your workflow. External interruptions can be very common if you work in a social environment. These can be an incoming phone call, or a colleague asking for your help.

Inform effectively - Politely tell the person that you're busy at the moment

Negotiate quickly to reschedule the interruption - Tell the person that you'll get back to him/her after you're finished working.

Call back the person who interrupted you as agreed. - Get back to the person when your Pomodoro ends

Cirillo recommends the Inform, Negotiate, Call Back strategy:

1. At the moment that terrible urgency comes to your mind, add a symbol. Cirillo proposes using an apostrophe (') for internal interruptions and a dash (-) for external interruptions on the same column where you score your Pomodoros. Then, add the interruption (which could also be a task you needed to pay attention to immediately) to the end of the sheet under the title: Unplanned and urgent

2. Ultimately, strive to finish the current Pomodoro. Remember the rule: If a Pomodoro begins, it has to ring.

Make sure you write include interruptions in your To Do list

In both cases, we reverse the nature of these interruptions. Simply, we are no longer dependent on interruptions, rather, interruptions depend on us. The best way to measure your productivity is to protect the Pomodoro and complete your task.

Here's a sample To Do list with interruptions that happened while I was working:

The Pomodoro Technique fights procrastination

Focusing on process, not product, is important to avoid procrastination. Productivity gurus Neil Patel and Tim Ferriss recommend using the Pomodoro technique to overcome procrastination?

If the Pomodoro technique sounds like something you'd like to try, or if you do not have a tomato-shaped kitchen timer, check out the list of some of the Pomodoro-friendly timers available for your browser and mobile:

No Kitchen Timer? Use These Web And Mobile Pomodoro Apps:

Desktop/Web:

Tomighty-Tomighty is a desktop timer specifically designed for the Pomodoro Technique. Tomighty also has a Chrome extension available. It features a clean interface that does not distract you from staying focused while working on tasks.

Focus Booster-Focus Booster allows you to take the Pomodoro technique to the next level. This app lets you track your sessions, use stats to improve and measure your progress, and even send invoices to your clients using your Pomodoro session data.

PomoDoneApp- PomoDoneApp is another great app to manage your tasks in Pomodoro style. An especially useful feature is that you can connect it to your favorite task management tools (like Trello) to improve your overall workflow. It also has a Chrome extension so you can start sessions right from the browser.

Mobile:

Pomodoro Keeper (iOS)-The timer on this app features a clean and sleek interface. It also has a nice graphical representation of your past Pomodoro sessions and shows you how productive been in the last 30 days.

Be Focused (OS) - If you're looking to truly refine your work focus, Be Focused is a great little app that will help you complete your tasks and achieve your project goals. The app is free to use, it also has a pro version that allows you to synchronize your task list between multiple Apple devices and even import and export task lists for easier access.

ClearFocus (Android) - ClearFocus's best feature is its ability to block other apps that might distract you. For it to work, you will need to install another app from the same developer called ClearLock.

5217 (Android) - The 5217 app takes inspiration from this story from The Muse. The app advocates the Rule of 52 and 17. According to the article, the most productive workers are those who work for 52 minutes and take a break for 17.

Aim For Progress, Not Perfection

The Pomodoro Technique is a good way to organize your workflow efficiently. It helps maintain the delicate mental balance between discipline (finishing a task) and flexibility (dealing with interruptions). It also promotes a healthy sense of urgency to keep you focused on the work, without making you feel pressured. Over time, you become a better judge of how much time it takes to accomplish a task.

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The Pomodoro Technique: The Tomato-Inspired Productivity Philosophy

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As professionals, we struggle to balance our time and energy to make sure we get our tasks done. Yet, there are days when we push ourselves to exhaustion just to discover we've accomplished little at the end of the day. This makes us feel anxious and stressed, sometimes even close to burning out.

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Solar energy is the technology used to harness the sun's energy and make it useable. As of 2011, the technology produced less than one tenth of one percent of global energy demand.

Many are familiar with so-called photovoltaic cells, or solar panels, found on things like spacecraft, rooftops, and handheld calculators. The cells are made of semiconductor materials like those found in computer chips. When sunlight hits the cells, it knocks electrons loose from their atoms. As the electrons flow through the cell, they generate electricity.

On a much larger scale, solar-thermal power plants employ various techniques to concentrate the sun's energy as a heat source. The heat is then used to boil water to drive a steam turbine that generates electricity in much the same fashion as coal and nuclear power plants, supplying electricity for thousands of people.

How to Harness Solar Power

In one technique, long troughs of U-shaped mirrors focus sunlight on a pipe of oil that runs through the middle. The hot oil then boils water for electricity generation. Another technique uses moveable mirrors to focus the sun's rays on a collector tower, where a receiver sits. Molten salt flowing through the receiver is heated to run a generator.

Other solar technologies are passive. For example, big windows placed on the sunny side of a building allow sunlight to heat-absorbent materials on the floor and walls. These surfaces then release the heat at night to keep the building warm. Similarly, absorbent plates on a roof can heat liquid in tubes that supply a house with hot water.

Solar energy is lauded as an inexhaustible fuel source that is pollution- and often noise-free. The technology is also versatile. For example, solar cells generate energy for far-out places like satellites in Earth orbit and cabins deep in the Rocky Mountains as easily as they can power downtown buildings and futuristic cars.

Pitfalls

Solar energy doesn't work at night without a storage device such as a battery, and cloudy weather can make the technology unreliable during the day. Solar technologies are also very expensive and require a lot of land area to collect the sun's energy at rates useful to lots of people.

Despite the drawbacks, solar energy use has surged at about 20 percent a year over the past 15 years, thanks to rapidly falling prices and gains in efficiency. Japan, Germany, and the United States are major markets for solar cells. With tax incentives, and efficient coordination with energy companies, solar electricity can often pay for itself in five to ten years.

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Solar Power Has Benefits as a Source of Alternative Energy

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Solar energy is the technology used to harness the sun's energy and make it useable. As of 2011, the technology produced less than one tenth of one percent of global energy demand. Many are familiar with so-called photovoltaic cells, or solar panels, found on things like spacecraft, rooftops, and handheld calculators.

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Wind is the movement of air from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure. In fact, wind exists because the sun unevenly heats the surface of the Earth. As hot air rises, cooler air moves in to fill the void. As long as the sun shines, the wind will blow. And wind has long served as a power source to humans.

Ancient mariners used sails to capture the wind. Farmers once used windmills to grind their grains and pump water. Today, more and more wind turbines wring electricity from the breeze. Over the past decade, wind turbine use has increased more than 25 percent per year. Still, it only provides a small fraction of the world's energy.

How it Works

Most wind energy comes from turbines that can be as tall as a 20-story building and have three 200-foot (60-meter)-long blades. The wind spins the blades, which turn a shaft connected to a generator that produces electricity.

The biggest wind turbines generate enough electricity in a year (about 12 megawatt-hours) to supply about 600 U.S. homes. Wind farms have tens and sometimes hundreds of these turbines lined up together in particularly windy spots. Smaller turbines erected in a backyard can produce enough electricity for a single home or small business.

The Booming Wind Energy Industry

Wind is a clean source of renewable energy that produces no air or water pollution. And since the wind is free, operational costs are nearly zero once a turbine is erected. Mass production and technology advances are making turbines cheaper, and many governments offer tax incentives to spur wind-energy development.

Drawbacks include complaints from locals that wind turbines are ugly and noisy. The slowly rotating blades can also kill birds and bats, but not nearly as many as cars, power lines, and high-rise buildings do. The wind is also variable: If it's not blowing, there's no electricity generated.

Nevertheless, the wind energy industry is booming. Thanks to global efforts to combat climate change, such as the Paris Agreement, renewable energy is seeing a boom in growth, with wind energy leading the way. From 2000 to 2015, cumulative wind capacity around the world increased from 17,000 megawatts to more than 430,000 megawatts. In 2015, China also surpassed the EU in the number of installed wind turbines and continues to lead installation efforts.

Industry experts predict that if this pace of growth continues, by 2050 one third of the world's electricity needs will be fulfilled by wind power.

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wind power wind energy alternative energy electrical power electricity windmill turbines renewable energy wind turbines greenhouse global warming carbon dioxide

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Wind is the movement of air from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure. In fact, wind exists because the sun unevenly heats the surface of the Earth. As hot air rises, cooler air moves in to fill the void. As long as the sun shines, the wind will blow.

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Should Canada have an environmental bill of rights?

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Should Canada have an environmental bill of rights?

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Do governments have an obligation to provide the public with information about the state of the environment? Should Canada have a environmental bill of rights?

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I know what it's like to be deprived of rights.

During the Second World War, the Canadian government stripped my family's property and rights and sent us to an internment camp in the British Columbia Interior, even though we were all Canadian-born citizens. I'm also old enough to have witnessed Canada's progress on human rights. Just seven years before I was born, a legal decision concluded that women in Canada were "persons" and could be appointed to the Senate. People of African and Asian descent, like my family, were finally allowed to vote in 1948, and indigenous peoples got full voting rights in 1960. In 1969, homosexuality was legalized.

Despite the fact that Canada is known for its spectacular natural wonders and passed the Bill of Rights in 1960 and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, many Canadians would be surprised to learn that the right to live in a healthy environment was never included in these laws.

In an effort to remedy this omission, I set out with David Suzuki Foundation and Ecojustice staff and allies in 2014 for a cross-country tour. Our mission was to eventually have environmental rights enshrined in Canada's Constitution, albeit with several interim steps along the way, including municipal and provincial declarations of environmental rights and a federal environmental bill of rights. After all, the right to clean air, water and soil shouldn't be left to the whim of day-to-day politics, to be continually fought for. The response exceeded our wildest dreams. First Nations leaders and communities came out in support of our effort, more than 100,000 people signed on and 140 municipalities representing a third of Canada's population passed resolutions supporting the right to a healthy environment.

This has been an incredibly unifying movement for Canada, with support pouring in from coast to coast to coast. There's something profoundly Canadian about guaranteeing everyone basic rights, and not letting anyone slip through the cracks. This is reflected in the way we've crafted our social safety net. But that net is incomplete without environmental rights. It's shocking that some communities still face perpetual boil-water advisories or must fight against companies that would pollute their food sources. Having the constitutional right to a healthy environment would make Canada a better place for all, and could be a source of great pride as we celebrate the country's 150th birthday.

If it's such a great idea, what are we waiting for? More than 110 countries - from Argentina to Zambia - have already embedded the right to a healthy environment in their constitutions, but we're behind the game. Canada was once a leader in this field, and the idea of fundamental human rights has deep roots in our history.

When it was enacted, the Bill of Rights was a good first step, but it left a great deal of discretionary powers with the provinces, and it was difficult to enforce. In 1982, Pierre Trudeau's government brought in the charter to enshrine these ideals in the Constitution, thus giving them greater strength. Today the charter is so firmly embedded in the norms of Canadian culture that it's hard to imagine a time when Canadians didn't enjoy basic guarantees in areas such as religious and press freedoms and protection against racial discrimination. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has an opportunity to carry on his family's legacy of being at the vanguard of supporting human rights in Canada and internationally by strengthening the charter to include the right to a healthy environment.

Now that we have a critical mass of popular support, we're setting our sights on the next step: a federal environmental bill of rights. We have a narrow window of opportunity to get this passed, and are seeking the support of MPs across the country from all political parties. Although getting the added protection and stability of constitutional change is a long-term and formidable goal, this crucial next step is within reach and could be achieved before the next election.

What do you get the country that has it all for its 150th birthday? A bill of rights that will ensure protection of its natural assets for generations to come is a great start.

Originally published in The Story of Canada in 150 Objects, a special Canada 150 commemoration project by Canadian Geographic and The Walrus, available online and on newsstands now.

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Why Canada needs an Environmental Bill of Rights

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I know what it's like to be deprived of rights. During the Second World War, the Canadian government stripped my family's property and rights and sent us to an internment camp in the British Columbia Interior, even though we were all Canadian-born citizens. I'm also old enough to have witnessed Canada's progress on human rights.

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Is water part of a shared “commons,” a human right for all people? Or is it a commodity to be bought, sold, and traded in a global marketplace?

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Is there a wrong way to recycle?

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Reduce, Reuse and Rethink is a CBC News series about recycling. We're looking at why our communities are at a turning point and exploring ways to recycle better. You can be part of the conversation by joining our Facebook group.

Canadians are throwing too much garbage into their blue bins, sometimes out of laziness or ignorance, but sometimes with the best of intentions. And it's costing recycling programs millions of dollars a year.

Even a few spoonfuls of peanut butter left in a jar can contaminate a tonne of paper and make it unmarketable - destined for the dump. Same for that glob of yogurt left in the bottom of the container.

"It's shameful, it's awful. In some instances almost one in three pounds of what goes in a blue box shouldn't be there," says Mark Badger, executive vice-president of Canada Fibers, which runs 12 plants that sort about 60 per cent of the curbside recycling collected in Ontario.

Contamination is the technical name for non-recyclable material or garbage in the recycling system, from leftover food in containers to non-recyclable plastic packaging to more obvious garbage such as clothing and propane tanks.

Many cities are struggling to clean up their recycling and lower their contamination rates, but the potential solutions also have high costs and trade-offs. In the cities with the dirtiest recycling, Toronto and Edmonton, contamination rates can be upwards of 25 per cent.

Badger has seen everything, including many items that are hazardous to plant employees.

"Things like blood bags," he said. "Things like IV tubing. Things like needles and sharps. Things like dead animals. Things like bullets. Things like bear spray."

It's expensive to process contamination as recycling, only to end up sending it to the dump as garbage.

"You basically pay twice to manage garbage," says Jim McKay, general manager of solid waste management for the City of Toronto.

As it moves through the system, contamination can damage other materials, especially in cities such as Toronto where everything goes in the same bin. That can turn tonnes of other perfectly good recyclables into garbage or at least lower their value and make them more difficult to sell to offset the cost of recycling programs.

McKay estimates that each percentage point decrease in contamination could lower recycling costs in Toronto by $600,000 to $1 million a year, "and that correlates right back into the rates that we charge for waste collection."

And under the city's contract with Canada Fibers, if the city's average contamination rate reaches 27 per cent, it will get hit with an extra $5 million charge.

Different contaminants, different problems

Contamination has recently become a much bigger issue because China, the world's biggest importer of recyclable material, started banning imports of paper with more than 0.5 per cent contamination - a standard that North American cities are struggling to meet.

"Something as simple as a piece of paper with a coffee stain on it - that piece of paper a year ago would have been recyclable," says McKay. "Today that's actually garbage."

Medical waste, such as blood bags and used syringes, or dead animals are also expensive problems because workers need to temporarily shut down the plant and sanitize everything when that comes through.

But a lot of contamination is less obvious.

At a transfer station in Toronto's west end, cardboard, plastic bags and other blue bin waste is temporarily piled into multi-storey mounds so it can be loaded into bigger trucks before heading to the local sorting plant.

McKay uses a big garden rake to snag items out of the pile that he deems non-recyclable, including a bag that once contained dog treats and a black plastic coffee cup lid bearing the recycling symbol.

"It looks like recycling, feels like recycling, it's actually marked as recycling," he says "It's not."

At least, not in Toronto. The technology at the local Canada Fibers plant can't identify and sort black plastic.

It's a growing problem as our food and other products are increasingly stuffed and wrapped in confusing new types of packaging.

Clean on the coasts

St. John's and Vancouver have contamination rates of just three and 4.6 per cent respectively. That keeps costs down and makes it easier to sell their recyclables for a higher price. St. John's is able to sell almost all its recyclables, including paper, within Canada, says Ian Froude, the municipal councillor who handles public works.

Those cities keep it clean partly by either not accepting or requiring special handling of common contaminants:

Glass and styrofoam, which break into shards or pieces that contaminate paper and plastic when they get embedded.

Plastic bags, which often contain food residue when put out for curbside recycling.

Froude said St. John's decided not to accept those materials after consulting with other cities on the design of its recycling program seven years ago and hearing how hard it was to market contaminated material.

"If it's not purchased by somebody, it's got to eventually go to the landfill, so you're wasting your time," he said.

In Vancouver, glass goes in a separate bin, and plastic bags and styrofoam must be returned to a depot.

Both cities also require their residents to separate paper, cardboard and containers in their curbside recycling, unlike Edmonton and Toronto, where everything typically goes in one bin or bag.

Allen Langdon, managing director of Recycle BC, which runs recycling programs province-wide, says "single-stream" programs that don't require residents to sort recyclables always have the highest contamination.

With the new international standards brought in by China's crackdown on contamination, Langdon says, "One of the things this is going to force is [for] people to look at their programs again and determine whether they can meet the standard that markets are demanding while still using single-stream collection."

The cost of cleaner recycling

Edmonton is reviewing its recycling program.

Michael Robertson, the materials recovery facility contract manager for the City of Edmonton, says when the city opted for a single-stream program two decades ago, its philosophy was to keep recycling as simple as possible.

St. John's illustrates the trade-off - its contamination rate may be low, but only about 60 per cent of households participate, apartment dwellers have to make a request in order to participate at all, and about 35 per cent of households still put five bags of garbage out on the curb every week.

But Edmonton is considering several options, including requiring residents to sort their recyclables, changing the items it accepts and upgrading its plant with technology to better sort out contamination.

In the meantime, both Toronto and Edmonton are taking other measures, including slowing the belts at their recycling sorting facilities to sort material more effectively and targeting residents with education campaigns. Toronto is hitting residents with audits and has considered fining violators.

They say residents can help reduce contamination by:

Emptying and rinsing containers.

Making sure garbage bags go in the garbage.

Use their city's online app (Waste Wizard in Toronto and WasteWise in Edmonton - there are equivalents in other cities) if they're not sure whether an item is recyclable.

"If everybody took the initiative to make that effort and educate themselves in each individual instance where they were uncertain, it would definitely improve the quality of the product we're seeing here," Robertson says.

In the meantime, he says, if you're not sure whether something is recyclable and don't have time to do the research, it's better to put it in your recycling bin and risk a little contamination.

"We would rather have it come here so we can determine if it's recyclable," he says, "than erring the other way and losing the opportunity to recycle that material."

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Many Canadians are recycling wrong, and it's costing us millions | CBC News

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Reduce, Reuse and Rethink is a CBC News series about recycling. We're looking at why our communities are at a turning point and exploring ways to recycle better. You can be part of the conversation by joining our Facebook group.

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Federal Sustainable Development Strategy - Canada.ca

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The Federal Sustainable Development Strategy sets out the Government of Canada's environmental sustainability priorities, establishes goals and targets, and identifies actions to achieve them.

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Choose 1 to put on chart paper and and share

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Federal Sustainable Development Strategy - Canada.ca

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The Federal Sustainable Development Strategy sets out the Government of Canada's environmental sustainability priorities, establishes goals and targets, and identifies actions to achieve them.

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Speaking for the Earth

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By Teresa Ippolito

OK, I'll admit it. I have been called a "tree hugger." Not that I actually run around throwing my arms around any tree that I happen to see. But I do care about the earth's environment. So call me a tree hugger and let me stand there right next to the Lorax!

Whether on the big screen or in the Dr. Seuss book, the Lorax is proud to speak for the trees and for the earth!

However, speaking for the earth is one thing and DOING for the earth is something else. We can all take that idea and act on it. It isn't that tough a thing to do.

What might the Lorax do? Well, first of all you should feel proud to speak for the earth. Then do some "speak for the earth" things EVERYDAY. How about turning off lights when you leave a room, making sure your computer and monitor are turned off when you leave your workstation or classroom, look for the Energy Star symbol when buying electronics, and, the ever popular, turn off the water while brushing your teeth.

Pretty much anything that is good for the trees, is good for the earth and it's good for the air, water and land we all need.

So, go ahead, hug a tree, help the Lorax and let your actions show that you are speaking up for Earth!
About the Author: Terry Ippolito serves as the region's Environmental Education Coordinator out of EPA's Manhattan office. A former science teacher and school administrator, she brings real world insights into the challenges and delights of teaching about the environment. Terry holds a B.S in Biology and a Masters in Environmental Health Science.
Editor's Note: The views expressed here are intended to explain EPA policy. They do not change anyone's rights or obligations. You may share this post. However, please do not change the title or the content, or remove EPA's identity as the author. If you do make substantive changes, please do not attribute the edited title or content to EPA or the author.

EPA's official web site is www.epa.gov. Some links on this page may redirect users from the EPA website to specific content on a non-EPA, third-party site. In doing so, EPA is directing you only to the specific content referenced at the time of publication, not to any other content that may appear on the same webpage or elsewhere on the third-party site, or be added at a later date.

EPA is providing this link for informational purposes only. EPA cannot attest to the accuracy of non-EPA information provided by any third-party sites or any other linked site. EPA does not endorse any non-government websites, companies, internet applications or any policies or information expressed therein.

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By Teresa Ippolito OK, I'll admit it. I have been called a "tree hugger." Not that I actually run around throwing my arms around any tree that I happen to see. But I do care about the earth's environment. So call me a tree hugger and let me stand there right next to the Lorax!

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I think we can all learn a lesson from the Lorax – we need to respect nature and our natural resources, and fight to protect them, not destroy them, because once they are gone – that might be it, there might not be any magic seeds left to rejuvenate them.

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Last weekend I took my seven year old daughter to see the new movie The Lorax. I have been reading her this story (I have a 1971 first edition copy) for years, so I was really excited to see that a movie was being made based on the book. Forty years ago Dr. Seuss, had it figured out, he knew what future generations would be facing, that technological progress would have consequences, and he was smart enough to start warning people about the dangers that this progress posed to the earth's natural beauty and sustainability.

It's too bad more people weren't listening.

The book was criticized for being too gloomy for children, and some people panned it for being too negative toward businesses. It never really got the recognition it deserved, until Illumination entertainment and Universal Pictures decided to make a movie about it that is.

Now people are flocking to the theatres with their children and I have to say, I'm feeling a bit giddy about it. I have spent the last four years working with WWF, explaining to people about why they need to do their part in the role of conservation, but that message has often fallen on deaf ears. So if a children's movie can reach people that I never could then I am over the moon! In fact, one of my skeptical friends came to the movie with us with his son, and he turned to me after it was over and said "that was a really good movie with a really good message". Woo hoo!!! Dr. Seuss - you rock!

I think we can all learn a lesson from the Lorax - we need to respect nature and our natural resources, and fight to protect them, not destroy them, because once they are gone - that might be it, there might not be any magic seeds left to rejuvenate them. So don't leave your lights on, don't pollute our waters with garbage, and don't destroy the land and marine habitats of the species that depend on them. We need to ensure that the Brown Bar-ba-loots don't become extinct, and that they have lots of green space to run around in and clean air to breath, that the Humming Fish have clean water to swim in and their stock number stay strong. And we need to not chop down that last Truffula Tree.

The release of this movie is pretty timely, given that is fast approaching on March 31st. Earth Hour is a symbolic opportunity that WWF has created for people to show that they care about the effects of climate change and that they are willing to stand up and take actions to help prevent it from getting worse.

The Lorax spoke for the trees - I want you to speak for them too, and the oceans, and the rivers, and the animals that depend on them. So, I repeat Dr. Seuss's quote: "UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."

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Last weekend I took my seven year old daughter to see the new movie The Lorax. I have been reading her this story (I have a 1971 first edition copy) for years, so I was really excited to see that a movie was being made based on the book.

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Scholastic- 7 Lessons from " The Lorax" about Loving the Earth ( and more!)

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“The Lorax”: Prophetic Warning or Poor Forest Management?

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Candice Gaukel Andrews

"Way back in the days when the grass was still green and the pond was still wet and the clouds were still clean ... ."

So starts the tale the "Once-ler" tells in the classic Theodor Seuss Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) book The Lorax, published in 1971.

The Once-ler, who now lives a hermitic existence on the gloomy outskirts of town, saw economic opportunity when he first visited an Eden-like haven where beautiful "Truffula Trees" grew. Chopping one of the trees down, the Once-ler used it to knit his first "Thneed," a garment that resembles a pair of furry pajamas-or as the Once-ler describes it, "a Fine-Something-That-Everyone-Needs." As the demand for his product increases, he harvests more and more of the trees, until they're are all gone.

While some say the book is more relevant today than ever, critics say it's far too simplistic and doesn't reflect the environmental message that was evidently intended.

So, as we approach the book's 50th anniversary, let's revisit The Lorax and see if it stands the test of time.

Biggering causes barrenness

On a first read, it would be easy to blame the Once-ler for his environmental crime; but look more closely, and he may not be such a bad guy. As he states:

"I meant no harm. I most truly did not. But I had to grow bigger. So bigger I got. I biggered my factory. I biggered my roads. I biggered my wagons. I biggered the loads of the Thneeds I shipped out."

The story soon turns darker. Out of the stump of the first tree that was cut down pops "the Lorax," an old, short, brownish and mossy creature. He tells the Once-ler, "I am the Lorax who speaks for the trees." He asks that the Once-ler consider his greed, which the logger refuses to do.

The inevitable happens. First the "Brown Bar-ba-loots," who feed on the trees' fruits, go hungry. Then, as the noxious fumes from the Once-ler's factory poison the air and water, the "Swomee-Swans" and the "Humming-Fish" leave. What was once a forest paradise becomes a barren wasteland, completely devoid of life.

It's clear that the Once-ler now regrets the devastating impact his actions have had on the area. The Truffula forest that before had been filled with pristine fauna and flora could be analogous for any number of biodiverse regions of the world that are currently being threatened by development. What Dr. Seuss called Truffula Trees could be stand-ins for the forests of Borneo, where illegal logging and rapid expansion of oil palm tree plantations are destroying crucial habitat for critically endangered orangutans. With the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act now under attack, as well, it would seem that The Lorax's message is all too prescient.

Stupidity leads to sales slumps

When The Lorax was first published, some people panned it for being too negative toward business and too gloomy for children. The problems depicted in the book, they said, were not caused by economic greed but by incompetent forest management and bad business practices. Why wouldn't someone who wanted to make money off the trees replant them in order to continue to provide and sell a product that other people value? Savvy tree farmers would certainly manage their forests so that they could continue to earn profits. The Once-ler should have, too. Critics say his avarice did not destroy the trees-his stupidity did.

As for the Lorax, his failure to take into consideration the fact that people actually liked Thneeds, wanted them and were willing to pay for them-along with his inability to realize that innovation is good-certainly did not help the situation.

"The Lorax" leaves a legacy

When the Lorax finally disappears from the barren wasteland the Once-ler created, he leaves behind a small pile of rocks with one word carved into them: Unless. Over the ensuing years, the Once-ler ponders the meaning of the cryptic message. He comes to the conclusion that the wisdom the Lorax wanted to convey was: "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."

Perhaps The Lorax didn't garner a lot of praise or even attention 47 years ago because it was before its time. Could Dr. Seuss have somehow known what future generations would be facing, that our demand for more and more consumer goods and technological progress would have consequences-aftereffects that would deplete the Earth's natural resources and beauty?

Today, I am encouraged by cities and nations that are phasing out plastic straws. I am heartened by the efforts of businesses to protect our public lands. I am hopeful about green industries, such as ecotourism and renewable energy, which offer opportunities for more long-term profits via sustainable development.

But what I'm less optimistic about is what the Once-ler once pondered: are we concerned enough? Do we care a whole awful lot?

Here's to finding your true places and natural habitats,

Candy

A multiple award-winning author and writer specializing in nature-travel topics and environmental issues, Candice has traveled around the world, from the Arctic Circle to Antarctica, and from New Zealand to Scotland's far northern, remote regions. Her assignments have been equally diverse, from covering Alaska's Yukon Quest dogsled race to writing a history of the Galapagos Islands to describing and photographing the national snow-sculpting competition in her home state of Wisconsin. In addition to being a five-time book author, Candice's work has also appeared in several national and international publications, such as "The Huffington Post" and "Outside Magazine Online." To read her web columns and see samples of her nature photography, visit her website at www.candiceandrews.com and like her Nature Traveler Facebook page at www.facebook.com/naturetraveler.

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"The Lorax": Prophetic Warning or Poor Forest Management?

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Candice Gaukel Andrews "Way back in the days when the grass was still green and the pond was still wet and the clouds were still clean ... ." So starts the tale the "Once-ler" tells in the classic Theodor Seuss Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) book The Lorax, published in 1971.

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We connect art lovers and art dealers. Widewalls is an online marketplace and magazine dedicated to modern and contemporary art.

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What are tiny houses? What is the tiny house movement? Why do people choose tiny homes and what does tiny living mean?

Simply put, the trend toward tiny houses has become a social movement. People are choosing to downsize the space they live in, simplify, and live with less. People are embracing the tiny life philosophy and the freedom that accompanies the tiny house lifestyle. The tiny house movement is about more than simply living in a small space (although, a small house is certainly part of it).

How Big is the Average Tiny House?

What is a tiny house? How big (or small, rather) is a tiny house anyway? Well, the typical American home is around 2,600 square feet, whereas the typical small or tiny house definition is a home with square footage is between 100 and 400 square feet. While of course there aren't any rules to joining the tiny house movement, when people refer to "the tiny life," their tiny house generally falls under the 400 square foot level.

Tiny homes may be rented or owned. You may choose a mini home on wheels or your small home may set on a foundation. Most tiny houses are independent structures-some are parked on land with other buildings or a larger home. Other tiny houses are parked on their own lot. Some tiny houses are designed and built by the owner themselves, while others are purchased, adapted from trailers, or built from a tiny house kit. Tiny houses come in all shapes, sizes, and forms, but they all enable simpler living in a smaller, more efficient space.

Why Join the Tiny House Movement?

To those who haven't tried tiny house living, it may seem daunting. Why would someone choose to live in a small space? But "bigger is better," right?

It turns out there are many merits to the tiny home movement and the tiny life philosophy. Of course, people may join the movement for any number of reasons, but the most popular reasons include environmental concerns, financial concerns, and the desire for more time and freedom.

The tiny life provides huge financial advantages and the ability to live a lifestyle filled with adventure. For most Americans, 1/3 to 1/2 of their income is dedicated to the roof over their heads! That means many people will spend a lot of time figuring out how to afford their homes. Buying a house often translates to at least 15 years of working over your lifetime to pay for it. Because of the high cost of owning a "typical-sized" home, as well as the associated expenses (and culture of "buy now, pay later"), 76% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.

We work hard to afford bigger houses than we need. We continue to work, so we can fill our houses with more stuff...items we may not need but buy anyway. Many Americans are overwhelmed by their packed schedules and obligations. They're tired of running in the rat race.

So, what's the alternative to this high cost of living? One solution is to live smaller-and it's that realization that brings many people into the tiny house movement. While small homes aren't for everyone, tiny house costs are much lower than a full-size building.

In my own journey, I started out in an apartment that cost me $1000 per month once you added in utilities, insurance, etc. Once I moved into my tiny house, my bills virtually disappeared, it now costs me $15 (yes you read that right, fifteen dollars!) per month. The cost of building my own tiny house was recouped in under 2 years' time, allowing me to bank a lot of savings. Even if you're not ready to take the plunge, there are lessons to learn and apply to escape the cycle of debt in which almost 70% of Americans are trapped.

The cost of buying an average-sized house over 30 years can be much higher than you think. The initial cost of a $290,000 home includes the purchase price, of course, but also includes the interest, taxes, insurance, maintenance, repairs and improvements. All of this can add up to a total cost of over a million dollars during the lifetime of your home. This is the "true cost" of a home.

The Cost of Buying A House

Why is the tiny home trend becoming so popular? Because the average cost of a tiny home is much lower than that of an average house. Once you've purchased your tiny home (current tiny house market trends show tiny houses cost between $10,000 and $40,000), the cost of upkeep is relatively low. Depending on where you park your tiny house, you may need to pay for land rental and insurance, but in the long run, the savings on a tiny house is huge.

The Small Living Movement and The Joy of Living with Less

As you see, it's no wonder many people are overwhelmed by the cost of their homes.

The tiny life is a growing movement, for sure! With international attention on CNN, AP, Guardian, Huffington Post, NBC, Oprah, PBS, and so many more (find links at the end of this page), the tiny house movement has helped people learn about another way to live their lives. Every month thousands and thousands of readers come to my site hoping to learn how they too, can simplify, downsize, and learn how to live with less. I know many other tiny house owners who blog about their experience, and they report the same trend toward the small living movement.

My website focuses on tiny house living or living The Tiny Life. It's where I like to share my journey. Since I began, I've been able to experience many adventures, travel to new places, and enjoy my freedom.

Tiny houses are the focal point in a broader system to address issues, concerns, and problems of the current day. They offer a path to a smaller environmental footprint, greater financial freedom, and ultimately a self-sufficient life. The tiny home movement enables you to live a life on your own terms.

So if you wonder who buys tiny houses? Anyone who is concerned about life simplification, environmental consciousness, self-sufficiency and sound fiscal plans. The tiny life allows for you to have more time and freedom to enjoy life adventures.

What Tiny House Living Looks Like

Because the tiny life is lived on your own terms, it looks a little different for everyone. There are definitely commonalities amongst tiny house owners, though. There are also impressive savings many members of the tiny house movement experience. Here's a great infographic to illustrate all the important tiny house statistics and tiny living by the numbers. Wondering what is a tiny home? This will help paint the picture.

Some of the tiny house info above may surprise you. 68% of tiny home owners have no mortgage (compared to 29.3% of all U.S. homeowners). It's no surprise then, that more tiny home owners (78%) own their own home-plus, 55% of tiny home owners have more savings than the average American. 32% of tiny home owners have more than $10,000 tucked away for retirement.

A tiny home is easier to maintain because the average tiny home size is significantly smaller. Imagine the time you'll save keeping up with the average tiny home square footage (just 186 square feet). The average "regular-sized" home in the U.S. is over 11 times larger! That's much more time spent on upkeep.

Who buys tiny houses? More women than men (55% compared to 45%). Tiny house people are twice as likely to hold a Master's degree and are on par with the average college graduation rates. 2 out of 5 tiny house owners are over 50. The average income is $42,038, which means that on average, tiny house owners are earning $478 more annually.

Why a Tiny House? Tiny Home Owners in their Own Words

There's no better advocate for the tiny life movement than those who are living the tiny life themselves.

Below I've compiled a few tiny house videos explaining exactly why so many people choose to embrace the tiny house movement. These owners of tiny homes share the benefits they've seen from making the switch to a simpler lifestyle. Even if you don't own a tiny home, per se, there are plenty of truths you can apply to start living the life of your dreams.

The Tiny Life: Tiny Houses, Simple Living

What is the tiny house movement all about? Here are many different perspectives from tiny home owners about why they chose to follow the small house trend. Simplifying, freedom, sustainability-the tiny house movement is about finding housing to fit your lifestyle. It's about not only decluttering your home and space, but decluttering your obligations, your social life, and your stress. The tiny life is about financial freedom and living a more engaged life with the luxury of time to do what YOU want.

Special thanks to Dee Williams, Lina Menard, Macy Miller, Laura LaVoie, & Chris and Malissa Tack.

How to Start Designing a Tiny House

Thinking of joining the mini house movement, but don't know where to begin? Here's how to start designing a tiny home, including the steps you should take before you decide to buy. Gather as much tiny house information as you can before you take the plunge. Before you start finding tiny homes to live in, spend time in tiny homes, talk to other tiny home owners, and even consider renting a tiny home or apartment. Once you're ready, learn how to use design and packing strategies to your advantage to make the most of your small space!

Special thanks to Lina Menard.

The Next Step in the Tiny Life

What happens after you move into a tiny house? So much is said about purchasing tiny house plans and learning how to build a tiny house. But once all the logistics are in place, what happens after you move in and start living the life you've always wanted? It brings up interesting questions to explore: with financial freedom and a simplified life, what are you going to do? Now that you have time, where will you set out for your next adventure? I made this video explaining how I faced this question and what I discovered about life after you join the small house movement.

Learn More About The Tiny House Movement

Since The Tiny Life began, we've been featured many times discussing the tiny house movement and what it means to live the tiny life. Here are more places you can go to read about the small home movement and lifestyle:

Your Turn!

What questions do you have about the tiny house movement?

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What Is The Tiny House Movement? Why Tiny Houses? | The Tiny Life

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Wondering what the tiny house movement is all about? Get answers to tiny house questions, including infographics, videos, and statistics about the tiny house movement. Find out why so many people are starting to live small!

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Toronto's concrete jungle is getting a little greener, bit by bit, but you might not be able to tell at ground level. According to the city, there are 444 green roofs across Toronto with 260 of them installed between February 2010 and March 2015. That adds up to about 196,000 square metres or (2.1 million square feet) of green roof area.

Adding greenery to a rooftop has countless benefits including absorbing rainwater and insulating buildings, keeping them much cooler during the summer months. They also help combat the "urban heat island" effect common among big cities. Conventional roofs absorb and re-radiate the sun's energy as heat, turning up the temperature and worsening air quality.

Green roofs can act as their own elevated eco-systems, attracting birds, bees and butterflies as well as providing a space to grow food locally.

We took to the top of libraries, hotels and office buildings to see a few of these specimens ourselves. Check out our tour below. All photos by James Bombales unless otherwise specified.

Fairmont Royal York Hotel

Location: 100 Front Street West

Details: The historic hotel, built in 1929, is home to an early example of vertical farming in the city. The 4,000 square foot space on the 14th floor is home to 17 beds of plant life: there are tomatoes and edible flowers, but the bulk of the growing space is used to produce herbs such as organic basil, parsley, sage, tarragon, chocolate mint, peppermint, spearmint and chives.

The edibles are used in the restaurants at the Fairmont Royal York hotel while the honey from the roof-top apiaries is used to help brew the hotel's beer. The so-called bee hotels were installed in 2008 in partnership with Toronto Beekeepers Cooperative and FoodShare as a way to combat Colony Collapse Disorder. At the height of summer, some 350,000 honeybees reside in six beehives to produce an average of up to 450 pounds of honey per year. The Royal York was the first of the Fairmont hotels to install a rooftop apiary and now there are 20 honeybee apiaries and eight pollinator bee hotels on its properties across the globe.

Toronto Central Grosvenor St. YMCA Centre

Location: 20 Grosvenor Street

Details: Built in 2009 thanks to the generosity of donors, volunteers and help from companies such as TD Canada Trust, Rona and Trex, this green roof is one of the largest of its kind in Toronto. Created by Natvik Ecological, it's volunteer-run with about 5,227 square feet devoted to wildflowers, grasses and sedums, a type of succulent that sprouts flowers. The roof also features programming space that, with the green space, takes up roughly 10,000 square feet. During the summer months, members can enjoy the roof's running track, or take part in yoga workshops or Tai Chi classes.

Toronto Dominion Centre
Photos: Daniel Banko
Location: 66 Wellington Street West

Details: The glass, steel and concrete of the Financial District is a surprising contrast to the green roof of the modernist building. The "Living Roof" takes up nearly the entire Toronto-Dominion Centre pavilion, which spans nearly 22,000-square feet, and features of Creek Sedge Grass, a hardy evergreen plant that can handle the shade from neighbouring towers. Though not publicly accessible, the green roof is visible to office workers. TD Bank Group and Cadillac Fairview Corporation completed the roof in 2009.

The Robertson Building

Location: 215 Spadina Avenue

Details: Over half of the roof of the Robertson Building, a restored brick-and-beam warehouse, is devoted to green space. The 4,000 square foot green roof launched in 2004 and was designed and installed by Gardens in the Sky. The roof of the five-storey structure also features a greenhouse and cedar viewing deck for tenants to enjoy the hum of bees and birds and the impressive views of the Toronto skyline.

The Robertson building has more foliage incorporated in the building design: the first floor lobby is home to a 250 square foot bio-wall, designed by Air Quality Solutions (now Nedlaw Living Walls). The plant wall is made of a variety of native and exotic green and flowering plants.

City Hall

Location: 100 Queen Street West

Details: The three-acre upper-level garden on the top of the podium roof at City Hall is believed to be the largest publicly accessible green roof in Canada. Opened to the public in 2010, the garden is part of the Nathan Philip's Square revitalization. A competition for the best design was won by a team made up of PLANT Architect Inc, Shore Tilbe Irwin & Partners, furniture designer Adrian Blackwell and landscape architect Peter Schaudt.

The roof features landscaped gardens, courtyards, terraces, seating areas, walkways and its own state-of-the-art irrigation system. A diverse range of plants grow on the podium, from sedums to grasses to flowering perennials.

Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto - St. George

Location: 105 St George Street

Details: As part of the business school's expansion, a new building designed by KPMB Architects opened its doors in 2012. The structure, which was built with a target of LEED Silver, went on to win an Ontario Association of Architects' Design Excellence award. The green roof is located on the fifth floor and is right by a patio, allowing students to enjoy the view of the campus.

Other green roofs at the University of Toronto includes St. Hilda's Residence at Trinity College and the Sky Garden at the Galbraith Building.

The Big Carrot

Location: 348 Danforth Avenue

Details: Carrot Common on the Danforth is home to 11 stores, including the well-loved natural food market, The Big Carrot. The mini-mall is big on community events and the rooftop is accessible to the public, home to gardening workshops and even movie nights in the summer.

Parklane helped in the design and construction of the rooftop getaway and the garden has been monitored by the University of Guelph as a test plot for new species of sedum.

401 Richmond
Photos: Urbanspace Property Group
Location: 401 Richmond Street West

Details: The rooftop of the former warehouse is home to about 3,000 square feet of sedum plants plus a 6,500 square foot cedar deck, which features plenty of planters with flowers, vines and bushes. The outdoor space with a view of the CN Tower has steadily expanded over the years and in 2000, a 40 foot greenhouse was installed to provide winter shelter for large tropical plants and to act as a nursery. The space is only open to tenants of the office building.

Fort York Library

Location: 190 Fort York Boulevard

Details: Toronto's 99th public library is an interesting animal: opened in May 2014, the KPMB-designed building features a tilting roof and views of Fort York, a national historic site that dates all the way back to 1812. The structure has been described by the Globe and Mail as "an airy jewel box," and the roof is covered in small shrubs.

The building is right beside Library District Condos, also designed by KPMB Architects. The site features pedestrian pathways to better public access to the nearby park and historic Fort York.

Native Child and Family Services

Location: 30 College Street

Details: The design for the structure in Downtown Toronto had a mandate in mind. According to Levitt Goodman Architects, they envisioned "a place that would reconnect urban aboriginals with nature in the heart of the city and project a bold visual presence for the First Nations community - which was difficult to conceive for a community that is comprised of distinctive bands with their own identities and customs."

The result? A rooftop garden with a fire pit, circular sweat lodge, green "teaching hills" and space for ceremonies. There's an abundance of plant life, including traditional Anishnaabe (aka Ojibway and Algonquin) medicines such as cedar, sweet grass and sage, as well as a garden of corn, beans and squash.

Bloor Gladstone Library

Location: 1101 Bloor Street West

Details: The century-old building underwent a restoration, renovation and expansion in 2006 at the hands of Rounthwaite, Dick and Hadley Architects Inc. in association with Shoalts and Zaback Architects Ltd. and ERA Architects Inc. It re-opened in 2009 with the distinction of being the first branch of the Toronto Public Library to have a green roof. Now, any new construction or major expansion project requires a green roof since the library follows the Toronto Green Standard, which applies to city-owned buildings.

The library went on to win a number of honours, including a Design Excellence award from the Ontario Association of Architects as well as Governor General's medal in architecture.

Cooper Koo Family Cherry Street YMCA
Photos: YMCA of Greater Toronto
Location: Front Street and Cherry Street

Details: This 82,000 square foot facility was built for use during the Pan Am and Para Pan Am Games and will be converted into a new YMCA following the games. This expansive structure will features a pool, gym, fitness centre as well as community facilities.

Built to LEED (Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design) green building standards, the rooftop will feature 20,000 square feet of meadow and 10,000 square feet of programmable space. Volunteers have been an integral part of the green roof: it was designed by community members who worked with the YMCA and Mathis Natvik of Natvik Design and Restoration Gardens worked with community volunteers to build the green roof.

Developments featured in this article

More Like This

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Grow up: A photo tour of 12 glorious green roofs and gardens in Toronto

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Toronto's concrete jungle is getting a little greener, bit by bit, but you might not be able to tell at ground level. According to the city, there are 444 green roofs across Toronto with 260 of them installed between February 2010 and March 2015.

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How many planets does it take to sustain your lifestyle?

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What is your Ecological Footprint? How many planets does it take to support your lifestyle? Take this free quiz to find out!

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Ecological Footprint © accounting measures the demand on and supply of nature.

On the demand side, the Ecological Footprint© adds up all the biologically productive areas for which a population, a person or a product competes. It measures the ecological assets that a given population or product requires to produce the natural resources it consumes (including plant-based food and fiber products, livestock and fish products, timber and other forest products, space for urban infrastructure) and to absorb its waste, especially carbon emissions.

The Ecological Footprint © tracks the use of productive surface areas. Typically these areas are: cropland, grazing land, fishing grounds, built-up land, forest area, and carbon demand on land.

On the supply side, a city, state or nation's biocapacity represents the productivity of its ecological assets (including cropland, grazing land, forest land, fishing grounds, and built-up land). These areas, especially if left unharvested, can also serve to absorb the waste we generate, especially our carbon emissions from burning fossil fuel.

Both the Ecological Footprint and biocapacity are expressed in global hectares -globally comparable hectares with world average productivity.

Each city, state or nation's Ecological Footprint © can be compared to its biocapacity, or that of the world.

If a population's Ecological Footprint © exceeds the region's biocapacity, that region runs a biocapacity deficit. Its demand for the goods and services that its land and seas can provide-fruits and vegetables, meat, fish, wood, cotton for clothing, and carbon dioxide absorption-exceeds what the region's ecosystems can regenerate. In more popular communications, we also call this "an ecological deficit." A region in ecological deficit meets demand by importing, liquidating its own ecological assets (such as overfishing or deforestation), and/or emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If a region's biocapacity exceeds its Ecological Footprint ©, it has a biocapacity reserve.

Conceived in 1990 by Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees at the University of British Columbia, the Ecological Footprint© launched the broader Footprint movement, including the carbon Footprint, and is now widely used by scientists, businesses, governments, individuals, and institutions working to monitor ecological resource use and advance sustainable development. The most prominent calculations are those produced for countries. We call those the National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts. Since 2019, these accounts are owned and governed by a dedicated organization ( www.FoDaFo.org) with York University maintaining and updating those accounts.

A rich and accessible introduction to the theory and practice of the approach is available in the book Ecological Footprint: Managing Our Biocapacity Budget (2019). The European Commission provides a short summary here. Fuller methodological explanations and applications to national policy are provided in a Nature Sustainability paper (2021) and two MDPI papers, one on the national accounts method, and the other one on its implications.

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Ecological Footprint© - Global Footprint Network

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The Ecological Footprint© measures how fast we consume resources and generate waste compared to how fast nature can absorb our waste and generate resources.

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Our areas of work Climate mitigation finance Emissions gap report Energy Low emission development

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Circular economy introduction

In our current economy, we take materials from the Earth, make products from them, and eventually throw them away as waste - the process is linear. In a circular economy, by contrast, we stop waste being produced in the first place.

The circular economy is based on three principles, driven by design:

It is underpinned by a transition to renewable energy and materials. A circular economy decouples economic activity from the consumption of finite resources. It is a resilient system that is good for business, people and the environment.

The circular economy is a systems solution framework that tackles global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution.

We must transform every element of our take-make-waste system: how we manage resources, how we make and use products, and what we do with the materials afterwards. Only then can we create a thriving circular economy that can benefit everyone within the limits of our planet.

A way to transform our system

What will it take to transform our throwaway economy into one where waste is eliminated, resources are circulated, and nature is regenerated?

The circular economy gives us the tools to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss together, while addressing important social needs.

It gives us the power to grow prosperity, jobs, and resilience while cutting greenhouse gas emissions, waste, and pollution.

How the circular economy works

Get the basics or explore the circular economy in detail.

Circular economy principles

A circular economy is based on three principles, all driven by design.

Circular economy examples

See the circular economy in action with these case studies from brands, businesses and policy makers.

Apeel

thredUP

Natura Brazil

Working with nature to make food last longer

Apeel is a company that has come up with an innovative way to eliminate single-use shrink wrap plastic packaging on fresh fruit and veg, while at the same time tackling food waste.

Apeel is a layer of edible, plant-based coating applied to fresh products that mimics and enhances the natural defences of fruit and vegetables. This slows down the two main things that cause spoilage - water loss and oxidation.

explore the example

Video series: What is the circular economy?

Explore the circular economy by topic

Resources, guidance and tools

Use our practical tools and resources to put circular principles into practice and find courses and materials for learners and teachers.

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In our current economy, we take materials from the Earth, make products from them, and eventually throw them away as waste - the process is linear. In a circular economy, by contrast, we stop waste being produced in the first place. It is underpinned by a transition to renewable energy and materials.

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The City has been recognized for its Circular Economy efforts as Runner Up in the Public Sector Category of the global 2019 Circulars awards.

As part of the Long Term Waste Management Strategy, the City of Toronto is working towards an aspirational goal of zero waste and a Circular Economy. A Circular Economy aims to reduce waste and maximize resources by moving away from the linear take-make-and-dispose approach to an innovative system that focuses on product longevity, renewability, reuse and repair.

Transition to a Circular Economy provides opportunities to:

enhance social and environmental outcomes

improve economic performance and profitability

decrease the risk associated with relying on external sources of raw materials and labour

increase the resiliency of City services and infrastructure.

To drive innovation and the growth of a Circular Economy in Toronto, the City has established a Unit for Research, Innovation & a Circular Economy within the Solid Waste Management Services Division. The Unit is involved in research and planning as well as incorporating Circular Economy principles into new programs, policies, procurement and processes. The overarching goal of the unit is to make Toronto the first municipality in Ontario with a Circular Economy.

The City is a member of the National Zero Waste Council (NZWC) Circular Economy Working Group as well as the global Circular Economy 100 (CE100) network, created by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

Applying the Circular Economy Approach to City Services

A Circular Economy approach to service delivery challenges the City to rethink how it can provide services to residents based on three core principles:

1. We can find new ways to deliver our services, purchase materials that we need to do our work, and enter into contracts with service providers in a way that reduces our reliance on non-renewable resources and minimizes our carbon footprint.

2. Once any resource is in use, we can find ways to collaborate with others or ask the marketplace and industry to work on opportunities to extend resource lifecycles to ensure maximum useful potential (think reduce, share, repair, reuse, recycle and energy recovery from organics).

3. We can continue looking for ways to redesign our systems and service delivery in order to reduce any waste or inefficiency through a combination of research, collaboration, innovation, prototyping and pilot projects.

City of Toronto Circular Economy Initiatives

Recognition of Toronto's Circular Economy Efforts on the Global Stage

Toronto Circular Economy Working Group

Made up of representatives from local businesses and community groups from various sectors across Toronto, the Circular Economy Working Group will support the City in its journey towards becoming the first circular city in Ontario.

The Group will meet periodically throughout the year, and members will have the opportunity to:

Represent their sector or organization's perspective at key stages throughout the City's Circular Economy journey

Provide input into the development of Circular Economy programs and initiatives and adoption of circular practices

Promote and share information on relevant Solid Waste Management Services programs and issues

Provide insight and share feedback on circular economies.

The Group is currently full. Please apply if you would like to be considered in the event that a spot becomes available.

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The City has been recognized for its Circular Economy efforts as Runner Up in the Public Sector Category of the global 2019 Circulars awards. As part of the Long Term Waste Management Strategy, the City of Toronto is working towards an aspirational goal of zero waste and a Circular Economy.

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Canada struggles to find place for recyclables after China restricts foreign waste 

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Canada struggles to find place for recyclables after China restricts foreign waste 

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Reduce, Reuse and Rethink is a CBC News series about recycling. We're exploring why our communities are at a turning point and how we can recycle better. You can be part of the conversation by joining our Facebook group.

China's new rules that ban or seriously restrict foreign waste have Canadian municipalities struggling to find places to ship their recyclables.

"It's a big problem but we're actively seeking solutions," said Wayne Wamboldt, director of solid waste for Colchester County in Nova Scotia.

The county's Material Recovery Facility, in the community of Kemptown, brings in more than 10,000 tonnes of recyclables a year, and sends 40 per cent of that to China. At least it used to.

The latest Statistics Canada data shows that in 2013 and 2014, Canadians diverted more than nine million tonnes of material from landfills although that doesn't include all materials recycled by Canadians - for example, through bottle programs or if a grocery store sends boxes directly to a recycler.

Half of the world's recyclables were being sent to China, but that changed when China decided to crack down on foreign waste last year.

Although the ban didn't take full effect until Dec. 31, 2017, many Chinese companies stopped accepting foreign recycling materials months earlier, leaving some Canadian cities with stockpiles of flattened cardboard and crushed plastic without anywhere to send it.

David Biderman, executive director of the Solid Waste Association of North America, says China, the world's largest manufacturer, has a growing middle class and generates its own recyclables in a greater quantity than 10 years ago, meaning it is less reliant on imported material.

China has also been receiving some material that wasn't good quality.

"There's a lot of garbage mixed up, occasionally, with those bales of plastic, paper and metal that are going over to China," Biderman said in an interview with CBC News in his office in Silver Spring, Md.

"And so China is interested in stopping it from becoming the dumping ground for Western material."

Problematic plastics

This year, some North American material has started moving elsewhere, mostly to emerging markets in Asia, but at lower prices, meaning lost revenue for Canadian municipalities.

The remaining problem for many is film plastics, that are in item such as plastic shopping bags, bread bags and the wrapping on toilet paper.

Colchester County was sending 100 per cent of its film plastics to China, amounting to around 600 tonnes per year. It has now stockpiled 450 tonnes and has had to store hundreds of bales of it outside.

There's a concern the material could degrade so that it could no longer be recycled. If that happens, Wamboldt says, there will be no other choice but to bury it in a landfill.

"We certainly don't want to be putting material in the landfill," he said.

Running out of options

Nova Scotia is the only province in Canada in which it's illegal to dump plastics in a landfill, so if it comes to that, Colchester would have to ask the province for a special permit.

If that name gets out, another municipality might call and say, "We'll pay you an extra $2 a tonne to take our material." - Matt Keliher , Halifax manager of solid waste

Halifax, which was shipping 80 per cent of its recyclables to China, has already requested and received such a permit, but has since found new markets for its material. In a sign of just how cutthroat the recycling business has become, the city's manager of solid waste won't say where those markets are.

"If Halifax ships 1,000 tonnes to one facility if that name gets out, another municipality might call and say, 'We'll pay you an extra $2 a tonne to take our material,' and then Halifax has no spot to put our material," said Matt Keliher.

Meanwhile, a Halifax councillor is calling for the province to impose a plastic bag ban.

"Montreal's recently done it. Victoria's done it. Boston just recently did it. There are actually whole countries, Costa Rica's thinking of doing a country-wide ban," said Tony Mancini.

The increasingly attractive B.C. model

These challenges mean the British Columbia model is becoming increasingly attractive.

Under the program, which began in 2014 and is common in Europe, plastics are processed in the province, and producers pay.

"Retailers, manufacturers, quick-service restaurants and others actually have to pay for the packaging they put in the residential system, so they pay fees to Recycle BC, and we use that to run a province-wide system," explained Allen Langdon, managing director of Recycle BC.

This means China's decision is not an issue for B.C., at least not when it comes to plastics.

B.C. has found new markets for its paper, but the revenue loss is significant. Langdon says last year, Recycle BC was receiving roughly $80 a tonne for mixed paper, as opposed to today, when the market price is zero. It's unclear how long it will stay at that level.

China is still accepting some paper, but as of March 1, it has to be much cleaner than before, with a contamination rate of no more than 0.5 per cent.

Biderman says that change will come at a cost.

"It's possible to do, but it takes a serious investment," he said. "It increases the cost, and I think ultimately, Canadians and Americans are likely to pay more for recycling in the future as a result of this activity."

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Canadian cities losing revenue and scrambling to find new markets for recyclables | CBC News

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Reduce, Reuse and Rethink is a CBC News series about recycling. We're exploring why our communities are at a turning point and how we can recycle better. You can be part of the conversation by joining our Facebook group. China's new rules that ban or seriously restrict foreign waste have Canadian municipalities struggling to find places to ship their recyclables.

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Why China has Canada spooked about the world’s plastic waste crisis

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Why China has Canada spooked about the world’s plastic waste crisis

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Canada is trying to point the way out of a global plastic waste crunch partially of its own making.

Whales are choking to death on plastic bags in garbage-filled foreign waterways. Giant patches of plastic garbage are growing even larger in the world's oceans, while minuscule bits of it are starting to show up in Canadian waterways.

And now, six months after China shut its doors to accepting roughly half of the world's plastic waste, bales of Canadian recyclables are being diverted to landfills or shipped to other plastic-choked regions of Asia for disposal.

"It's piling up," environmental scientist Tony Walker said.

Walker, who teaches resource and environmental studies at Dalhousie University, is among a number of scientists, activists, industry leaders and politicians who are sounding the alarm about plastic waste in the world's oceans.

READ MORE: G7 plastics charter could be like Paris agreement for the oceans, says McKenna

They estimate more than 8 million tonnes of plastic waste are being dumped into the world's oceans each year, or one dump-truck load of the stuff every minute.

At this rate, it's expected that plastic will outweigh fish in the world's oceans by 2050.

The federal government estimates 8,000 tonnes of plastic entered Canadian waterways in 2010 alone, despite the country boasting better than 80 per cent coverage with its recycling programs.

The problem has prompted Canada to seek public advice on how to deal with the problem at home, and to use its G7 presidency as an opportunity to call for bigger-picture solutions from its allies.

READ MORE: Federal government funds research on microplastics and other ocean contaminants

Canada urged the G7 countries this weekend to make a concerted effort to reduce plastic waste to zero, so that existing plastic materials can eventually be re-used and recycled within the waste disposal system.

The federal government is also taking steps to reduce - but not ban - single-use plastics at the summit itself.

READ MORE: Canada reducing (but not banning) use of plastics at G7 in Quebec

But the lofty goal of zero plastic waste faces a number of significant hurdles, including the way Canada handles its own plastic waste.

The problem with China

For decades, Canada and other developed countries had been selling their waste plastic to China, where it was sorted, cleaned, processed and re-used in the country's massive manufacturing industry.

That all changed on Jan. 1, 2018, when China began refusing shipments of a wide variety of plastic waste products, including plastic contaminated by foreign materials such as food or fabric.

Waste industry experts say they'd been expecting the shift for years, as China's economy has improved and it can no longer pay "dollar-a-day" wages for workers to sort plastic waste by hand. However, it still struck a major blow to the industry, cutting off the No. 1 destination for plastic recyclables in the world.

Industry experts say China shut its doors because it simply doesn't need the materials anymore. Its economy is growing out of a purely manufacturing-based society, and its citizens are producing enough plastic waste of their own that there's no need to buy it from other countries.

That's left many countries in a bind, including Canada, where waste disposal is handled on a municipal and regional level.

"A lot of municipalities are scrambling," Walker said.

READ MORE: Alberta recycling industry adapts to China's new policy on importing recycle waste

Where else can it go?

With China out of the picture, it's tough to determine exactly where all of the backed-up plastic waste is going.

Waste management expert Colin Bell says the industry is "somewhat opaque," but there has been an increase in shipments to countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and India.

"We're seeing a shift to those lower-income countries where there's less environmental regulation and lower cost of labour," said Bell, a managing partner at RecycleSmart in Richmond, B.C.

Many of those lower-income countries also happen to be feeling the plastic crunch the most, with massive amounts of garbage clogging their waterways and littering their shores.

READ MORE: Chinese ban on foreign recycling won't affect B.C.: industry

Bell says the West is not necessarily to blame, as most of that trash is the result of poor collection infrastructure in those countries.

"It's not like it just falls off the boat into the ocean," he said.

Nevertheless, those other countries currently lack the processing infrastructure to handle all of the waste that China is turning away - it might be years before they build it up.
WATCH BELOW: Greenpeace says plastic waste in Antarctica highlights extent of the problem
"It's going to be a slow shift to those other developing markets, and until they get up to speed and the plants get built, there's going to be more plastic than we can deal with," Bell said.

Piling up the plastic

While some municipalities have found new destinations for their plastic, others have been forced to send bales of it to landfills.

"A lot of it is being landfilled just because there's nowhere to put it," Bell said.

READ MORE: Halifax dumping 75 tonnes of 'unusable' film plastic in another province's landfill

"A lot of municipalities are scrambling," added Walker. He says plastic waste can't simply be stored away until a new buyer is found, because the materials are combustible and present a fire hazard.

The Canadian Plastics Industry Association says it has most of the means required to handle Canada's plastic waste within the country, but it will take years to build up the scale to handle all of it.

"The market's tighter," said Joe Hruska, the CPIA's vice-president of sustainability.

"Industry is reacting... but it takes time to implement that capacity."

He added that burning the plastic waste is an interim option, but ultimately, Canada will need to find new long-term solutions that do not include China.

READ MORE: Mutant enzyme that 'eats' plastic bottles could be a game-changer, scientists say

Zero waste

Activists, scientists, government leaders, the plastic industry and the waste industry are united in their support for eventually achieving a so-called "zero waste" plastic economy.

But the problem with achieving a zero-waste economy, in a nutshell, is peanut butter.

Plastic containers that are collected with food still inside - peanut butter being the most common example -more work to clean than they're worth, Bell says. They're also hard for many industrial sorting machines to sort through.

Other recyclables can also present a problem at older sorter facilities, including black plastic containers and the thin plastic film that covers many packages.

READ MORE: Canadians should recycle 85% of plastics by 2025, environmental groups say

The CPIA's Joe Hruska argues a zero-waste economy is achievable using a producer-focused policy called extended producer responsibility, or EPR. The policy calls for companies to take responsibility for helping dispose of the waste their products create, whether it's plastic bottles, film or packaging.

"EPR is good for plastics and keeping it out of the environment," Hruska said. "We can do better though."

EPR is already in use in many areas of the country, but Hruska says it can be spread beyond Canadian borders to help with the broader plastic problem.

Activists have also suggested a sweeping ban on single-use plastics, such as bags and straws, would help cut down on waste while encouraging people to be more conscious about how they use plastic.

READ MORE: Vancouver Island MP leading push for national strategy to phase out plastic

"These single-use plastics are the poster child for how we use plastics in general," he said.

Some municipalities, such as Toronto, have implemented a five-cent tax on plastic bags, while Montreal has banned them outright.

Walker says the issue should be addressed at the federal level, much as it has been in countries such as the U.K., where there is a sweeping tax on bags.

Rwanda and Kenya have gone even further by criminalizing the import or use of plastic bags, on penalty of jail time.

Walker isn't recommending jail time, but he does see Canada's G7 presidency as a "golden opportunity" to influence the future of how plastic waste is handled.

"We need to make some bold moves," he said.

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Why China has Canada spooked about the world's plastic waste crisis

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Canada is trying to point the way out of a global plastic waste crunch partially of its own making. Whales are choking to death on plastic bags in garbage-filled foreign waterways. Giant patches of plastic garbage are growing even larger in the world's oceans, while minuscule bits of it are starting to show up in Canadian waterways.

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Reduce, Reuse and Rethink is a CBC News series about recycling. We're exploring why our communities are at a turning point and how we can recycle better. You can be part of the conversation by joining our Facebook group.

Since 1992, China has imported 45 per cent of the world's plastic waste. But at the start of this year, the country shut the door on much of that plastic, leaving countries scrambling to fend for themselves.

Now a new study suggests there are deep repercussions to China's new policy: By the year 2030, an estimated 111 million tonnes of plastic waste will be "displaced" and have nowhere to go.

"We've seen reports of plastic waste and other types of waste that are impacted by the ban accumulating within these countries that have long been dependent on China," said Amy Brooks, lead author of the paper, published in Science Advances, and a PhD student at the University of Georgia.

"Now it means that waste can be landfilled, which is not good. It could be incinerated, or could potentially be sent off to other countries in the region that also don't necessarily have the waste management infrastructure."

The United Kingdom has already begun diverting its plastic waste to nations such as Malaysia and Vietnam, countries that have less effective waste management infrastructure.

Brooks notes that some of these nearby countries are now talking about implementing a ban similar to China's, which refuses to take anything with a contamination of 0.5 per cent.

"It's having a kind of domino effect," she said.

The ban is also highlighting a growing need for countries to look for solutions at home.

"Frankly countries like [the U.S.] and Canada - these high-income countries, wealthy countries that have waste management infrastructure - need to move toward domestic management," said Brooks.

We all got hooked on a drug called 'China.' - Joe Hruska , Canadian Plastics Industry Association

Canada is in a position to do just that, even if we are faring better than most countries when it comes to exporting plastic waste, said Joe Hruska, vice-president of sustainability for the Canadian Plastics Industry Association.

Countries - including Canada - turned to China early on when it came to recycling, he said.

"We all got hooked on a drug called 'China,'" he said.

But Hruska said the time has come to look inward to improve what he says is already a successful plastics management system.

Many Canadian provinces have an extended producer responsibility policy - or EPR - in place, he said, which makes the producer responsible for a portion of the financial costs of a product's life cycle. But such policies have not been adopted universally.

"I see it as a huge opportunity for Canada to actually push the plastics circular economy to higher levels," Hruska said.

Wake-up call

Looking at the data collected by the researchers, China's decision should perhaps not be so unexpected.

High-income countries have been the primary exporters of plastic waste to China since 1988, the study notes. Canada was the 10th top exporter.

And China has its own mountain of plastic waste to deal with, coupled with limited infrastructure.

The researchers estimated that between 1.3 to 3.5 million tonnes of plastic enters the oceans each year from China.

And based on data from 2010 to 2016, the imports to China add a further 10 to 13 per cent of mass to the plastic waste the country itself is generating. It's something the researchers believe is unsustainable.

For Brooks, one of the most surprising findings was that 90 per cent of the plastic waste China had accepted was in the form of one-use plastics: specifically water bottles and food wrap.

"So that is an easy target, to me, where we can reduce plastic use," Brooks said.

With China's ban in place, the researchers conclude much of the plastic waste being diverted may end up in landfills.

But the onus shouldn't just be on industry: An oft-touted refrain from both the plastics industry and environmentalists is that the issue isn't an easy fix - and it needs to be done on several tiers.

"It really requires a lot of collaboration between government, industry, the consumer [and] municipal governments," said Hruska. "I think, if anything, we need to be leaders and have leaders who have a vision. And I don't think that vision has been solidly established."

In the meantime, countries around the world are left scrambling to find ways to deal with their own plastic waste.

"Hopefully it's a wake-up call," said Brooks. "We need to make global change; we need to make local change."

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111 million tonnes of plastic waste will have nowhere to go by 2030 due to Chinese import ban: study | CBC News

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Earlier this year, China stopped taking much of the world's recyclable plastic waste. Now a new study suggests that by the year 2030, an estimated 111 million tonnes of plastic waste will be "displaced" as a result of the policy.

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©Michael Zmasser-Drexler/Shutterstock

EU policy Five charts showing the EU's surprising progress on renewable energy

Renewables provided 15% of the EU's energy in 2013, according to new data published yesterday by Eurostat, the EU's official statistical body.

The figures show the EU is on track to meet its 20% renewables target in 2020. Transport and heat are lagging behind progress in electricity, where wind and solar remain relatively small contributors. The figures also show that the UK is further behind its 2020 renewable energy target than all other member states.

Carbon Brief breaks down the figures to show how the EU is progressing towards its 2020 target, which sectors are going green and where it's getting renewable energy from.

Member state performance

Under the headline 20% by 2020 EU renewables target, each member state has its own goal. These were set in early 2008 and reflected progress at the time, capacity to add further renewable energy by 2020 and relative wealth. The sum of national targets adds up to the overall 20% goal.

Progress varies widely among the 28 member states. For instance, Sweden, which got 39% of its energy from renewables in 2004, has a 49% target for 2020. It has already exceeded this target by 3% (far left column, below).

The UK is near the bottom of the pile, with a 5.1% renewable share in 2013 up from 1.2% a decade earlier. Only the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Malta get a lower share of their energy from renewables than the UK.

The UK is further behind its 2020 target than any other member state, remaining 10% short of its 15% goal for 2020 (far right column, above). Renewable energy's share of the energy mix has grown more quickly in the UK than in most other member states, however.

In the decade to 2013, the UK renewable share quadrupled, a feat matched only by Belgium, Luxembourg and Malta. The German renewable share doubled over the same period.

EU progress

Once all the member state contributions are added up, the EU is making steady progress towards its 2020 target. The EU renewable energy share has increased from 8% to 15% in the decade to 2013, as the chart below shows.

If the EU maintains its current rate of progress it will meet the 2020 renewable target. It's worth noting that part of this progress is down to reductions in overall energy use, with the EU now using as much energy as it did back in 1990. So EU renewable energy use is growing against a background of falling energy use overall.

Renewable energy sources

When it comes to renewable energy, people tend to think first of wind and solar power. But around 40% of EU renewable energy comes from wood (dark blue area, below) and another 20% from hydropower (mid blue). Much of the wood goes towards heating.

Renewables contribute 26% of EU electricity, 17% of heating and cooling and 5% of transport, as the chart below shows. It's generally thought to be easier to decarbonise the electricity sector than heating or transport, where oil and gas continue to dominate.

Wind and solar provide a rapidly growing share of EU renewable electricity. However, solar still only provides a small slice (yellow area, below), while wind (light blue) is now the second largest source after hydropower (mid blue area).

Conclusion

The latest data from Eurostat suggests its on track to meet its 2020 renewables target, but progress is mixed between sectors and member states. The EU is ahead of its interim goal for renewable heat and power, but behind in transport.

The journey doesn't end in 2020, however. The EU has a new target, agreed last October, to raise its renewable energy share to 27% per by 2030. This target is non-binding.

Main image: Kaprun hydroelectric power plant in Carinthia, Austria.

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Five charts showing the EU's surprising progress on renewable energy | Carbon Brief

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©Michael Zmasser-Drexler/Shutterstock EU policy Five charts showing the EU's surprising progress on renewable energy Renewables provided 15% of the EU's energy in 2013, according to new data published yesterday by Eurostat, the EU's official statistical body. The figures show the EU is on track to meet its 20% renewables target in 2020.