On Oct. 5, McGill’s Bieler School of Environment hosted their annual Environment Public Lecture. For this occasion, Moyse Hall Theatre was speckled with professors and students curious to hear how Gernot Wagner, a climate economist and lecturer at Columbia Business School, would argue that the solution to the climate crisis[Read More…]
Tag: environment
Achieving alternate futures in the Anthropocene
Eleven thousand seven hundred years ago, Earth exited the last major geological epoch—the Ice Age—entering a period of relative warmth and stability, called the Holocene. Researchers, however, believe that the planet is ready for a new term: The ‘Anthropocene,’ denoting a time during which humans drive substantial change to our[Read More…]
The journey of a microplastic: An unfolding story
From the packaging of an online order to the takeaway cup holding a morning coffee, plastic is everywhere. In 2019, humans produced 460 million tonnes of plastic, an enormous increase from the mid-twentieth century when roughly two million tonnes were produced annually. A key aspect of plastic pollution is that[Read More…]
Planting a SEED: McGill sustainability project moves forward in UN competition
Two years ago, roughly half of high school-aged Canadians did not believe that climate change could be stopped. Some of this hopelessness stems from climate education, which still revolves around causes and effects, rather than solutions. But, can climate change be stopped without spurring the next generation to action? That[Read More…]
SEDTalks showcases the wonders of McGill graduate student research
The Trottier Institute for Sustainability in Engineering and Design hosted the fifth annual edition of SEDTalks, a program where three graduate students work throughout the winter semester to present their research to the public in an accessible, engaging way. This year’s students presented a wide array of research in public[Read More…]
The truth behind so-called sustainable vehicles
In December 2022, Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault gave the go-ahead for a new lithium mine in northern Quebec. The James Bay project represents the only lithium mine in North America, and the materials are slated to help meet the surging demand for electric vehicles. Although the shift away from[Read More…]
McGill Policy Association hosts ‘Indigenous Voices in Resource-Sector Policy’ panel
On Nov. 9, the McGill Policy Association (MPA) hosted a panel titled “Indigenous Voices in Resource-Sector Policy,” which centred around Indigenous activism within environmental policy. The first of the two panellists was Yolanda Lopez-Maldanado, an Indigenous Maya from Mexico and the recently appointed Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Indigenous Affairs Officer[Read More…]
Donating clothing, dressing the community
Say you’ve decided to clean out your closet and you find yourself staring at a pile of clothing, realizing you don’t wear most of it. According to the Pareto principle, you probably wear 20 per cent of your clothing 80 per cent of the time. Maybe some of it is[Read More…]
Five small habits to reduce your digital ecological footprint
Even though the internet is not a space we associate with physical resources or landscapes, it very much affects it. It is an unfathomably large resource and therefore requires resources to sustain it, even if it seems as simple as opening your laptop. Studies estimate that digital technologies are responsible[Read More…]
The human cost of a warmer future
This summer, I spent most of my time working and hiking. If I wasn’t running around helping a client find something at the pet store I worked at, I was running around the woods with a backpack full of snacks, coffee, and water. I ventured past the city of Montreal[Read More…]
