Que faisaient plus d'un milliard de personnes partout dans le monde de 20 h 30 à 21 h 30 l'année dernière le 28 mars? Ils éteignaient leurs lumières à l'appui de l'Heure pour la Terre du Fonds mondial pour la nature (FMN). En fait, plus de 10 millions de Canadiens et des milliers d'entreprises ont participé dans plus de 275 villes partout au pays dans le but de sensibiliser les gens au changement climatique. Beaucoup d'efforts conjoints seront déployés partout au pays. Par exemple, Hydro Ottawa examinera la diminution de la consommation d'électricité à Ottawa pendant cette période d'une heure. Beaucoup de points d'intérêts comme la Tour CN et la Colline du Parlement éteindront leur éclairage non essentiel. Le mot-symbole « Canada » et l'éclairage architectural des immeubles du gouvernement de l'ensemble du pays seront éteints à l'occasion de l'Heure pour la Terre. De nombreux événements ont aussi lieu à Ottawa, comme une veillée pa...

Many University of Ottawa students only make it through paper and exam season with a little help from their friend caffeine. However, at the other end of that caffeine addiction, is a coffee grower who often gets little pay for her hard work growing your coffee beans. Luckily, fair trade coffee has emerged over the years, cutting out middle men and often allowing these hardworking producers to work in better conditions and get paid prices closer to what they need to survive. While, as many international development students will tell you, fair trade is still far from the ideal and often presents a whole new set of barriers for producers, it generally ensures that a little more of your coffee dollar makes it to those who grew it. With the climate changing, the coffee equation is getting ever more complicated. Higher temperatures are affecting crops and making them flower prematurely, decreasing yield, and thus the amount of money that the producer makes. Growers are searching for creati...

Photo credit: TerraChoice website La dernière année a bourgeonné de 'publicité verte'. À l'heure actuelle, les compagnies se font la compèt' pour tenter d'être les plus 'vertes' afin d'attirer la clientèle. On se bouscule pour écrire des trucs comme 'fait de produits naturels', 'biodégradable', 'nous vous offrons un produit vert', 'nous nous soucions de l'environnement', ETC. Tous ces mots apaisants pour le consommateur peuvent être catégorisés sous une pratique que l'on appelle la 'mascarade écologique' ou le 'Greenwashing'. Terra Choice a publié son rapport intitulé ' Les six sept péchés de la mascarade écologique ' (The Six Seven Sins of Greenwashing) où vous trouverez des trucs pour ne pas vous faire avoir par les compagnies qui tentent de vendre des produits en prêchant être aussi verts que des kiwis. Vous serez surpris pour ce que vous pouvez tomber... Bonne lecture! - marie-pierre ( h...

Check out this post from an anonymous campus community forced to do a waste audit... The amount of coffee cups contaminated at Fauteux Hall, in the Faculty of Law building, is shocking and depressing. How difficult can it be to properly empty out the left-over coffee from the cups and throw them in the correct bin? It may mean nothing to you but it means the world for the person sorting out these cups. Everyone complains about the environment, but some people still don’t recycle properly on campus. Wondering what happens to your coffee cups after you are done drinking? I bet you’d say they are recycled, right?! That's true, except, many coffee cups still end up in landfills. Most coffee cups processed for recycling still have lots of coffee in them because people don’t throw out what’s left, which unfortunately contaminates the cups. The contaminated cups—where the coffee liquid has deeply penetrated the layer of the coffee cups— end up in garbage bags destined for landfills while ...

Hopefully you know where to get fair trade goods on campus. Café Alt sells fair trade coffee exclusively, Chartwells locations have at least one choice that is fair trade. T-shirts purchased through the SFUO are fair trade...Not much else is offered on campus that’s fair trade. Have you ever heard of Fair Trade Towns? It’s a campaign that essentially creates standards for a town to go entirely fair trade. There are criteria that a town must achieve, like passing a resolution at city council in support, and to using only fair trade coffee and tea at meetings and in the office. It’s then up to the businesses to offer fair trade products, and if enough do, you’re closer to becoming a fair trade town. Attract some media coverage and strike a steering committee devoted to planning for the future, and you have yourself a fair trade town. We can replicate this model on university campuses. The student union and the administration passing motions and devoting themselves to fair trade products ...