Cyclists Paving the Way for Ungrateful Drivers 23
Photo by earcos / Flickr Sitting at a red light, a car driver yells out his window “Excuse me, is this the bicycle lane?”. The cyclist passively shrugs and slowly rolls his bike closer to the curb. The light turns green and the driver stomps on the gas pedal flying past the cyclist with less ...
Social Change: the Forgotten Contributor
Photo by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country A recent ABC News article claims that the financial crisis has driven down global carbon emissions, leading to the largest fall in emissions in more than 30 years. Although this article concedes that carbon trading schemes – such as those implemented within the European Union – ...
Charlie Sheen’s Conspiracy Theory 8
Photo “September 11th” by hankplank / Flickr Charlie Sheen has been on the offensive lately, demanding answers to questions surrounding the events of September 11th, 2001. Careful to distance himself from being just another “deluded Hollywood liberal”, Sheen simply wants answers from the government and is demanding a “truly independent congressional investigation into 9/11 and ...
Second-Hand Secret to Sustainability? 2
Photo “Harlem Trash” by loan Sameli / Flickr The Urban Country explores whether purchasing second-hand products can help save ourselves, our society, and the world as we know it. In a speech yesterday to a special summit on climate change at the United Nations, President Obama claimed that fighting climate change is more difficult during ...
The Environmental Cost of Tickets 1
(Photo “Return Ticket to Hell” by aslakr / Flickr ) A friend and fellow contributor to The Urban Country made an interesting comment the other day. Nariman feels that anything that requires a ticket is outrageous. Be it driving, airplanes, concerts, sports, musicals, cruises, opera, etc. This may seem an extreme stance, but the idea ...
Bicycles and Sidewalks Can Get Along 2
Bicycles and sidewalks can (and do) get along well together. All it takes is a little bit of common sense, etiquette and mutual respect. Two very unfortunate incidents in Toronto have provoked additional tension between drivers, pedestrians and cyclists. Two months ago I would have thought it absurd that tensions could escalate in a city ...
Keeping my God, Guns and Healthcare 5
Today’s rally at Capitol Hill in Washington DC brought together a passionate group of “patriots” who are fed up with their leader. Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to America’s capital for the last stop in the Tea Party Express – an anti-tax, conservative movement that toured across the country over the last 16 days. ...
Eco-Living Tip: Automobile Idling Myths 4
The year is 1969. Yasser Arafat is appointed the leader of the PLO, Apollo 11 lands on the moon, the Concorde jet breaks the sound barrier and 500,000 hippies congregate on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in New York. While all of this was happening, a father somewhere was teaching his son how to drive: “Now ...
Operation Imani – Ideas for Sustainable African Development
Between 2005 and 2007, Greg John had a life changing experience. He lived in Tanzania while working on a CIDA internship to help the impoverished African country develop its infrastructure. Coming from a cushy life in Canada, living in one of the top 10 poorest countries in the world was an eye opener for the ...