A great book with a great cup of coffee Oh Canada, our home and native land. Humanity often forgets that we do not merely share land amongst ourselves. There are other sentient beings that depend on everything the landscape has to offer as well: wildlife. How can Canada’s environmental policy and law be characterized in … Continue reading A Book Review: How Sustainable is Wildlife Management in Canada?
Author: Alexis Newman
The Practice of Birding: How Can You Help Bird Population Sustainability?
This is Seymour – A frequent and friendly visitor of the Québec-Labrador Foundation’s (QLF) Montréal Office. Seymour is one of the many birds that I had the delight of viewing this summer thanks to my Communications and Conservation Internship at QLF. The foundation supports community-based approaches to conservation education, promoting the sustainable development of natural … Continue reading The Practice of Birding: How Can You Help Bird Population Sustainability?
A Brief Explanation of Atmospheric Circulation
The circulation of air throughout our planet is often perceived as a fascinating, yet complex phenomenon. Air circulates within the troposphere layer of the atmosphere, where its motion is driven by imbalances in temperature and by forces in pressure gradients. The distribution of such circulation differs according to three cells that divide the Earth’s northern … Continue reading A Brief Explanation of Atmospheric Circulation
Nature in Canada: Forest Tent Caterpillars
The Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario have witnessed an explosion of forest tent caterpillars this summer. This type of caterpillar can be found throughout North America, but especially within the eastern region of the continent. These gray, dark brown, or black caterpillars have distinctive white spots down the middle of their bodies that are … Continue reading Nature in Canada: Forest Tent Caterpillars
American Toads: How Sustainable Are Amphibian Populations?
This Fall, I took a course in Conservation Biology, which provided me with the opportunity to ask my professor, David Green, what species of toad I happened to stumble upon in my yard last summer. According to him, an expert in the field of amphibian research, this is a female American Toad, scientifically known as … Continue reading American Toads: How Sustainable Are Amphibian Populations?
Nature in Canada: Painted Lady Butterflies
Throughout the late summer and early fall, Montréal was greeted with a gorgeous influx of painted-lady butterflies, also scientifically known as Vanessa cardui of the Nymphalidae family. They were visible fluttering about over nearly every floral surface, with their distinctive brown upper-hind white-spotted wings and beautiful 42 to 66-millimetre yellow and salmon coloured wingspan. These … Continue reading Nature in Canada: Painted Lady Butterflies
A Poetry Reflection: How Sustainable is Mental Health in the 21st Century?
Archibald Lampman is a Canadian poet of the late-Romantic period. He is often compared to the poet Keats for his poetry’s sublime and reflective views of nature. A weak heart from childhood illness caused his death at merely 37 years old in 1899. His final and 3rd volume of poetry, Alcyone and other poems, was … Continue reading A Poetry Reflection: How Sustainable is Mental Health in the 21st Century?
How Sustainable Are Our Patterns of Consumption?
It is public knowledge that a capitalistic system heavily governs North America, prioritizing the needs of a select minority: privatized corporations. This elite class determines the extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal of public goods, creating an unjust distribution of power reasoned by the World Systems Theory. First world (developed) countries benefit by exploiting and … Continue reading How Sustainable Are Our Patterns of Consumption?
Nature in Canada: Chipmunks
This is our friendly backyard chipmunk Jimmy (we don’t actually know if it’s a male though). Chipmunks can range from 4 to 7 inches in size with 3 to 5-inch tails, weighing 1 to 5 oz. in total (2). Jimmy comes to see us daily, usually during the afternoon, for seeds. It runs right up … Continue reading Nature in Canada: Chipmunks
Nature in Canada: Pine Trees
By Alexis Newman I was about 8 or 9 years old when I climbed the tallest tree in the forest behind my old house. It was a pine tree, which is the most common coniferous tree in the world with around 100 species (1). Although, this pine tree had me in awe, because it was … Continue reading Nature in Canada: Pine Trees