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Sustainability, collaboration and creativity are at the basis of the changes currently being experienced by our society. Since 2008, Defiant Imagination has been looking at how these concepts are being applied to different areas of our daily life: urbanism, food, the economy, social media, and more.
Its author, Flavie Halais, is a Vancouver-based freelance journalist.-
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Category Archives: Environment
The Vatican goes green
Workers were installing solar panels on the roof of one of the Vatican’s auditoriums last week. The panels will generate enough energy to heat or cool the 6000-seat room, used by the pope in case of bad weather for his weekly audiences with pilgrims. Pope Benedict VI has voiced his concerns about the environment several [...]
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Eat less meat to stop climate change?
Remember the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that UN group of scientists that said that climate change is due to human activity? Apparently they’ve decided to give the world one or two advices on how to reduce carbon emissions. They want us to eat less meat because meat production generates to much pollution and cows [...]
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Universities using sustainability as a bait
Since being sustainable is the new trend, universities are now competing to become the most sustainable possible in order to attract environmentally-conscious students. College reviews from magazines like Forbes or Sierra now include ratings of the campuses’ sustainability. But is it really something that can be rated? An article published by the New York Times [...]
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Danish eco-paradise
Ok, I’m late to talk about this one, especially since the new issue of the New Yorker came out and caused all this controversy, but I bought the previous issue yesterday because of this article about a Danish island that tries to achieve sustainability and reduce its carbon emissions. Residents on Samsø island tried everything [...]
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Prince Charles’ eco-friendliness
Prince Charles’ cars run on wine and used cooking oil, his vegetables are grown organically in his country homes, and he flies and takes his car less often. According to his office, these measures have allowed him to cut his carbon dioxide production by 18% (that’s still 3,081 tons.)
These data have been released yesterday as [...]
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When governments try to be green
The British government is trying to be green, but considering the demonstrations that take place against the “eco-towns,” it’s not very successful.
Ten to 15 eco-towns have been planned to be built by 2020 in various sites through the country, but concerns have emerged as to their sustainability. The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) [...]
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Paris to launch electric car-sharing system
Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoë announced last week the creation of an electric car sharing system. Autolib’, as it is called, will allow its users to have access to a pool of 4000 electric cars in Paris and its immediate outskirts, and use them for short trips. They will be able to pick up a car [...]
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“Plastic, plastic everywhere”
The North Pacific Gyre is getting an increasing attention. After a series of videos published on vbs.tv (Vice magazine’s internet television network,) the Globe and Mail reserved a full page today to this area located in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and California. Spreading on 26 million kilometres and described in the article as “a [...]
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Vertical farms
New York magazine asked four architecture firms to come up with their plans for a deserted block in the heart of Manhattan. One of them designed a vertical farm, a concept that has been publicized since at least 2005. Vertical farms are ambitious projects but would bring sustainable agriculture right into the city, thereby solving [...]
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The future of cars as seen by Al Gore and Mitchell Joachim