Last week a group of 90 scientists and climate activists sent a letter to the federal cabinet to argue against federal approval of the Pacific Northwest (PNW) Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project.

The activists argue that the project would make it virtually impossible for British Columbia to...

As many people have heard, the British Columbia Ministry of Education has decided to eliminate all but two of the provincial exams (Math and Writing Skills). This is a continuation of the process that began with the elimination of the Grade 12 science exams in 2011. This elimination...

Imagine you are a small child in a crowded school hallway. A couple big kids block your way and when you try to move around them they maneuver to stay in your way. Getting tired of being bullied, you push by. The next thing you know, the bully runs to...

Last week I wrote a piece on my personal blog titled: On forest fires climate activist aren't just insensitive, they are also wrong which addressed some of the reporting that incorrectly claimed that climate change was responsible for the Fort...

I have written a lot about oil and pipelines in the past. In doing so I have received a stream of feedback and comments which all pretty much say the same thing: "you can't talk about the concept of ethical oil because that brand has been soured."

You see,...

Lost in the excitement of the Mulcair vote during the NDP convention in Edmonton this last weekend was the news that the NDP passed their support for "The Leap Manifesto." The Manifesto consists of a list of "15 Demands" that range from the somewhat reasonable; to...

A week ago I wrote a post that struck a nerve in the community about the need for parents to stop undermining our kids' teachers. In this post, I want to continue that theme by writing about a few of the simple, but important, lessons we as parents...

I am the father of three children, a son (age eight) and two daughters (ages seven and four). My wife is a school teacher who has taught elementary-aged children for the last 15 years. Since my wife is a teacher, I have spent countless hours listening to teachers tell their...

I have been asked recently why I blog on the Huffington Post. The question has come from a friend as well as a journalist, on Twitter, who suggested that I am taking food off his plate. My response is that I have ideas to share and the Huffington Post has...

My blog post last week (I Support The Energy East Pipeline As A Pragmatic Environmentalist) made quite a splash resulting in me receiving a lot of both positive and negative feedback. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the negative feedback consisted of unsupported and/or unsupportable "facts" about the proposal....

We live in a society that, like it or not, is dependent on oil (petroleum hydrocarbons) and petroleum hydrocarbon-based products.

Our food is produced on farms that need heavy equipment to operate. That food is shipped around the world by air, water and rail, all of which rely on...

In December 2015 world leaders passed the Paris Agreement at the end of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21).

In Paris, Canada agreed to drop our greenhouse gas emissions...

As many know Canada is endorsing a call to limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference.

Based on the IPCC, at the 2014 rate of global carbon emissions we will globally exceed

With the 21st United Nations Convention on Climate Change (COP21) in the news we keep hearing about the need to keep global climate change below a target of two degrees Celsius. However, few people know where this two degrees target comes from. The reason for this...

In my blogs I try to look at modern environmental tropes from a scientific perspective to see how they stand up to the data. Some of the most befuddling myths to come out of the modern environmental movement are the "smaller is better," "local is better," "organic is better" memes...

This weekend I was out at the soccer park coaching my daughter's soccer team. Like many soccer players these days my daughter plays almost exclusively on synthetic turf fields. While I'm the coach, many of our team's parents know that I am also an environmental chemist. You can probably guess...

With the arrival of the rainy season comes the re-emergence of a common household problem: mold. Mold (or mould if you prefer) is a non-scientific term for a varied group of fungi. Molds existed on the planet long before humans and will likely exist long after the last...

In an earlier post I wrote that Wi-Fi is not a danger to you or your kids and the response on my social media feed was strongly negative. I was bombarded with anecdotes from people who claimed to have become sick, or claimed to know someone who had...

Early Monday morning came an announcement that negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) had been concluded with an agreement. While details of the agreement are still under wraps, the Canadian government has provided a Technical Summary of the Agreement and my social media feed has exploded...

There is a common misconception about the role of pipelines in our daily lives. We live in a society that is dependent on oil and oil products. These products aren't just refined into gasoline and diesel to run our vehicles; they also serve as the feedstocks for the petrochemical industry...