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 You could call 2007 the Year of Global Warming. Despite the tepid outcome of the annual United Nations conference on climate change in Bali this month, it's now widely accepted that climate change is happening and is being driven by humans.
The words "global warming" have quickly evolved from theory to fact -- sealed, mostly, by the work of the more than 2,000 scientists who make up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and their four reports released this year.
Many other environmental ideas catching hold this year sprang from there. Chief among them, perhaps, was the local food movement.
Chances are a year ago, if someone referred to a "locovoire," you'd think they were talking about an old-fashioned car. Now, you'd know that -- in the spirit of Vancouverites Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon -- they were referring to the decision to eat turnip instead of bread, if it couldn't be found within 160 kilometres of their home.
The local food campaign caught fire this past spring, spreading as far as the Philippines. In Toronto, half a dozen new farmers markets opened. Fiesta Farms, the city's only independent grocery store committed to stocking not just local, but sustainable food certified by a new Toronto-based non-profit, Local Food Plus.
City hall has caught the religion: Staff members are deliberating on how to stock city-run cafeterias, old-age homes and shelters with food from nearby farms.
At its core is a quest for taste. But also, a concern about urban
sprawl that's paving over our local farms. And the fumes spewing from
the tailpipes of trucks and planes carting food around the world.
"Chances are you started to look at your Nalgeen water bottle
differently, too, in 2007. The term bisphenol A rose to stardom in
environmental circles and broke into popular language. The main
ingredient in the hard plastic water bottles, as well as baby bottles
and the lining of cans of food, has been shown to disrupt hormones in
some scientific studies, causing cancer, obesity and developmental
problems.
The science is still uncertain. Both Health Canada and the Ontario
government are studying whether it's safe. But many parents are not
waiting. Glass and bisphenol-A free baby bottles sold out across North
America this summer. And earlier this month, the sports store Mountain
Equipment Co-Op decided to pull the bottles from their shelves.
The good greenhouse
Worries of catastrophic global warming from human-sourced carbons are making headlines these days. But a similar natural phenomenon that occurred some 700 million years ago likely saved life on this planet from extinction on a "snowball earth," a University of Toronto scientist says.
In a controversial report published this year, U of T researcher Richard Peltier says carbon dioxide produced from the decay of minute organic particles in the oceans warmed the ancient atmosphere enough to prevent ice sheets from covering the entire planet. It also set the stage for the explosion of species that produced today's world.
That's Sweet!
Sony has development a bio battery that generates electricity from sugar. According to tests run by the company, four bio batteries provide enough juice to power your MP3 player.
A `feebate' for the road
In the 2007 federal budget, a "feebate" program was introduced to provide "financial incentives" of up to $2,000 to encourage the purchase of highly fuel-efficient vehicles, as determined by their combined city/highway fuel-consumption ratings.
greasy perils
The chemical compound PFOA, used to make rain gear and non-stick cookware, has been turning up in human blood everywhere.
Scientists advising the U.S. government said perfluorooctanic acid (PFOA) should be considered cancer-causing but Health Canada didn't include the compound in a general clampdown on this chemical family.
One reason for Ottawa's foot-dragging may be that scientists have been puzzled by how PFOA mostly gets into the human body. University of Toronto environmental researchers Scott Mabury and Jessica D'eon identified one likely route this year: the related chemicals called PAPS that allow food wrappers to repel oil and water.
Food papers treated with PAPS typically include bags for muffins, pizza liners, sandwich wrappers, burger boxes and microwave popcorn bags.
erasable paper?
Instead of the paperless office, how about reusable paper? Xerox Corp. scientists have invented a way to make prints whose images last only a day, so that the paper can be used again and again.
The technology, which is still in a preliminary state, blurs the line between paper documents and digital displays. The experimental printing technology, a collaboration between the Xerox Research Centre of Canada and Palo Alto Research Center Inc., could someday replace printed pages used for just a brief time before being discarded. Xerox estimates as many as two of every five pages printed in the office are for what it calls "daily" use, like e-mails, Web pages and reference materials that have been printed for a single viewing.
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