Posts from the ‘commentary’ category

SENSibility 5: War in Iraq and Afghanistan to cost US $2.4 Trillion by 2017

Ouch! According to a recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report, the combined cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will reach US$2.4 trillion by 2017.…

Read article

Zeitgeist: Food for lots of thought

As part of the Facebook frenzy as of late, I was directly towards a group supporting a documentary called “Zeitgeist.” I must admit that I simultaneously…

Read article

SENSibility 4: Gore’s Film has Nine Errors (But Students can Still Watch It)

A British High Court judge has ruled that Al Gore’s climate film, An Inconvenient Truth, contains nine “scientific errors.” According to Justice Burton, the nine “errors”…

Read article

A thought on Thanksgiving: Coffee, 0.7%, and the Millenium Development Goals

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about good old 0.7%. This is the hallmark figure suggested by Pearson as a target for foreign aid to developing…

Read article

One episode of the Bionic Woman equals clean water for 300,000 African Families

Here is one of two cranes outside the Michael Smith Laboratories right now. Apparently, there is a lot of jumping in the “Bionic Woman” television show.…

Read article

Unsung Heroes

On a blustery day in the windy season, I walked out to my study plot in the tropical cloud forest of Monteverde, Costa Rica. For the…

Read article

Maldives 1: In search of the sinking islands

In preparation for a trip to the Maldives that I will be taking in November, I’ve decided to exercise my considerable powers of curiosity and bulk up on random…

Read article

Islamophobia on the Go

Today I had an Islamophobic moment. It started innocently enough. I was sitting at the back of the bus trying quite unsuccessfully to untangle my ipod…

Read article

Al Gore in Vancouver (although tickets are freaking expensive!)

Just a heads up to those of you who can afford hundreds of dollars to hear Al Gore speak in Vancouver (he’s in town this Saturday).…

Read article

SENSibility 3: Time for an Extinction Clock?

Earlier this month the World Conservation Union identified more than 16,000 species threatened with extinction. Prospects for survival improved for exactly one species on the planet…

Read article