“ Surprisingly, the two scientists turned out to be pretty much in agreement on most issues, including calling some environmentalists' claims unfounded and many of industry's harvesting practices harmful to the soil. ¶ But the bottom line, they said, was that many studies show that clearcutting – if done properly under the right conditions – was a sustainable way to harvest timber. ¶ The above proviso – if done properly under the right conditions – is extremely important in Nova Scotia, they said. ”
“ There is strong scientific evidence that the loss of old forests caused by clearcutting is having a devastating impact on the plants and animals that depend on such habitats for survival. The federal government's own data shows that long-lived species, such as eastern hemlock and red spruce, have experienced a severe reduction in population size and distribution as a result of past forest management. ¶ Before the cod fishery crash, scientists pleaded with policy makers to reduce the pace of fishing in order to prevent a marine ecosystem disaster. I fear that our voices are being ignored once again. ”
Dec. 15, 2001, The Daily News ~ Linda Pannozzo, GPIAtlantic
“ The Gunns of the world would have us believe there is a scientific basis for clearcutting, since it is what happens 99 per cent of the time in this province, thereby providing a rationale for the public, who would find it unacceptable otherwise. The GPI report failed here. ¶ We were unable to come up with a scientific reason why clearcutting should take place to the extent that it does. But we were able to discover that science has little, if anything, to do with clearcutting on this scale. ”
“ Let me illustrate my no-science comment. Some of GPI's arguments involve extending the Windhorse farm example (55 hectares) to 1.3 million hectares of forest (which is half of the province's operable forest). Since Windhorse farm uses two horses, this extrapolation would result in 47,272 horses working in the woods of Nova Scotia. This conclusion is silly, but it is the type of extrapolation behind GPI's conclusions. ”
Wednesday December 12, 2001, The Daily News ~ Stephen Bornais
“ GPI Atlantic released a draft version of its Forest Reports in November, concluding that years of poor management have devalued the province’s forest and threaten to bring on a northern cod-like collapse. ¶ [...] ¶ Gunn, a forest researcher for 23 years, is also chairman of the Nova Forest Alliance, an organization that brings together industry, woodland owners, environmental activists and tourism interests. He is preparing a detailed critique of GPI Atlantic’s report. ¶ GPI’s report envisions a primordial, pre-contact forest, stuffed with lofty hardwoods and towering softwoods, that likely never existed, Gunn said. ”
Wednesday December 12, 2001, The Daily News ~ Joyce Lachance, Jeddore
“ Recent articles have prompted me again to address the necessity of preserving our forests, or at best to manage them sustainably. ¶ [...] ¶ Please, let's put the good of the planet before individual and corporate profit and do what we must to preserve our environment. ”
November 26, 2001, The Cape Breton Post ~ Steve Macinnis
Premier puts the record straight in luncheon address on his government's commitment for volunteers “ “Our democratic system cannot function without volunteers,” said Hamm, noting he wouldn't even be premier if it weren't for the hoards of volunteers who manned his political campaigns. Nova Scotia is counted as the leader in Canada when it comes to volunteerism in contributing 43 per cent more than the national average in volunteer work. ”
November 19, 2001, NDP Nova Scotia ~ John MacDonell, Hants East
“ NDP Natural Resources critic John MacDonell is calling on Natural Resources Minister Ernie Fage to immediately implement the recommendations for forest recovery outlined in the recently released GPI Atlantic Report.¶ "This government tends to ignore good advice and support the status quo at all costs," says MacDonell, "But clear-cutting won't just bring on an ecological disaster, it will bring on an economic disaster." ”
Saturday, November 17, 2001, The Cape Breton Post ~ Tanya Collier Macdonald
“ If volunteers In Nova Scotia stopped helping others for one year, the province would lose $1.9 billion worth of service.
¶That is what upward of 150 delegates attending the conference Celebrating Volunteers learned during the sessions keynote address Friday at the Canadian Coast Guard College.
¶Ron Colman, director at Genuine Progress Index Atlantic, reported Nova Scotia benefits from 140 million hours of volunteer work each year, more than the amount of paid work by all government employees within the three levels of government including the Armed Forces.”
Saturday, November 17, 2001, The Halifax Herald ~ Ralph Surette
“ Trees over 80 years old now cover only one per cent of the province, says the report by GPI Atlantic. It's a mounting disaster about which we are officially in denial, and of which we have yet to grasp the full consequences. ¶ Warnings about the degradation of the Nova Scotia forest have been heard for a long time, but in recent years, they've taken on a more anxious tone. The last one, by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy in 1997, warned many sawmills would start closing in the Maritimes soon and paper mills would start cutting back around 2010 because of shortages of wood. ”
Thursday, November 15, 2001, The Daily News, Halifax ~ Stephen Bornais
GPI Atlantic turns its new economics to the forest industry “ Wade Prest, past president of the Nova Scotia Woodlot Owners and Operators Association, said many of the province’s 25,000 landowners are looking for guidance, something he thinks the GPI report can provide. ¶ “A lot of them are questioning what they see around them, but in the absence of anything else, they buy into that industrial forestry model,” Prest said. ”
Thursday, November 15, 2001, The Daily News, Halifax ~ Stephen Bornais
“ Bringing even the most degraded forest land back to full productivity is just a matter of choosing to do it, say two men who have. ¶ The 250-hectare woodland managed by the Pictou Landing Mi’kmaq band and one run by a former sawmill operator were highlighted in a new report – GPI Forest Accounts – as possible models for how Nova Scotia can restore its battered forest. ”
Thursday, November 15, 2001, The Halifax Herald
Forestry practices wasteful, study says
Wednesday, November 14, 2001, CBC Nova Scotia ~ Kathryn Morse
“ Even though the province is spending some money on reforestation, GPI says that's not enough. The group wants to see limits placed on clear-cutting, and immediate protection for disappearing old growth forests. ¶ "If we wait, if we lose the next 20 years, it could be too late," says Colman. ”
October 2001, Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture News and Views ~ Laurence Nason
“ If anyone has any doubt with respect to seriousness of the challenges being faced by the farm community in Nova Scotia they have only to turn to a report released earlier this year by GPI Atlantic (The Nova Scotia Genuine Progress Index Soils and Agriculture Accounts Part 1: Farm Viability and Economic Capacity in Nova Scotia, April 2001.) That report, more accurately than anyone realized when the report was released, predicts the collapse of a number of our agricultural sectors if agricultural policy in Nova Scotia is not revamped. ”
Sunday, October 14, 2001, The Daily News, Halifax ~ Brian Flinn
They say current economic indicators don't offer protection “ While the decline of the groundfishery has reduced Nova Scotia's fishery GDP by one-third over the past decade, it could have been worse. Income from shellfish has increased, and shrimp biomass has increased. Lobster biomass has remained steady. ¶ Lobster has become increasingly important to coastal communities, but dependence on that fishery has reduced community resilience, the report says. ¶ Also, less is known about lobster stocks than groundfish, where much of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans research is directed. The report notes that spending on science and enforcement declined in the 1980s while the industry was fishing itself almost out of existence. ”
Oct. 13, 2001, The Halifax Herald
Smoke ban would boost business, group says
Saturday, October 13, 2001 The Daily News, Halifax ~ Peter Mclaughlin
GPI Atlantic says bars, restaurants will profit from law “
Colman analysed restaurant, bar, hotel and tourism receipts before and after smoke-free legislation came into effect in parts of the U.S. and Canada. He found sales decreased in the first two months of smoke-free policies, but rose over the long term.
¶
In many cases, businesses made more money, attracting non-smokers who had previously avoided bars and restaurants.
”
Wednesday, October 10, 2001 The Daily News, Halifax ~ Parker Barss Donham
GPI Atlantic says bars, restaurants will profit from law “
Nova Scotia has the highest rate of smoking in Canada, at 29 per cent, and the highest consumption of cigarettes per smoker. Twenty-eight per cent of our pregnant women smoke, as do 31 per cent of teens between 15 and 19 years old.
¶
At those rates, estimates GPI Atlantic, a Timberlea-based think-tank, 65,000 of today’s children and teens in Nova Scotia will become regular smokers, and 15,000 of them will die from their addiction by middle age, losing about 22 years of life each compared with non-smokers.
”
Fall, 2001, Alternatives Journal ~ Jen McKay and Liann Bobechko
“
The Nova Scotia project was inspired by the first GPI, produced, in the US in 1995 by the Redefining Progress group. GPI Atlantic hopes that their efforts in Nova Scotia will someday be adopted as the official method of measuring well-being, not only in their own province, but also across the country.
¶
In this they are encouraged by Liberal MP Marlene Jennings, who introduced a private member's bill in Parliament last year. Bill C-268, the Canadian Well-Being Measurement Act, calls for "development and periodic publication of a set of indicators of the economic, social and environmental well-being of people, communities and ecosystems in Canada."
”
September 13, 2001, The Halifax Herald
Report urges better fishery monitoring
Sunday, September 2, 2001, The Halifax Herald ~ Donald S. Dunbar
“
RONALD COLMAN'S article "Weather or not we like it!" (The Sunday Herald, Aug. 26) makes a strong case for the economic benefits of a smart energy conservation policy. It should be required reading for George W. Bush - and in particular Dick Cheney, whose dismissal of conservation as a "personal virtue," rather than the basis of an energy policy, can now be shown to be not merely patronizing, but bad economics. It might also be corrective reading for those Canadians who continue to see conservation as a form of soft-headed idealism.
”
“
So the province is well placed to become the first jurisdiction in North America to meet and surpass the Kyoto targets and to take effective action on the greatest environmental challenge of the century. Indeed, the Canadian government has called climate change the country's greatest challenge since the Second World War. For the sake of our children, we can lead the way. There's nothing stopping us!
”
“
Great to see discussion of how to cut our greenhouse gas emissions in recent issues of this newspaper. Some people may think climate change can't really be that serious, that the main effect may be an extended golf season! Think again. Climate change can cause disasters like Hurricane Mitch. And health problems such as asthma are aggravated by all the fossil fuels we burn.
”
August 20, 2001, The Halifax Herald ~ D. Tim Doyle
“
It's a shame that Nova Scotia doesn't take the lead in environmental issues. We have already proven that we can be No. 1 at reducing solid wastes; we can surely do the same in other areas if we start to follow GPI practices.
”
August 11, 2001, The Halifax Herald ~ Ralph Surette
“
What to do? Just as things are hot, as it were, GPI Atlantic dropped a report on Nova Scotia's greenhouse gas emissions, their cost, and how to cut them down - although it was strangely reduced on the front page of this newspaper on Thursday to a mere "pro-rail" report. The essentials of the report are that Nova Scotians, like other North Americans, are big energy hogs and that global warming is starting to cost us in terms of drought, floods and other climate chaos as well as, in future, rising sea levels.
”
August 11, 2001, The Halifax Herald ~ Meinhard Doelle
“
It is unfortunate that the results of more than two years' research by GPI Atlantic on Nova Scotia's response to climate change got so lost in this news story. The Herald has given excellent, accurate and in-depth coverage to the GPI results over the last four years. The Aug. 9 story was a rare exception to otherwise first-rate reporting.
”
August 9, 2001, The Halifax Herald ~ Patricia Brooks
“
A new report by a Tantallon research firm recommending an increase in railway freight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has shocked the head of the region's largest trucking association.
¶
GPI Atlantic's greenhouse gas report released Wednesday suggests shifting 10 per cent of freight trucked along the Halifax-Amherst corridor to rail to help reduce emissions.
”
“
GPI Atlantic, which is constructing a "genuine progress index" for Nova Scotia to measure economic progress in a more complete way than standard methods, brought the subject home with a thud this week.
¶
According to these measurements, drawn mostly from Statistics Canada data, Nova Scotia's poor are the poorest in the country – poorer even than in Newfoundland which has traditionally been on the bottom of the heap. For the very poorest, it's by quite a bit – 12 per cent poorer than in Newfoundland.
”
Friday, July 20, 2001, The Daily News, Halifax ~ Peter Mclaughlin
How one Nova Scotian gets by in the country's lowest income bracket “
Over the past decade, middle-income Nova Scotians have lost the most in absolute income - about $3,600 - compared with the rest of the country. The poorest, however, have lost the most as a percentage of their disposable income, down 29 per cent since 1990. ¶
The richest 20 per cent of Nova Scotians have the biggest share of the pie, controlling about 42 per cent of the total annual disposable income.
”
Friday, July 19, 2001, The Halifax Herald
N.S. poor worst off in Canada, study says
Friday, July 19, 2001, The Daily News, Halifax ~ John McLeod
“
ECONOMIC GROWTH, commonly measured by the gross domestic product (GDP),
is often assumed to benefit most of us, at least to some degree. But a
report released yesterday by the Halifax-based non-profit research group
GPI Atlantic comes to a startling, and opposite, conclusion.
”
Friday, July 19, 2001, The Daily News, Halifax ~ Brendan Elliott
“
"This large gap creates a lack of social cohesion. You get the kind of bitterness you had in the recent (health-care) dispute," Colman said. "You get this increasing polarization. More alienation, more resentment."
¶
The great divide between the province's rich and poor hasn't always existed. In 1980, Nova Scotia had the third-smallest gap in the country between rich and poor. The province's lowest disposable income was $9,495, compared with $67,630 for the highest.
”
Wednesday, July 18, 2001, The Daily News, Halifax ~ David Swick
In fact, tonight StatsCan director will be GPI's guest “
When Hans Messinger crunches numbers, people listen. Government and business need to know if our national production is growing, or slowing down, and by how much. Messinger is the director of the 50-person Statistics Canada department that calculates the gross domestic product (GDP).
¶
Today, he will be in French Village on St. Margarets Bay, the guest of honour at a party hosted by Ron Colman, head of GPI Atlantic. That's the non-profit research group working to develop a Genuine Progress Index for Nova Scotia, whose number crunching has calculated the value of volunteer work, the cost of crime and the money wasted on unwanted Christmas presents.
¶
Huh? I might have expected Statistics Canada to regard GPI Atlantic as the enemy, as the anti-Statscan. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
”
June 5, 2001, The Halifax Daily News ~ Shaune Mackinlay
AIDS changing, report notes
Here's how you can reduce your impact on Mother Earth “
The face of HIV and AIDS is changing, says a Nova Scotia report released yesterday.¶
The Cost of HIV/AIDS in Canada, by GPI Atlantic, a Nova Scotia non-profit research group, points out that while the number of new AIDS and HIV cases has dropped dramatically, the disease threatens new groups of Canadians.¶
Since the late 1980s, the proportion of new HIV infections spread by male homosexual sex in Canada dropped to 38 per cent of the total, from 75 per cent.¶
By contrast, new cases traced to heterosexual contact rose to 19 per cent from six per cent, while infections caused by intravenous drug use jumped to 28 per cent from nine per cent.¶
Women now account for 25 per cent of new HIV diagnoses, compared with 10 per cent a decade ago, and for 21 per cent of new AIDS cases, compared with nine per cent as recently as 1995.¶
Aboriginal Canadians and prison inmates are also testing positive in higher numbers.¶
Since the virus was first diagnosed 20 years ago today, 47,000 Canadians have tested positive for HIV. Of the 17,165 who have developed AIDS, 70 per cent are dead.”
June 4, 2001, The Halifax Herald ~ Joey Fitzpatrick
Environmental, health-care costs high “ GRIDLOCK is all the rage in Halifax this spring, as anybody who's been traversing the bridges at rush hour well knows. ¶ Our traffic congestion will never be as bad as Toronto or Vancouver, but still it's impossible to sit in the middle of this impacted sea of motorists and not think: there's got to be a better way.”
June 3, 2001, The Halifax Herald ~ Silver Donald Cameron
Here's how you can reduce your impact on Mother Earth “
Because nature's resources are limited, over-consumption in one time or place produces poverty elsewhere. Ultimately the First World can remain rich only by compelling the Third World to remain poor, and the present generation's prosperity must inevitably result in the impoverishment - or worse - of our descendants.
”
May/June 2001, Canadian Geographic ~ Silver Donald Cameron
Nova Scotia's Recycling Revolution: A Genuine Progress Story “
Nova Scotia has suddenly become famous for its environmental achievements.
A decade ago, Canada's provinces set a goal of "50% by 2000" -- eliminating, by the year 2000, half the amount of solid waste sent to the nation's dumps and incinerators. Nova Scotia has done it. No other province has even come close. As we speak, the story is being carried by CNN. Officials from Hong Kong, Ireland and Russia are making pilgrimages to Halifax to see how we do it. ”
May 27, 2001, The Halifax Herald ~ Silver Donald Cameron
Nova Scotians consume more than their share of the Earth's resources “
The Nova Scotia Ecological Footprint is a startling document. Unlike most environmental assessments, it looks not at the impact of industry, but at consumption - the effect of eating fish or using lumber rather than the impact of the fishing or forest industries.
It starts from the fact that each of us withdraws a certain amount every year from the great Bank of Nature. Each of us requires a certain amount of land to produce our food, a certain amount of energy to run our households, a certain amount of forest to absorb the greenhouse gases we produce. The total demand I make on nature is my "ecological footprint" - the resources which I personally take from the planet. How much productive land and sea does my present lifestyle require?
”
“ The GPI Atlantic report on farm viability in Nova Scotia released last week put a sharp point on it. Alarms have been ringing about dying farms since the 1950s, but GPI’s elaborate "genuine progress" measurements for 1971-99 makes a compelling case that if nothing changes "the future of Nova Scotia agriculture is clearly at risk" - with apple and beef farmers, working way under the cost of production, at greatest risk. ¶ Although total farm receipts have risen slightly in that time, net farm income - what the farmer keeps after expenses - has declined 46 per cent. ”
Wednesday, May 2, 2001, The Daily News, Halifax ~ David Swick
In fact, tonight StatsCan director will be GPI's guest “
GPI Atlantic, the folks giving all our heads a shake by creating a Genuine Progress Index for Nova Scotia, may soon have a new way to get its message across.
¶
GPI Atlantic has joined forces with one of Toronto's best-known non-profits, the Atkinson Charitable Foundation, to create a prototype publication: Reality Check: The Canadian Review of Well-being.
”
Apr. 30, 2001, The Halifax Herald
Nova Scotia farmers face tough choices
Apr. 27, 2001, The Kentville Advertiser ~ Brent Fox
“ The 71-page report - "Farm Viability and Economic Capacity In Nova Scotia" - was unveiled at an April 24 news conference hold at the Sheffield Mills community hall and attended by a number of farmers and the provincial media. The study is the first part of an on-going accounting of the province’s genuine index of soils and agriculture. ¶ GPI researcher Jennifer Scott said, "if you’re not economically viable it would be very difficult to produce food." To date, how ever, "our farmers have been very productive. They are producing more and producing better food." ¶ Scott noted, however, that "net farm income has declined, which affects viability." ”
Apr. 27, 2001, The Kentville Advertiser ~ Brent Fox
“ Kings County Federation of Agriculture president Hank Bosveld told The Advertiser that though some government statistics are generally questionable, the picture presented by the report "is somewhat realistic." Overall, "I’m quite sure it is bad as is being predicted." ”
“ Nova Scotians will have to pay more for the food they eat if they want to keep many of the province’s farmers in business, a new report says. ¶ Rising debt loads coupled with stagnate earnings has forced many farmers to take second jobs or cut corners on safety and soil protection, according to the study. ”
“
Our present economy, says Amory Lovins, evolved when resources were plentiful but workers were scarce. It extracts the maximum output from workers by mechanizing and minimizing their work, but it is wasteful of resources. Today, however, workers are plentiful but resources are becoming scarce. We need to seek more productivity from resources, not people. We need new instruments, like the Genuine Progress Index, the guaranteed annual income and the various alternative government budgets proposed by non-profit organizations.
”
March 31, 2001, The Halifax Herald ~ Ronald Colman
“
In The Chronicle-Herald ("Betting on Human Ingenuity," 28 March), Brian Lee Crowley states that "it is quite incorrect to think of natural resources as exhaustible." Those who think so, he says, are "pessimists" and "false prophets of doom." If "natural resources were actually getting scarcer," he argues, "then the price would go up" and "human ingenuity comes up with cheaper alternatives, or invests time and intelligence in increasing the supply."
”
March 28, 2001, The Halifax Herald ~ Brian Lee Crowley
“
On the front page of this newspaper recently, it was claimed that the resources of four more planets would be needed to maintain us at our current levels of consumption. We were exhorted to give up cars for bicycles.
¶
Time and again, people have looked at growing human prosperity, improving health and population increase and told us that we were living in a fool's paradise, that it obviously couldn't continue, that our prosperity was at the cost of others such as the poor or future generations, and that we would pay the price for our irresponsible wickedness.
”
March 17, 2001, The Halifax Herald ~ Ralph Surette
“
HERE'S THE big picture, in stark colours: as panic stalks the financial markets, taxes and interest rates are being slashed in an urgent attempt to stimulate consumer spending and keep the economy growing at all costs.
¶
Meanwhile, a Nova Scotian study outlines how that same consumption and growth makes us ecology pigs which the natural world can't sustain forever, and maybe not even into the next generation.
¶
There's a showdown somewhere down the road, obviously.
”
March 14, 2001, The Halifax Herald
Nova Scotians Overconsuming: residents taking more than our share - study
“
The formula to measure the ecological footprint was calculated by University of British Columbia scientists. A global footprint found there are 1.8 hectares available for each of the Earth's six billion people.
¶
Colman figures Nova Scotians can cut their collective ecological footprint by one million hectares, to seven hectares per person, "without compromising their quality of life."
”
GPIAtlantic
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Phone: (902) 489-2524
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