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A Straw to Save the World

By Richard Bell[Note: This article is a summary of a lecture by sustainable builder and author Chris Magwood on September 29, 2019, delivered at the Natural Building EAST conference held at the Deanery Project in Ship Harbour, Nova Scotia. Magwood spoke for about an hour, and videos of the entire presentation are available here.] Chris Magwood built his first straw bale house in 1997, launching a career that has placed him among the most respected sustainable builders and thinkers internationally. He is author of several books on natural building systems including, Making Better Buildings.

October 18, 2019

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Chris Magwood on Sustainable Buidling and Climate

[This page features a lecture by sustainable builder and author Chris Magwood on September 29, 2019, delivered at the Natural Building EAST conference held at the Deanery Project in Ship Harbour, Nova Scotia. Magwood spoke for about an hour, and videos of the entire presentation are available at the links below. Magwood’s master’s thesis, “Opportunities for carbon dioxide removal and storage in building materials” is available as a PDF on his website. This document contains many of the graphs he refers to during his lecture.] For anyone concerned about the climate crisis, sustainable builder and author Chris Magwood delivered a stunning and hope-filled lecture on September 29, 2019, at the Natural Building EAST conference held at the Deanery Project in Ship Harbour, Nova Scotia. The building sector is responsible for an estimated 40% of global carbon emissions.

October 18, 2019

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Magwood video Segment 2

[Note: To watch segment 2 of Chris Magwood's lecture, please click here.] Magwood found that the choice of building materials made a whopping difference in whether a given building was a net carbon emitter or a net carbon drawdown, from over 200 tons of embodied carbon in the worst case to a net drawdown, or storage, of over 130 tons using the best materials. He was still skeptical about his results, but when he began to share his results, everyone agreed, “Yep, those are the numbers.”

October 11, 2019

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Magwood Video Segment 1

[Note: this document contains notes on the first segment of the video of Chris Magwood's lecture. To watch the video, please click here.] In his opening remarks, Chris Magwood describes himself as a “sustainable building omnivore” who built the 1st straw bale house in Ontario in 1997. He didn’t set out to be a builder, but he ended up working on lots of buildings over the years, finding out what works where, and when. He summarized his knowledge in his book, Making Better Buildings, where he ranked building materials against a list of criteria, including the energy embodied in the building materials.

October 11, 2019

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2019 Election Special--Candidate Interviews

This page contains links to interviews with candidates for two ridings, Central Nova and Sackville-Preston-Chezzetcook. In these ridings, we contacted candidates from the Liberal Party, the Progressive Conservative Party, the New Democratic Party, the Green Party, the Peoples Party of Canada, and the Communist Party. Two candidates in Sackville-Preston-Chezzetcook never responded.

October 01, 2019

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Anthony Edmonds

Green Party Sackville-Preston-Chezzetcook Green Party candidate Anthony Edmonds is on a political odyssey that has already changed politics in provinces from British Columbia to Prince Edward Island, a change that he’s hoping his candidacy will accelerate in Nova Scotia. After starting out in high school as a young supporter of the NDP, and volunteering with NDP stalwarts like Peter Stouffer and the late Sid Prest, he’s now a deeply committed supporter of the Green Party.

October 01, 2019

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Matt Stickland

NDP Sackville-Preston-Chezzetcook Former submariner Matt Stickland says that running for office is a lot like being on a military deployment. “There’s the same hallmark features of a long naval deployment,” Stickland told the Cooperator. “Way less dangerous—no one’s shot at me yet! But like being on a deployment, you’ve got a team, you’re working together, you have control over your own responsibilities, you’ve always got to be on….you start losing track of what day it is, or even what time it is.”

October 01, 2019

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Darrell Samson

Liberal Party Member of Parliament Sackville-Preston-Chezzetcook Darrell Samson didn’t hesitate for a second when I asked him what he thought the Liberal’s most important accomplishment had been during his first term in office. “I’m so proud of the government strategy that has allowed us as a country to lift 900,000 Canadians out of poverty. We’ve wiped out 20% of poverty in three and a half years. And 300,000 of those people are kids. That is powerful. That’s not a personal accomplishment, but it represents what my values are. We want to create conditions so that all Canadians have the opportunity to succeed.”

October 01, 2019

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Chris Frazer

Communist Party of Canada Central Nova Chris Frazer’s journey to being the Communist Party candidate in Central Nova began long ago in Alberta, where he led the first student strike in Alberta’s history at what is now Mount Royal University in Calgary.

October 01, 2019

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Barry Randle

Green Party Central Nova The Green Party has been creating waves around the country in this election cycle, but Barry Randle’s been onboard for more than 10 years, leaving the NDP in 2008 to work on Elizabeth May’s campaign that year in Central Nova.

October 01, 2019

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