Technology

With a growing number of wind and solar developments studding Alberta’s landscape, the province has enshrined new rules that ensure operators — not landowners — are ultimately responsible for cleaning them up. The province has had renewable energy development for over two decades, but landowner advocates have more recently grumbled …

The NAFTA-replacing trade agreement that was recently signed could open the door to the Wild West of online hate speech and revenge porn because companies like Facebook and Google will no longer be held liable for that content, a Calgary law professor warns. Many of the provisions of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada …

From devastating wildfires to massive storms, the extreme weather this year has been a reminder that climate change is already happening — and we think that’s worth talking about. With that in mind, CBC News is launching a weekly environmental newsletter called What on Earth? — delivered to your inbox …

An international team of astronomers using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope has uncovered the largest and most massive structure ever found in the early universe. It’s a collection of thousands of galaxies, called a supercluster. The formation is still in its infancy, so astronomers are referring to it …

This story is part of our Reduce, Reuse and Rethink series exploring ways to recycle better. Read more stories in the series at cbc.ca/recycle. Takeout is a great way to skip cooking and the dishes. But it often comes with a side of guilt about all the waste — much …

If the rollout of legal recreational marijuana goes (more or less) smoothly this week, an Ottawa-based tech firm will be able to claim at least some of the credit. Canadian cannabis-fanciers are expected to log on in large numbers to buy the product online after it becomes officially legal one …

Have you ever cried in a grocery store? One of us came close, after visiting three in a row that didn’t have lettuce that wasn’t wrapped in plastic. Canadians don’t just buy a lot, we waste a lot. Canada leads the developed world in per capita production of garbage. It’s …

The Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Centre faced one of its biggest rescue challenges last week: a massive sea lion suffering from gunshot wounds was found on the rocky shoreline of Ucluelet on the west coast of Vancouver Island. A team of seven people from the rescue centre — accompanied …

Add beer to chocolate, coffee and wine as some of life’s little pleasures that global warming will make scarcer and costlier, scientists say. Increasing bouts of extreme heat waves and droughts will hurt production of barley, a key beer ingredient, in the future. Losses of barley yield can be as …

A new summary of toxins in the Arctic shows contaminants, such as mercury, continue to threaten polar bears and whales. But new threats — both chemical and climatic — are emerging, says the report done for the eight nations that ring the North Pole. “The number and types of contaminants …