In 1969, litter was pervasive alongside Ontario’s highways, smokestacks belched toxins into the air, and, just across Lake Erie, sludge in the Cuyahoga River caught fire. Few Canadians felt they had the power to do anything to stop this kind of rampant pollution until, like a breath of fresh air, a group of environmentalists emerged to change the attitudes of both citizens and policy makers. In The First Green Wave, Ryan O’Connor traces the rise of the environmental movement in Toronto, home to one of Canada’s earliest communities of environmental activists. At the heart of the story is Pollution Probe, an organization founded in 1969 by students and faculty at the University of Toronto. Living up to its motto (“Do it!") in its first year of operation, Pollution Probe confronted Toronto’s City Hall over its use of pesticides, Ontario Hydro over air pollution, and the detergent industry over pollution of the Great Lakes. The success of these actions inspired the founding of other environmental organizations across Canada and led to the development of initiatives now taken for granted, such as waste reduction and energy policy. This book describes the heady days of Canada’s early environmental movement and examines the forces that reshaped the activist landscape in the 1980s. | The First Green Wave by Ryan O'Connor, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters