Environment

The following is an eight-part series about Danielle Nierenberg's visit to the Ecumenical Association for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development's (ECASARD) work in Ghana. Cross posted from Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

Part I: Working with the Root

OPP calling us “resisters” – phone calls, visits, background checks on WCO members

http://windconcernsontario.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/opp-calling-us-resis...

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Continued from here.

The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement Reconsidered

ENGOs sign over right to criticize, companies continue to log caribou habitat
by Dawn Paley

VANCOUVER—Last week’s announcement of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement (CBFA) was celebrated by environmental groups as a historic deal that could save a significant amount of sensitive woodland caribou habitat....

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The 71-page agreement has yet to be released on the CBFA website. The Vancouver Media Co-op obtained a leaked copy shortly after the deal was announced.

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Cull of 220,000 seals on Sable Island would cost $35 million: study

Published: Thursday, May 27, 2010 | 6:22 PM ET
Canadian Press Michael MacDonald, The Canadian Press

HALIFAX - Plans to transform the windswept dunes of Sable Island into a national park have taken an ominous turn with the release of a study that explores in chilling detail how 220,000 of the island's grey seals could be exterminated over five years.

There used to be another thread on eco-consumerism but I can't seem to find it. Anyway, has anyone here heard of Carrotmobs? They seem to be a fascinating combination of flashmobs (which are themselves depoliticized reprises of the Situationists' "Happenings" of the 1960s and 70s) and eco-capitalism: let's get together and buy, giving businesses extra advertisement and green credentials in the process, so that we can pay for energy-efficient upgrades they should be investing in anyway!

It seems sleeping on Soya bean oil based foam mattresses has come into vogue recently.

Now when I think of soy I think 90%+ GMO and displaced people in Paraguay.  I guess the image of soy is still strongly associated with earnest nature loving vegetarian in the public psyche and this somehow means that even those who refuse to eat tofu might still feel better about themselves sleeping on it.

Tell me what it is like if you happen to be there and to be interested in the border between art and science.

Its free. 

Brian

http://artandsciencefair.ca/

Saturday May 8, 12pm – 4pm
Harbourfront Centre
235 Queen’s Quay West, Toronto
Free, open to the public

The Too Cool For School Art & Science Fair was invented to turn the spotlight on the unexpected feats of imagination and exploration that are happening all around us (an exhibition will follow in November).

50 exibits

Gravely concerned with energy privatization in Ontario

Ontarians are paying private corporations to privatize our energy.
Yet, private energy providers have cut many of our fellow citizens from accessing energy, leaving them behind in the dark and in the cold. People have been brought down to the level where they are begging for some energy in welfare offices.

Private energy has taken away from us our ability to decide as a community about the future of our energy, a life – or- extinction issue in the times of global warming.

Canada is apparently in consultation with major energy companies to open up the arctic for deep sea oil well exploitation, by "relaxing" our environmental safeguards and regulations.  I haven't even heard of this prior to this column in the globe, and i read several papers a day.  Not surprising, like the europe trade agreement, SPP, etc.

from the globe:

This week 300 protesters traveled to Queen's Park to voice their concerns over industrial wind projects. These people were dismissed as Not-In-My-Back-Yarders... maybe crazy. Because who in their right mind would say wind turbines are not green? It's a given... isn't it?

Lately, I have been attending kitchen-table meetings in regards to industrial wind turbines and I'm no longer convinced that wind turbines are "green" bullet we've been waiting for. 

Does Ontario have a formalized energy policy? If so Ontario's so called energy policy is very much in dispute with many different kinds of interests claiming that elusive policy as their own. Take Nuclear Power in Canada - Appendix 1 for example:http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf49ai_Ontario_Energy_Policy.html Or consider the following:Excerpted from: What Went Wrong with Ontario's Energy Policy? Compiled for Central Bruce-Grey Wind Concerns Ontario By Keith Stelling, MA, (McMaster) MNIMH, Dip. Phyt., MCPP (England), 10 April, 2010 http://windconcernsontario.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/what-went-wrong-w...

http://windconcernsontario.wordpress.com/2010/04/14/oxford-county-wind-p...

Wind Conerns Ontario seems to be commenting on every wind farm and or wind turbine project in Ontario.

At first I thought this group were advocates promoting wind power as an alternative source of energy. In fact, it seems as if Wind Concerns are concentrating on everything that either has or can go wrong with the development of wind power in Ontario.  

Hey all, I just posted an In Cahoots article from TakingITGlobal, and thought babblers might be interested in this 40 day low carbon lunch challenge.

Personally, I'm horrible at bringing lunches from home to begin with, so I always end up buying lunch at work.  Which is not only hard on my pocketbook but also on the environment.

So I'm thinking seriously about signing up for this challenge.  Anyone want to sign up with me?

People unite! = not in anyone's backyard : coal, gas, nuclear.

 Current energy system comes at the expense of water. We absolutely cannot afford this. We absolutely need water. And we absolutely need energy.

 We all can absolutely have both - and more!

Our communities will not be pitted against each other. No matter how much one wants to be a NIMBY, and push their woes onto other communities or disregard the plight of other communities created through our lack of energy sufficiency, what looks like an isolated struggle is the struggle for the whole earth.

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With strong breezes blowing early Sunday afternoon in West Texas, wind-power generation hit a record 6,242 megawatts on the Electric Reliability Council of Texas' grid, which serves most of the state.

Looking at Canada's Looming Water Crisis Now: Some Alternative Viewpoints and Leads.

First Nations Perspectives 2010

1)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awYb1sJAy2A 

2)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YPOUPgv5CY&feature=related

McGill University Water Conference 2010

Just a shout out for slowing down and paying attention.  I almost missed the fact that the hills are alive with the sound of wild bee sex...and even when I was sitting there with my camera pointing at it, people who were walking be asked me if I was documenting soil erosion.