John Bennett's blog

I recently wrote two letters (which can be found below) to Ottawa City Council over two separate, but related issues in regard to urban sprawl and a proposed road that will adversely affect the future of a local endangered population of Blanding's Turtle.

Sierra Club Canada is a grassroots organization.  We have representation throughout Canada and part of the reason for our existence is to help out local communities.  Our current efforts around the Blanding's Turtle are not unique.  As an example, in Comox Valley, British Columbia we are currently in court to prevent a gas station from being built on a watershed.... Read more »

Sierra Club Canada was called extremist last week by a Saskatchewan radio personality in an article published in the Regina Star Phoenix.

Why is a bald father of three who is concerned about what kind of future his daughters will have an "extremist"? Why is wasting a billion dollars of taxpayers' money not a matter of concern to a person with Mr. Gormley's political outlook? These are questions that had my head shaking this week.

For our society to progress and flourish we must eliminate: ignorance, attachment and aversion. Mr. Gormley appears to be clinging tightly to all three. His path of pointing figures and calling names is a symptom.

The well-funded disinformation campaign of the climate change deniers is playing on our ignorance of science, our attachment to our lifestyle and our aversion to change.... Read more »

Anyone out there been looking through the weekend Canwest papers lately? – You may have noticed this great read.

It seems Shell Canada has taken it upon itself to explain climate change. Apparently scraping up and burning every glob of tar in Alberta is part of the solution. And a lot of nice photogenic people work for Shell too!

What I don't understand is why the company is so shy about letting us readers know it is paying Canwest to print full-page ads in its papers across the country.

On two occasions Shell lobbyists have tracked me down here in Ottawa. They have been very proud of their company's many innovations, efficiencies and cleaning up of pollution – they are often ahead of most other oil companies in Canada in this regard. So why not come right out and say, "these are ads we are paying for with some of the money we made selling oil?”... Read more »

One of the reasons I still read the newspaper (besides being old) is the chance you might come across something you're not looking for.  You can't google, "What might be important or interesting?"

I was flipping through the Globe and Mail this morning and accidentally discovered a case of corporate blackmail.  It was subtle and I would not have spotted it without the words "environmental rules" in the title (Yes, I could have googled "environmental," but I would have received thousands of meaningless hits).

UTS Energy Corp apparently owns 20% of the proposed Foot Hills tar sands mine and last week it announced it was lowering its estimate of the recoverable bitumen (natural form of tar) reserves.  The company says only 490 million barrels can be economically extracted from the 2 to 4 billion barrels at the site.  Why is this?... Read more »

Riding on the bus this morning I was pondering how good Québec Premier Jean Charest looked standing up to Jim Prentice, Minister of the Environment, this week. 

On Monday, Mr. Prentice attacked Québec for establishing California standards for car emissions which are tougher than the Xeroxing of U.S. federal fuel economy regulations that Mr. Prentice had his staff do in order to create national mileage regulations for Canada.  Prentice talked about Quebec going alone when in fact there are 14 U.S. states and four other provinces in Canada that are all going down the same road.... Read more »