Sierra Club Blog Posts
Melbourne ISTSDay Report
Submitted by Derek Leahy on Sun, 2012-05-06 00:00
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - Slowly but surely the photos from International Stop the Tar Sands Day 2012 are creeping in. Since I had about a 10 hour head start on most ISTSDay events I had time to write this article about ISTSDay in Melbourne. The article has been published on line in DEMOTIX:
http://www.demotix.com/news/1194823/connecting-dots-climate-change-melbo...
The full text of the article is below. More photos of us and our 2 meter tall climate dot are in the DEMOTIX article or on facebook. I will have more May 5th tales for you in the coming days.
Enjoy!
Derek
MELBOURNE - 05/05/2012
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The New Story
Submitted by Derek Leahy on Thu, 2012-05-03 08:16
This post is dedicated to the organizers of Intenational Stop the Tar Sands Day 2012. This year was all about you.
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – The last four months have been a blur. I cannot recall a build up to ISTSDay that I remember so little of (no pun intended) as this year's. Obviously, I remember the first year's build up because well, it was the first time. With most things in life you never forget the first time. Moments from ISTSDay 2011 stick out quite clearly especially as I watched with awe and wonder as ISTSDay grew fivefold from nine events in 2010 to fifty in 2011. Here we are in 2012, just a day away from one of the biggest international days of action in human history (largely due to 350.org, but we played a role too) and I have no idea how we got here.
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Support the Freedom Train
Submitted by Derek Leahy on Tue, 2012-05-01 00:16
The First Nations Freedom Train against the construction of Enbridge's Northern Gateway Pipeline has begun and we want them to know they are not alone
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - Last year for International Stop the Tar Sands Day we asked people to create the best "Stop the Tar Sands!" banner, poster or artwork they could be muster, take a picture of themselves with their creation and send it in to us for our website. It worked out great! Take a look for yourself:
http://stoptarsands.yolasite.com/ists-day.php
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Bigger Picture
Submitted by Derek Leahy on Fri, 2012-04-20 02:41
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - Last Wednesday I was lucky enough to sit in on a coal seam gas (similar to shale gas)/quit coal campaign meeting here in Melbourne. I was really impressed with the level of organisation, and passion this group had and the amount of activities they had planned from the 'Quit Coal-a-palooza' concert to talking to people at farmers' markets. It also made me realize that no matter how much I would love to get these people involved in International Stop the Tar Sands Day in Melbourne most of them would probably be way too busy with their own campaign to participate. As disappointing as that may seem, I was actually alright with it. I just reminded myself of the bigger picture.
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Bike Rage
Submitted by John Bennett on Fri, 2012-04-13 15:02
This blog was going to be about “bike rage”. I witnessed an incident yesterday walking to work. I heard an angry yell and an expletive from a woman on bike enraged with the rider in front of her who was dawdling along in the bike lane chatting on his cell phone. The yell was so powerful and heartfelt you could feel the rage across the street. Yet, the dawdler didn’t seem to notice.
Before I could start typing however, I participated in a news conference on Parliament Hill. Yes, if I wear a tie and jacket they still let in the building (for how long?).... Read more »
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Who's Next?
Submitted by John Bennett on Wed, 2012-04-04 17:53
Sometimes you just don’t want to be right.
In the Sierra Club Canada national office we are busy preparing our 2011 annual report. As I go through my files from last year (wow – we certainly were busy) I came across an email that rattled me. It was the last email I sent to supporters in December. In it I outlined the disturbing developments we saw in 2011 and what I thought it all meant.
Much like watching troop movements across the frontier, I could see an impending invasion. The email, in fact, documented the beginnings of an all-out assault on environmental protection in Canada - and the protectors. We could see signs of it coming a couple of months earlier (I mused about it in my blog).... Read more »
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Thought Bubbles
Submitted by Derek Leahy on Tue, 2012-03-27 22:01
FRANKLIN, TASMANIA – I sat down in a café in Franklin, Tasmania the other day trying to sort out all that has transpired these past few weeks. You see, May 5thcould very well become a massive day of action. A lot of people from all over the world want to make their voices heard the week of May 5th. International Stop the Tar Sands Day’s circle of friends just got bigger.
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Government spokesman should apologize for derogatory and inacurate comments
Submitted by John Bennett on Thu, 2012-03-22 15:43
Dear Friends,
Below find a letter that I sent yesterday to Patricia Best of Natural Resources Canada.
It pertains to remarks she made to Canadian Press about Sierra Club Canada, which we feel are inaccurate and derogatory.
Sincerely,
John Bennett, Executive Director
Sierra Club Canada
jb@sierraclub.ca
Patricia Best, Director of Communications
Natural Resources Canada
21st Floor, Room C2-2
580 Booth Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0E4Wednesday, March 21, 2012M
Re: Apology
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First Nations the real target of government’s war on environment
Submitted by John Bennett on Wed, 2012-03-14 12:23
I may be a little more preoccupied with the government campaign to marginalize environmental groups (more than most) so apologies to those who feel I’ve been harping on this too much.
Speaking of harping … it’s Harp Seal hunt season and there is no ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence for to the seals to give birth (yet the government has given hunters a quota to kill 400,000 pups). Climate change is putting the seals and seal hunters out of business. A sensible government, one might think, would be putting the fossil fuel industry out of business in response. Instead, of course, it is trying to put people like me out of business.
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What worries me …
Submitted by John Bennett on Wed, 2012-03-07 18:45
If the twentieth century taught us anything, it taught us that concentrating too much power in the hands of a few is a very dangerous thing. In fact, the recognition of the necessity of keeping competing interests apart goes back a lot further.
Democratic countries have long upheld the importance of the separation of church and state. There are too many examples of excesses that can result from state enforcement of religious belief. Look no further than Iran for a real-time reason why.
We don’t, however, question the marriage of state and ideology - more specifically, government and big business - despite the havoc this union has caused over the past century. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, no? Even in the face of the (most recent) global economic meltdown – clearly caused by the excesses of laissez-faire capitalism - government and industry continue to grow closer.
UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIP... Read more »
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