Sierra in the News
2012-02-03 10:33
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Alberta Tar Sands and Mackenzie River Delta, Climate Change, Alberta Tar Sands Pipelines, Energy Onslaught
Federal Environment Minister Peter Kent and his Alberta counterpart Diana McQueen will take the wraps off a new oilsands monitoring program Friday afternoon.
Environmental groups are anxiously awaiting the details of the plan which has been in the works for more than a year.
The Executive Director of Sierra Club Canada says it's imperative the plan be totally independent of government and industry interference.
John Bennett says Canadians also want assurances that industry is...
2012-02-01 11:35
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Alberta Tar Sands and Mackenzie River Delta, Climate Change, Alberta Tar Sands Pipelines
A B.C. environmentalist claims in a sworn affidavit the Harper government labelled him and his organization, ForestEthics, an "enemy of the government of Canada" and an "enemy of the people of Canada" and threatened to pull the charitable status of its funder, the Tides Canada Foundation, because of ForestEthics' opposition to the Northern Gateway pipeline and tanker project exporting tarsands oil to China.
Tides Canada is a major social-policy and environmental...
2012-01-25 23:34
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Alberta Tar Sands and Mackenzie River Delta, Climate Change, Alberta Tar Sands Pipelines, Energy Onslaught, Atmosphere & Energy
ForestEthics whistleblower Andrew Frank claims that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office is resorting to threats to quell environmental opposition against the Northern Gateway pipeline. There have been conflicting reports on what actually happened at Frank’s organization, but for others in the environmental community his serious allegations come as no surprise.
In an open letter and signed affidavit, the former ForestEthics communications manager...
2012-01-25 22:22
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Nuclear Phaseout, Nuclear Subsidies, Radioactive Waste, Nuclear-Free Canada
TOKYO—Former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan returns to the world stage this week, part of a campaign to reinvent himself as a global antinuclear activist nearly a year after he oversaw his government's widely criticized handling of the Fukushima Daiichi accident.
"I would like to tell the world that we should aim for a society that can function without nuclear energy," he said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, previewing his speech scheduled for Thursday...
2012-01-25 21:48
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Alberta Tar Sands and Mackenzie River Delta, Climate Change, Alberta Tar Sands Pipelines, Energy Onslaught, Atmosphere & Energy
The Harper government says it doesn’t want foreign influence on opposition to a proposed oil pipeline from Alberta to the B.C. coast. The PM and his Environment Minister, Joe Oliver, say American radicals are funneling money into Canadian environmental branches to unfairly challenge the project at National Energy Board hearings that began Tuesday.
Canada pursues trade agreements with countries the world over, allowing foreign interests a say in how we do business. Northern Ontarians...
2012-01-24 16:49
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Alberta Tar Sands and Mackenzie River Delta, Climate Change, Alberta Tar Sands Pipelines, Energy Onslaught
I watched the CBC news program Power and Politics last week when they had representatives from the Sierra Club and the group Ethical Oil discussing the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline project. Host Evan Solomon repeatedly asked Kathryn Marshall, from Ethical Oil, if her group receives funding from Enbridge or any other oil companies with a stake in the pipeline project.
Marshall kept insisting Ethical Oil “is a small grassroots, public advocacy organization. We don’t take any...
2012-01-23 20:23
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Alberta Tar Sands and Mackenzie River Delta, Climate Summits, Alberta Tar Sands Pipelines, Energy Onslaught
Imperial Oil, a sponsor of the Museum of Science and Technology exhibition "Energy: Power to Choose," was actively involved in the message presented to the public, according to emails obtained by CBC News.
The Ottawa museum unveiled the exhibition last year despite criticism from environmental groups like the Sierra Club who said it was in part funded by the Imperial Oil foundation, which contributed $600,000 over six years.
The museum had defended the decision, saying it received...
2012-01-23 20:08
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Alberta Tar Sands and Mackenzie River Delta, Climate Change, Alberta Tar Sands Pipelines, Energy Onslaught, Forests and Biodiversity, Transition to Sustainable Economy
Where will you be and what will you be doing when the first giant oil tanker (there will be two every three days), carrying over 200,000 gallons of tar sands goop diluted with solvent, spills its load into the pristine waters of the northern B.C. coast?
We often remember catastrophic events by recalling exactly what we were doing and where we were when we first heard the news, I guess because they were so unthinkable they brought us to a halt, emotionally and psychologically— time...
2012-01-21 17:58
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Ecosystems, Forests, Forests and Biodiversity, Wilderness and Species Conservation, Protecting Biodiversity, Transition to Sustainable Economy
B.C. scientists are among more than 133 experts from across North America joining the call for permanent protection of old-growth rainforests in Clayoquot Sound.
All have signed a declaration supporting the measure, which stands against a recent application to the provincial government by the logging company Iisaak to cut old-growth areas on the sound's Flores Island. The company is a First Nations-led concern that espouses forestry practised in concert with ecological and cultural...
2012-01-17 12:22
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Nuclear Phaseout, Nuclear Subsidies, Government, Radioactive Waste, Nuclear-Free Canada
After the Fukushima nuclear accident, Canadian health officials assured a nervous public that virtually no radioactive fallout had drifted to Canada.
But last March, a Health Canada monitoring station in Calgary detected an average of 8.18 becquerels per litre of radioactive iodine (an isotope released by the nuclear accident) in rainwater, the data shows.
The level easily exceeded the Canadian guideline of six becquerels of iodine per litre for drinking water, acknowledged Eric Pellerin...
