Treading Water on Climate Change

Sierra reacts to Environment Commissioner's report

MEDIA RELEASE 
October 7, 2014 

OTTAWA – The Environment Commissioner’s audit documents Canada’s lack of action on climate change, preventing pollution from the Tar Sands and lack of preparation for increasing shipping in the Arctic.

“Canada is treading water on climate change, Tar Sands pollution and arctic shipping,” said Sierra Club’s John Bennett. “We need legislation, regulation and enforcement.”

The Environment Commissioner found Environment Canada is doing a reasonable job tracking Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, but is making little headway on reducing emissions or living up to Canada’s international commitments.

An organic gift for you!

An organic gift for you!

A few weeks back I received a call from Dihan Chandra, owner of the eco-store OrganicLifestyle.com.

Impressed by our work, he offered to donate 10% of his profits from purchases made between October 6 and 15, 2014. I said that’s great!

But that’s not all. Organic Lifestyle is also offering you and all of our supporters 10% off any purchase over the same time period. What could I say but - happy to pass it along!

To conserve or not to conserve?

Our Ontario heroes at the Green Energy Coalition (GEC) have saved Ontario-rate payers billions on their gas and electricity bills over the years.

They did it by convincing the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) to uphold and enforce strong energy efficiency rules.

It is the hard slogging research, legal, and economic work that gets little attention or recognition because it's complicated, boring and absolutely essential.

So I want to give the GEC a shout-out of gratitude.

GEC’s David Poch and Kai Millyard do their work quietly in the background, so when they expressed exasperation the other day, I sat up in my chair.

Important matters the GEC are pursuing need more support, so I thought: “It’s time to lend them a hand”.

Something has gone wrong at the OEB and unless we marshal a lot of support, years of work and billions spent on smart meters and other conservation measures will be lost.

More Mississauga Riparian Restoration Opportunities: Oct 2014

ACER (Association for Canadian Educational Resources) has a number of programs but one very special one is their use of citizen scientists to collect climate change data. This year ACER is planting a number of sites to restore forests around Lake Ontario and is seeking volunteers to plant and help with monitoring of trees. Their Riparian Rangers program.

As a volunteer for Riparian Rangers Mississauga you will gain hands-on knowledge concerning the restoration and monitoring of riparian ecosystems. Specifically, volunteers will clean the sites so they are free from litter, identify and remove invasive species, as well as measure and monitor 10% of each tree species that has been planted in terms of growth and health.

Volunteers will be needed for two restoration sites:

Religious and Indigenous Leaders: Canada, United States need to modernize Columbia River Treaty

President Obama and Prime Minister Harper urged to right historic wrongs and advance water stewardship

MEDIA RELEASE
September 23, 2014

Today religious and indigenous leaders urged President Obama and Prime Minister Harper to start negotiations to modernize the Columbia River Treaty. Both nations need to work together to right historic wrongs and promote water stewardship in the face of climate change. The letter, signed by 14 religious leaders and 7 indigenous leaders representing nearly all Tribes and First Nations in the Columbia Basin, transmitted a Declaration on Ethics and modernizing the Columbia River Treaty as a foundation for international negotiations.

Response to federal announcement on vehicle emissions regulations

MEDIA RELEASE, September 22, 2014

"Copycat regs that don't kick in for a decade is just more baffle gab from a do-nothing government," said John Bennett, National Program Director, Sierra Club Canada Foundation.

"Now, if Canada actually had regulations like what's coming in in the United States that would be great, and we'd say that," said Mr. Bennett. "But we don't actually have anything like that. We just have a fog machine of perpetual hollow announcements."

"If the federal government was serious about climate change they would be rolling out regulations for the oil and gas sector," concluded Mr. Bennett.

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