In order to preserve our planet, we need to learn to live in harmony with nature. On both the national and the local level, the Sierra Club Canada Foundation is engaged in promoting ways to live in a sustainable fashion.
I'm devastated to report that the licence for oil and gas drilling has been approved in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and there’s not one thing whales can do to stop it.
We're not giving up and neither are they.
At this very moment – mile by mile, heading north – they’re coming back.
Over the next few weeks, blue whales will be making their way back to Canadian waters.
It’s the holidays, and I can’t get this song out of my head, and those beautiful words sung by our beloved Joni Mitchell,
I wish I had a river.
Admittedly, the song is a good dose of melancholy, and some longing for home, a longing for Canada, where the landscape is rich with rivers so long you could teach your feet to fly.
Breathing is easier “beyond coal.”
In 2007, before the shut down of the coal-fired power generating plants in Ontario, there were 29 smog days and 11 smog advisories in Toronto. It seemed that almost every hot day there was choking smog. At that time, I couldn’t even escape to my cottage in the Kawarthas. That same year, there were 21 smog days and 8 smog advisories in Peterborough County.
Things are heating up in our campaign to protect the blue whale and the Gulf of St. Lawrence and I want to share the latest news with you!
Thirteen years ago, I was hired as a consultant to provide expert advice on the impacts of the Digby Quarry. The local community had become alarmed about the quarry when they heard about plans to build a marine terminal at the site. Clearly, the quarry, which was originally 3.9 hectares –the size of quarry that eludes environmental assessment in Nova Scotia –was going to be much larger than they had thought. Turned out, a 120 hectare quarry was planned, located 50 metres from the shoreline.
You get us to the highest courts so we can fight to protect the world's most endangered whales.
You demand protections for our irreplaceable Great Lakes.
You fiercely call for a ban of pesticides that are killing bees and other pollinators so critical to the functioning of our ecosystems.
It's our turn to thank you.
Two major environmental victories have taken place recently, derailing important parts of the war on the environment. Both victories saved programs to plant trees. Trees are critical to rescuing Lake Erie from massive algae blooms brought on by the twin evils of deforestation and phosphorus pollution.
By David Poch, Green Energy Coalition
On March 21st Ontario Minister of Energy, Greg Rickford, released Bill 87, entitled Fixing the Hydro Mess. But rather than sustainably reducing consumer bills in Ontario it will enlarge the economic and environmental mess that past energy policies are visiting on the province.
by Leslie Adams, SCO Executive Committee member
I hope that parents, school principal, and school board representatives in fact everyone! read this. This year April 4, 2019, is Healthy Schools Day (HSD) in Canada, every year Annually HSD highlights an important challenge to children’s health and the environment. Recognizing that awareness of an issue does not go far enough, HSD also outlines actions to take. The 2019 campaign focus is on the health impacts of diesel engine exhaust emissions and ways to reduce risk through exposure for the health of all.
On Monday, February 25th, we will be in court arguing that the licence to drill in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is illegal.
Our National Program Director Gretchen Fitzgerald has a little VIDEO MESSAGE for you.
Wishing you and yours a peaceful and safe New Year.
Melissa Munro - Director of Development and Communications
Help support Sierra Club Canada Foundation’s efforts to save the bees through our partnership with Armstrong and Blackbury. Until December 19, buy 3 Solitary Pollinator Bee Nests for $60. Be a safe haven this holiday season!
WHY A BEE NEST?
(Photo by Charissa Val Straalen) Two years ago, over 49 non-governmental organizations across Canada and the USA signed on to a letter asking both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Barack Obama to address issues pertaining to a series of shipments of liquid radioactive waste from Chalk River in Ontario to the US Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. These shipments were along public roads and over bridges crossing the Great Lakes.
In our last post in this urban sustainability blog series, we talked about waste reduction within and outside of the home. In this post, we’ll be talking about another way that Ontarians can reduce their environmental footprint – water reduction. (Photo: David Kovalenko)
Our last post in the urban sustainability series saw us giving advice on how to take advantage of alternative modes of transport to help reduce single-occupancy vehicle commutes in Ontario. Now, we are switching gears to focus on another growing problem in societies of all shapes and sizes: waste. Waste accumulation is leading to pollution on a massive scale, leading to severe consequences for wildlife and humans alike.
