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.
Please join us for The Responsible Trade Summit!
Halifax - June 20, 2017
Ottawa - June 23, 2017
Presenters include legal and trade representatives from leading NGOs, academia, labour and more!
Areas of discussion:
--UPDATE-- US pulls out of Paris Climate Agreement
US President Donald Trump told the world during his Presidential campaign that the United States will break its promise to join the fight against climate change, and is set to announce his decision regarding the Paris Climate Agreement today at 3 pm, Eastern Time.
“Is there anyone among us who has the courage to stand and say, will tomorrow’s child know the wonders I see today?”
Wonders I’ve Seen by The Bills (2016)
This year the Canadian Parks Conference 2017 was held in Banff National Park at the Banff Centre, overlooking Banff town and the Bow Valley from March 8-11..
Hosted by the Alberta Recreation and Parks Association with its partners the Canadian Recreation and Parks Association, and the Canadian Parks Council, the conference, which included many invited speakers and three hundred attendees, was an inspired four days of discussion.
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.
At this very moment, whale mother and calf pairs are heading north to their Canadian home waters.
It’s a perilous time for them, both for the journey north itself, and for what awaits them when they arrive in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Right whales are on the brink. Sierra Club Canada Foundation has been at the forefront in the fight to protect them. We know when proper measures are put in place, whales are protected and fewer whales will die. You can help save the 400 remaining right whales.
We can’t have another summer of losses like we did last year.
A few weeks ago, I saw my first butterfly of the season. After a winter of erratic weather, and in the midst of this current health crisis, the sight of this beautiful little creature – its brilliant orange set ablaze against forlorn spring grass, with its wings gently fluttering – was a gift to my eyes and my heart. (It was not a Monarch. I’m still researching – perhaps it was a painted lady (Vanessa cardui?)
Gather 'round young Wild Ones for a reading of The Hugging Tree!
At home with kids while in #isolation? Check out this reading, and stay tuned for more activities for your #QuarantineLife and #COVID19Kids activities.
Stay healthy and well!
COP25, a conference that began with a flurry of media attention, ended December 15th after falling woefully short of expectations. The UN climate change conference was plagued with bad luck before it had even begun. Brazil had originally planned to hold COP25, but reversed its decision only two months after agreeing to host. Chile replaced Brazil as host, but withdrew with only a month left before the conference, after weeks of mass protests in response to inequality in the country.
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.
