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.
Do you have a passion for the environment and want to do something to help stop Climate Change? Would you love to be part of something bigger and make an impact in your community? Are you looking to get back in shape and achieve your 2017 fitness goals? Or... do you just simply enjoy running for the fun of it?
Few things are as spectacular and awe-inducing as a breaching humpback whale.
The sheer enormity of their body, with such strength and grace – blasting out of the water, seeming to defy the laws of gravity even just for a moment – is enough to take your breath away. It’s acrobatics and ballet on the largest scale, with a splash down that is out of this world!
It’s what they do, and it is what they have done for millennia.
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.
July 29, 2020, an important victory was won for the protection of the headwaters of Carruthers Creek. The Durham Regional Council, acting in response to an earlier motion by the Town of Ajax, and many residents, opposed a request by the City of Pickering to urbanize these lands through the imposition of a Ministerial Zoning Order. (MZO)
As July has come to an end, I want to thank everyone who joined Sierra Club and thousands across the Great Lakes, for the Plastic Free July Challenge. We had a great month administering the challenge and I hope those who participated enjoyed it.
Thirty-one days of refusing, reducing and reusing. Thirty-one days of activities and action against plastic pollution in Canada.
Il y a quelques semaines, j'ai vu mon premier papillon de la saison. Après un hiver au climat capricieux, et au milieu de la crise sanitaire actuelle, la vue de cette jolie petite créature - d’un orange flamboyant sur l'herbe morne du printemps, avec ses ailes qui battent doucement - a été un baume pour mes yeux et mon cœur. (Ce n’était pas un papillon monarque. Je suis toujours en train de faire des recherches - peut-être était-ce un papillon belle-dame (Vanessa cardui ?))
Although inconspicuously described as “Amendment Number I to the Ontario Growth Plan”, its impact if approved would be catastrophic. Amendment No. 1, would neuter the thrust of provincially directed land use planning, since it began to have an impact in a document entitled “Design for Development” (1966). It was also described as the Toronto Centred Region Plan.
By Dr. Lino Grima
Chair, Ontario Chapter
We all know how big a problem plastic pollution is – and it has not gone away while we’ve been trying to stop the spread of COVID-19.
This is why we invite you to join the Plastic Free July Challenge, a series of activities and actions being organized by the Sierra Club Ontario and the Great Lakes Forums’ Plastic Pollution Team.
Reducing plastic pollution will generate savings for businesses, towns, and governments, and generate tens of thousands of new jobs in Canada - a great way to build back better after COVID.
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!
