Issues, ethics, memory
In April 2014, scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued their fourth report, which said more clearly than ever that climate change is occurring as a result of human activity. Carbon emissions are being trapped in the atmosphere and warming the planet. The scientists said that if we do not reduce fossil... Continue Reading →
Thousands of Canadians converged upon Ottawa earlier in August for a Peoples’ Social Forum that attracted a diverse group of individuals from the Indigenous, labour and student movements, as well as churches and human rights organizations. Over four days, the forum featured about 500 workshops and assemblies — an overwhelming variety that made for difficult choices.... Continue Reading →
A Peoples’ Social Forum (PSF) which has been several years in the planning will occur at the University of Ottawa on August 21-24 and organizers are expecting thousands of people to attend. There will be more than 500 workshops and presentations, as well as assemblies and cultural activities. In a statement of purpose, which introduces... Continue Reading →
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is auditing at least a dozen environmental, poverty reduction and human rights organizations in what is a thinly-disguised attack by the Conservatives against groups that have dared to oppose government policies. Those groups, most of them small to medium-sized organizations, have to endure the stress and expense involved in the... Continue Reading →
People in New Brunswick have launched two lawsuits in an attempt to stop shale gas development, commonly known as fracking, in their province. One of the actions was launched against the Crown in the persons of the Health Minister and the Attorney General by individuals who belong to the New Brunswick Anti-shale Gas Alliance (NBASGA), an organization... Continue Reading →
No one was surprised when the Harper government approved the 1,200-kilometre Northern Gateway pipeline, which would move diluted bitumen from the Alberta tar sands to Kitimat, B.C., along the west coast. There, the product would be loaded onto supertankers that will ply the pristine Douglas Channel and the coast before making its way to export... Continue Reading →
I have participated in numerous discussions about climate change and usually they veer off into talking about recycling, composting or church greening. But those efforts, while personally commendable, are completely inadequate. "The key is scale," according to the editors of the book, Living Ecological Justice. "The problems lie with how we have organized our economy... Continue Reading →
IPCC scientists say climate change is real, Polaris Institute image Early in April, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its fourth - and most urgent - report on the dangers posed by climate change. The IPCC was created in 1988 by the United Nations, and its reports present the best thinking of hundreds... Continue Reading →
By Dallas McQuarrie, Saint-Ignace, New Brunswick When 150 RCMP officers, a sniper team and dogs stormed a previously peaceful camp of those protesting against shale gas exploration near Rexton, New Brunswick on October 17, our community and the protest were vaulted into national and international news. What did not show up on most of the... Continue Reading →
There is an important public policy backdrop to the disaster that befell the good people in Lac Mégantic, Quebec in July, when a freight train — with five locomotives and 72 tanker cars — jumped the tracks. The crude oil leaked and then exploded, killing at least 47 people, destroying much of the town, and contaminating... Continue Reading →
Pulpit and Politics 