Local climate justice campaigns
The climate crisis demands urgent action. International climate negotiations and faltering and the Canadian government remains committed to being an energy superpower focused on export-oriented energy trade. We need to be vigilant in our demands for international and national action, but we are nearing the time when actions could be too little and too late. In this context, people coming together in their communities plays a vital role in advancing climate justice. The Council of Canadians is committed to working with our chapters and allies to advance local campaigns to challenge climate crimes, advance real solutions to the climate crisis and broaden the Canadian movement for climate justice.
Examples of local climate justice campaigns include stopping a highway or fracking (drilling technique to access unconventional natural gas) project, participating in transition towns and coalitions demanding public and community ownership of renewable energy projects.
For more information about the Council of Canadians, Climate Justice: Take Action for People and the Planet campaign, refer to our webpage.
Local campaign updates
Join the Wave against the Pave! The grassroots movement for better transit not freeways.
 The proposed South Fraser Perimeter ‘Road’ freeway would greatly increase greenhouse gas emissions, pave over some of BC’s best farmland, scar the delicate banks of the Fraser River, pollute elementary school playgrounds, and damage indigenous heritage sites. It is an outdated and irresponsible waste of public money that will worsen the climate crisis. We need to shift resources from climate crimes to creating green jobs and climate justice including solutions like public transit and electric passenger trains, and protecting communities from flooding and other effects of climate change. This local climate justice campaign is an initiative of activists from local B.C. Council of Canadians chapters, GatewaySucks.org, the Critical Criminology Working Group and others. Find out more here.
Event update:
On April 22, 2011, Mother Earth Day, a mass direct action was held against the South Fraser Perimeter Road in British Columbia. It was organized by three chapters of the Council of Canadians (Delta-Richmond, Surrey-White Rock-Langley, and Vancouver-Burnaby), StopthePave.org, and the Critical Criminology Group. Demonstrators set up barricades, planted trees and pitched tents in an effort to hold the space and keep the highway contractors out.
Media:
BLOG: Mass Direct Action in B.C.: Interview with Participant, April 23, 2011
Read more blog posts concerning the South Fraser Perimeter project here. |
Resources
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Leave it in the ground: Atlantic chapters oppose offshore drilling in
St. Lawrence
Atlantic Council of Canadians chapters are united in their concerns over potential oil and gas drilling in the St Lawrence Gulf. The area, called 'Old Harry' is a very productive, diverse and important marine environment that is already under great stress from marine shipping, decades of overfishing, land based pollution and now climate change. What we need to do is rehabilitate and conserve this Canadian treasure. What we do not need is petroleum development with its many environmental problems and huge potential for an accident like the one in the Gulf of Mexico.
Atlantic chapters are committed to raising awareness and building opposition to oil and gas development in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Raven Underground Coal Project
The Comox Valley chapter is currently fighting the proposed 'Raven Underground Coal Project', a coal mine to be located about five kilometres from Baynes Sound in the Cowie Creek and Tsable River drainages. The sound is the narrow western off-shoot of the Strait of Georgia that separates Vancouver Island from the mainland of British Columbia. The mine would be a threat to those waters, while the use of the coal itself is highly polluting.
The chapter held a "Civil Disobedience Workshop" on June 5, 2011 to teach community members how to prevent problems while trying to get points across to governments and corporations.
The first public hearing on the proposed Raven coal mine took place in Courtenay, BC on May 30, 2011. Read more here.
Read related blog posts here.
Nuclear energy is a false solution to the climate crisis
The Council of Canadians Peterborough-Kawarthas chapter is a member group in Safe and Green Energy (SAGE). This group is intervening on the building of two new nuclear reactors on the north shore of Lake Ontario near Clarington (about 22 kilometres from Peterborough). On March 21, 2011, SAGE took part in a Joint Review Panel tasked with conducting a public consultation. Topics addressed over the course of the hearing include emissions, human health, land use, aquatic biota and habitat, and the management of conventional and nuclear waste. The licence to prepare the site could be issued before the end of 2011.
SAGE Peterborough to Ontario Power Generation Inc., Public Hearing,
March 21, 2011
The Council of Canadians rejects nuclear power because it poses an unacceptable risk to people and the environment. It is neither clean, safe, peaceful, nor economic. We are opposed to the further expansion of nuclear power in our country. Faced with climate change and diminishing energy resources globally, we recognize the need for a just transition away from a fossil fuel and nuclear dependent society, while ensuring Canadians access to basic energy needs, to sustainable, publicly funded and publicly delivered energy alternatives that benefit both workers and their communities. We support renewable, non-invasive energy sources (such as solar and wind power), energy efficiency and conservation.
Read related blog posts here.
During the UN climate negotiations held in Cancun from November 29 to December 10, 2010, the Council of Canadians joined by the Indigenous Environmental Network, KAIROS and the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, hosted People's Assemblies on Climate Justice across Canada. Read a report-back on these assemblies and find resources for hosting assemblies here.
