By Don Lieber There are many reasons to reject fossil fuels now, after 200 years of their reign as society’s primary energy source. History will articulate both the benefits provided to human society derived from fossil fuel energy technologies from 1750 to the present—and the extensive costs. In addition to transportation, electricity, industrial power, military […]
Today, Phil Ball from Oxford, England, became the second to last detainee of the Arctic 30 to be released from detention in St. Petersburg, according to Greenpeace. Colin Russell is the lone activist remaining in jail, where his lawyers are lodging appeals against his continued detention. They expect a hearing this week. All but one member of […]
On Thursday, Environmental Defence hosted Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and former U.S. Vice-President and Chairman of the Climate Reality Project, Al Gore, at an event to announce the elimination of coal-fired electricity in Ontario. The largest coal plant in North America—Nanticoke Generating Station on the north shore of Lake Erie—will stop burning coal this year. […]
Imagine for a minute that for generations, you and your family lived on ancestral lands abundant with wildlife and a beautiful river running through it. Like every youngster born in your family, one of your elders took you out to the river and patiently taught you how to swim and fish in the warm summer […]
By Daryl Hannah and Phil Radford All around the globe, record numbers of people from all walks of life are being thrown into jails because they are standing up to protect the most basic of human needs—uncontaminated water, unpolluted lands and a liveable climate free from the ramifications of extreme fossil fuel extraction. If the greed-driven fossil fuel […]
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock The Sacramento Superior Court upheld California’s cap-and-trade program just five days before the fifth scheduled carbon auction. The California Chamber of Commerce and Pacific Legal Foundation filed lawsuits claiming the one-year-old program, which auctions off the right to emit greenhouse gases, was unconstitutional. The court sided with the state, which countered that auctioning carbon permits […]
Thank goodness for Dr. James Talbot, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health. After 14 days of stonewalling by the Alberta Government, he released some of the water test results from the gigantic 1 billion litre coal slurry spill into the Athabasca River from the Obed Mountain coal mine near Hinton, Alberta. Paula Simons of the […]
Today, Sir Paul McCartney published a personal letter on his blog addressed to Russian President Vladimir Putin in which the ex-Beatle called for the release of the Arctic 30. The Arctic 30—made up of 28 Greenpeace International campaigners and two freelance journalists—were arrested eight weeks ago following a peaceful protest against Arctic oil drilling. In his letter, […]
As Alberta Premier Alison Redford heads to Washington D.C. this week to push U.S. officials on the Keystone XL project, a coalition of Canadian environmental groups wrote a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry asking him to consider the impacts of tar sands production on human health and the environment, as well as the failures by […]