Enough with the doom and gloom. My friend the great Blue Heron is about to catch a fish!

    He may, however, be simply scratching his neck.

Dear Mr. Garon,

CC: The Honourable Steven Guilbeault, The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos

I am writing to you make sure that the Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act(Bill S-5) that will modernize the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) remains a top priority for you and members of your party this fall.  

It has been more than 21 years since CEPA was last updated, leaving people in Canada exposed to toxic chemicals and harmful pollution. This reality — amid the climate emergency, plastic pollution crisis, and inequitable distribution of environmental risk — make strengthening CEPA an urgent priority.  

It is essential that political leaders work together to strengthen Bill S-5 and pass this legislation into a law that better protects the environment and the health of all people in Canada — particularly the Indigenous, Black, and racialized people, workers, and people with disabilities marginalized by successive Canadian governments. 

The passing of Bill S-5 by the Senate this past June was an important milestone that has put us one step closer to recognizing the human right to a healthy environment. While recognition of the right to a healthy environment in CEPA is a significant step forward for environmental justice in Canada, and although Senators made important amendments to Bill S-5, Members of Parliament also have an opportunity to make critical improvements. 

Bill S-5 offers a workable starting point for many much-needed improvements to the Act that ensure that a 21st-century law protects Canadians from 21st-century threats. The bill should be amended to provide further support of the right to a healthy environment by entrenching the principles of environmental justice, non-regression, intergenerational equity, and protection of vulnerable populations. 

I urge you to work with your colleagues in the House of Commons to prioritize Bill S-5, and move to quickly to strengthen the bill and pass it into law. We cannot wait another 21 years for this important law to be up to the task of protecting us from everyday threats.  

--------------------------

IF YOU NEED SOME GOOD IDEAS FOR CONFRONTING CLIMATE CHANGE...

 HERE THEY ARE!

 THE  INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY VERSUS A CHANGING CLIMATE...

PROBLEMS.

1.    Who is going to win this combat to the death? 

2.    Can mass extinction of life be avoided? 

3.    How fast can we transition to a non-polluting Green economy?

4.    Will a Green economy be possible?

5.     Why was human population growth never honestly

        regulated with better education and birth control methods?

6.     How can we deliver clean air and water to cities in trouble?

7.     How do we explain to millions of industrial companies that they have to stop creating products that pollute the environment and transition to products that enhance nature.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------  

ANSWERS.

1.  A mass extinction of life is possible. Our current political and industrial paths are creating dangerous climate change today, as I write these words. The evidence is absolute.

2.  It may be possible to reverse and avoid climate change with tremendous effort on the part of governments and world industrial companies. Presently the process is extremely slow.

3.  If Two Billion people plant one Tree each tomorrow, that will be Two Billion trees more for the planet. Early education is important towards this goal and world schools should prioritize Nature and Botany and Biology. In other words...how to grow and plant Trees inside and outside school buildings. Fruit trees are fun to grow! 

4. A Green economy is possible with government incentives. Paying people to plant Fruit Trees and Vegetable Gardens and Flowers everywhere will help redirect our present out-of-control industrially polluting economy. It is also possible to recycle office buildings into Hydroponic vertical Gardens and to remove Salt from Ocean water.

5. Religious beliefs based on traditions and not on science has sadly blocked scientific progress for centuries. Birth control remains a controversial subject and that does not bode well for our Homo Sapient species. Education is the key. If you begin to feel sick, whom do you visit first, a priest or a doctor? Answer: A Doctor.

6.  We have to pump water from our Oceans to our cities and also to irrigate our farm lands. Pumping water to irrigate forests will help to clean the air we breath as larger forests will provide more Oxygen. To do this governments must create incentives to build large pumping stations, preferably powered with Solar Panels or Wind and/or Water powered turbines. Stations that have the duel purpose of pumping water from our Oceans and removing Salt from the water are desperately needed in places like Ethiopia. 

 7. We explain to world companies that they no longer have a choice. Life has priority over money. Companies can transition from making useless products to creating life enhancing products. They can also make a profit by producing life enhancing products. Go Green or go broke!

8. Recycling Bio waste is good business for farmers and gardeners, however, recycling plastic and metal and paper is more difficult even if it is absolutely necessary. With government incentives, recycling metal and plastic and Biomass will become profitable businesses.

 Sending clean H2O into our cities and towards our farm lands and forests has now become a priority for governments around the world. We should transition much faster away from Oil and towards the production and delivery of clean water from our Oceans to the most arid parts of our planet. 

We should have started producing Salt removing  pumping stations long ago. 

N.J.R.

Kind regards,

Nelson Joseph Raglione

The World Friendly Peace and Ecology Movement.

human4us2.blogspot.com

human4usbillions@gmail.com

 THE  INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY VERSUS A CHANGING CLIMATE...

PROBLEMS.

1.    Who is going to win this combat to the death? 

2.    Can mass extinction of life be avoided? 

3.    How fast can we transition to a non-polluting Green economy?

4.    Will a Green economy be possible?

5.     Why was human population growth never honestly

        regulated with better education and birth control methods?

6.     How can we deliver clean air and water to cities in trouble?

7.     How do we explain to millions of industrial companies that they have to stop creating products that pollute the environment and transition to products that enhance nature.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------  

ANSWERS.

1.  A mass extinction of life is possible. Our current political and industrial paths are creating dangerous climate change today, as I write these words. The evidence is absolute.

2.  It may be possible to reverse and avoid climate change with tremendous effort on the part of governments and world industrial companies. Presently the process is extremely slow.

3.  If Two Billion people plant one Tree each tomorrow, that will be Two Billion trees more for the planet. Early education is important towards this goal and world schools should prioritize Nature and Botany and Biology. In other words...how to grow and plant Trees inside and outside school buildings. Fruit trees are fun to grow! 

4. A Green economy is possible with government incentives. Paying people to plant Fruit Trees and Vegetable Gardens and Flowers everywhere will help redirect our present out-of-control industrially polluting economy. It is also possible to recycle office buildings into Hydroponic vertical Gardens and to remove Salt from Ocean water.

5. Religious beliefs based on traditions and not on science has sadly blocked scientific progress for centuries. If you begin to feel sick, who will you visit first, your doctor or your priest? Most educated people will answer, my Doctor. 

  Birth control remains a controversial subject and that foolish controversy does not bode well for our Homo Sapient species. Education is the key. Biology and Botany must have first priorities within our school systems and Sex should never be treated as a taboo subject. If you are a young and healthy man or woman, ask your doctor about good birth control methods.

 6.  We have to pump water from our Oceans to our cities and also to irrigate our farm lands. Pumping water to irrigate forests will help to clean the air we breath as larger forests will provide more Oxygen. To do this governments must create incentives to build large pumping stations, preferably powered with Solar Panels or Wind and/or Water powered turbines. Stations that have the duel purpose of pumping water from our Oceans and removing Salt from the water. 

 7. We explain to world companies that they no longer have a choice. Life has priority over money. Companies can transition from making useless products to creating life enhancing products. They can also make a profit by producing life enhancing products. Go Green or go broke!

8. Recycling Bio waste is good business for farmers and gardeners; however, recycling plastic and metal and paper is exceedingly more difficult even if it is absolutely necessary. With government incentives, recycling everything could become a more efficient business.

 Sending clean H2O into our cities and towards our farm lands and forests has now become a priority for governments around the world. We should transition much faster away from Oil and towards the production and delivery of clean water from our Oceans to the most arid parts of our planet. 

We should have started producing salt-removing  pumping stations long ago. Today, Solar Panels and off-short Wind Mills can help produce the electricity needed to power pumping stations. 

N.J.R.

 

March 2-6: Wandering in the woods

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Filatyev’s exhausted convoy was ordered to push ahead to storm Mykolaiv and Odessa, though the Russian campaign had already begun to stall. Filatyev described how his unit wandered in the woods trying to reach Mykolaiv, about 40 miles away. He recalled asking a senior officer about their next movements. The commander said he had no clue what to do.

The first reinforcements arrived: separatist forces from Donetsk, mostly men over 45 in shabby fatigues. According to Filatyev, they were forced to go to the front lines when many regular Russian army soldiers refused.

A discarded military uniform remains by trenches that Russian soldiers dug to defend their position outside Vynohradivka, Ukraine, in late March. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)

Diary of a Russian soldier.

 Feb. 24: Rolling into war with no plan

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At about 4 a.m. I opened my eyes again and heard a roar, a rumble, a vibration of the earth. I sensed an acrid smell of gunpowder in the air. I look out of the truck and see that the sky is lit bright from volleys.

It was not clear what is happening, who was shooting from where and at whom, but the weariness from lack of food, water and sleep disappeared. A minute later, I lit up a cigarette to wake up, and realized that the fire is coming 10-20 kilometers ahead of our convoy. Everyone around me also began to wake up and smoke and there was a quiet murmur: ‘It’s started.’ We must have a plan.

Feb. 25: Collecting corpses from the road

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Somewhere around 5 in the morning they wake everyone up, telling us to get ready to move out.

I lit a cigarette and walked around. Our principal medical officer was looking for a place to put a wounded soldier. He constantly said that he was cold, and we covered him with our sleeping bags. I was told later that this guy had died.

We drove on terrible roads, through some dachas, greenhouses, villages. In settlements we met occasional civilians who saw us off with a sullen look. Ukrainian flags were fluttering over some houses, evoking mixed feelings of respect for the brave patriotism of these people and a sense that these colors now somehow belong to an enemy.

Diary of a Russian soldier.

Aftermath: Remaining silent no longer

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I survived, unlike many others. My conscience tells me that I must try to stop this madness. … We did not have the moral right to attack another country, especially the people closest to us.

This is an army that bullies its own soldiers, those who have already been in the war, those who do not want to return there and die for something they don’t even understand.

I will tell you a secret. The majority in the army, they are dissatisfied with what is happening there, they are dissatisfied with the government and their command, they are dissatisfied with Putin and his policies, they are dissatisfied with the Minister of Defense who did not serve in the army.

The main enemy of all Russians and Ukrainians is propaganda, which just further fuels hatred in people.

I can no longer watch all this happen and remain silent.

Diary of a Russian Soldier.

Feb. 15: Gearing up before the invasion

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I arrived to the training ground [in Stary Krym, Crimea]. Our entire squadron, about 40 people, all lived in one tent with plank boards and one makeshift stove. Even in Chechnya, where we only lived in tents or mud huts, our living conditions were organized better. Here we had nowhere to wash up and the food was horrible. For those who arrived later than the rest, me and about five other people, there was neither a sleeping bag, nor camo, armor, or helmets left.

Feb. 23: Bracing for something serious

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The division commander arrived and, congratulating us on the [Defender of the Fatherland] holiday, announced that starting from tomorrow, our salary per day would be $69. It was a clear sign that something serious is about to happen. Rumors began spreading that we are about to go storm Kherson, which seemed to be nonsense to me.

 Diary of a Russian Soldier.

Feb. 26-28: Advancing on Kherson

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Filatyev’s convoy made its way to Kherson and surrounded the local airport, looting stores in villages along the way. On the third day, the convoy received the order to enter Kherson. Filatyev was told to stay behind and cover the front-line units with mortar fire if necessary. He recounted hearing distant fighting all day. The southern port city would become the first major Ukrainian city that Russia captured in its invasion.

Russian troops enter vital port city Kherson

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March 1: Acting like savages

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We marched to the city on foot … [around 5:30 p.m.] we arrived at the Kherson seaport. It was already dark, the units marching ahead of us had already occupied it. Everyone looked exhausted and ran wild. We searched the buildings for food, water, showers and a place to sleep, someone began to take out computers and anything else of value.

Walking through the building, I found an office with a TV. Several people sat there and watching the news, they found a bottle of champagne in the office. Seeing the cold champagne, I took a few sips from the bottle, sat down with them and began to watch the news intently. The channel was in Ukrainian, I didn’t understand half of it. All I understood there was that Russian troops were advancing from all directions, Odessa, Kharkov, Kyiv were occupied, they began to show footage of broken buildings and injured women and children.

We ate everything like savages, all that was there was, cereal, oatmeal, jam, honey, coffee. … Nobody cared about anything, we were already pushed to the limit.

 Diary of a Russian Soldier:

Into mid-April: Holding from front-line trenches

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From now on and for more than a month it was Groundhog Day. We were digging in, artillery was shelling us, our aviation was almost nowhere to be seen. We just held positions in the trenches on the front line, we could not shower, eat, or sleep properly. Everyone had overgrown beards and were covered in dirt, uniforms and shoes began to fray.

[Ukrainian forces] could clearly see us from the drones and kept shelling us so almost all of the equipment soon went out of order. We got a couple of boxes with the so-called humanitarian aid, containing cheap socks, T-shirts, shorts and soap.

Some soldiers began to shoot themselves … to get [the government money] and get out of this hell. Our prisoner had his fingers and genitals cut off. Dead Ukrainians at one of the posts were plopped on seats, given names and cigarettes.

Due to artillery shelling, some villages nearby practically ceased to exist. Everyone was getting angrier and angrier. Some grandmother poisoned our pies. Almost everyone got a fungus, someone’s teeth fell out, the skin was peeling off. Many discussed how, when they return, they will hold the command accountable for lack of provision and incompetent leadership. Some began to sleep on duty because of fatigue. Sometimes we managed to catch a wave of the Ukrainian radio, where they poured dirt on us and called us orcs, which only embittered us even more. My legs and back hurt terribly, but an order came not to evacuate anyone due to illness.

I kept saying, “God, I will do everything to change this if I survive.” … I decided that I would describe the last year of my life, so that as many people as possible would know what our army is now.

By mid-April, earth got into my eyes due to artillery shelling. After five days of torment, with the threat of losing an eye looming over me, they evacuated me.

Paratrooper Pavel Filatyev writes, “This is an army that bullies its own soldiers.” (Courtesy of Pavel Filatyev)

  HAPPENING NOW: Greenpeace demands stronger nature protections in Montreal.

Salomé Sané, Greenpeace Canada <greenpeace.canada@greenpeace.ca> Unsubscribe	3:40 PM (4 hours ago)
to me

      

Nelson,

How do you get a politician to listen to your demand for system change? You paint a giant mural right next to where they work. That’s what Greenpeace activists, volunteers and allies are doing right now at Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault’s office in Montreal. We’re taking to the streets to demand a strong Nature & Biodiversity Act in advance of the biggest nature protection event of the decade—the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

The best way you can support our activists on the ground is by sharing this Instagram post to your IG story and tagging @stevenguilbeault. We have proof that Steven Guilbeault checks his Instagram story mentions, so this is the very best way to draw his attention to our action.

Share our post to your story and tag @stevenguilbeault

Nelson, the decisions global leaders make at the CBD are existentially significant. We have just eight years to reduce emissions by 50% to prevent total climate chaos and the potential collapse of human civilization. [1, 2] Protecting vast swaths of ocean and natural ecosystems (which absorb carbon and stabilize the climate) will be absolutely critical to this effort. So why—when we have less than a decade to stabilize emissions—is Canada approving new oil projects in ecologically significant areas [3] and shoving pipelines through rivers during salmon runs? [4] Enough is enough. We need major system change that deeply respects the inherent value and limits of nature. A strong Nature & Biodiversity Act that shifts power from corporations to communities, creates permanent funding for Indigenous stewardship, and establishes an action plan to achieve nature protection targets is an important first step to creating this change. That’s why we’re taking to the streets of Montreal today.

You’ve already signed our petition advocating for a strong Nature & Biodiversity Act. Now, will you support our activists on the ground by sharing our Instagram post to your story and tagging @stevenguilbeault to ensure that our message is heard loud and clear? (Not on Instagram? You can also leave Steven Guilbeault a message at his House of Commons office: 613-992-6779)

Share our post to your IG story and tag @stevenguilbeault

Thank you for reading and thank you for caring.    Onwards,   Salomé Food & nature campaigner, Greenpeace Canada

Notes: [1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220602095102.htm   [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/01/climate-endgame-risk-human-extinction-scientists-global-heating-catastrophe   [3] https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2022/04/06/2418066/0/en/Bay-du-Nord-approval-shows-a-lack-of-regard-for-sensitive-marine-ecosystems-WWF-Canada.html   [4] https://b98ee3e43c.clvaw-cdnwnd.com/0ddab7883313337bddc394249446ba5f/200000758-559a1559a3/Salmon%20in%20Danger%20Press%20Release%20August%2011%2C%202022.pdf?ph=b98ee3e43c

Greenpeace doesn't accept any money from companies or governments so we can be independent and challenge anyone who threatens the planet or peace. To help us keep fighting climate change, defending our oceans and protecting ancient forests, please make a regular donation or start a fundraiser. Thank you!   You can grow the movement for a green and peaceful future. Forward this email and share the signup link for our regular email updates and ways to take action.   This email was sent to: human4usbillions@gmail.com Are we sending too many emails? Click here to receive fewer emails.

Greenpeace, 33 Cecil Street, Toronto, Ontario M5T 1N1 Unsubscribe Manage preferences Time is not on the side of humanity.           We need government action. today!!           Greenpeace demands stronger nature protections in both Montreal and Laval where condo development is running out of control. By cramming thousands of people on a few acres of city land, Condo developers are asking for trouble! There will be traffic problems and sewage problems and without sufficient Green spaces for children, greedy developers are creating slums! Slums are breeding grounds for drug gangs and violence!  N.J.R.