HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVID SUZUKI!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVID SUZUKI! Donate in honour of David’s 89th

To be honest, Nelson, inflation means the critical work David cares most about is more costly than ever. Donors makes this work possible. But some dedicated long-term supporters have had to reduce — even cancel — their gifts. Though they’re facing similar pressures, generous donors have stepped up to help fill the gap. But it’s not enough. Can you help?

Over the last year, donors like you helped: Power a win for renewables. In December, Canada passed clean electricity regulations. This bold step for climate action also means cleaner air, lower energy costs and thousands of jobs. Promote renewable power for all. Our research shows Canada can end our addiction to oil, gas and coal and move to affordable, reliable, nationwide zero-emissions electricity by 2035 — in just a decade! Advance a cap on oil and gas emissions. More than 25,000 people sent messages via our website to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for its pollution. Now we’ll push ALL parties and candidates to address this important policy in their election platforms. Secure methane regulations. B.C. strengthened its methane emissions regulations for the oil and gas sector in September. We’ll continue to push for federal regulations to be finalized as soon as possible to stop harmful methane emissions. End public fossil fuel financing. In July, Canada finally delivered on its promise to turn off the tap on most taxpayer handouts to the fossil fuel industry. The next step: end ALL public financing to these polluting companies that are raking in record, obscene profits while polluting our country. …and more! We can’t stop now. Your gift today will keep work like this going, turning up the pressure on Canada to prevent catastrophic global heating by: Leaving fossil fuels in the ground. Switching to 100 per cent renewable energy. Protecting natural areas that sequester carbon, prevent flooding and erosion, maintain water supplies and remind us that we humans, too, are part of the web of life. These actions are needed to solve the climate crisis. And they ARE POSSIBLE if we act together NOW. If David has ever inspired you, please consider expressing your solidarity with what he stands for with a special donation in honour of his 89th birthday.

My gift for David’s birthday

Thank you for caring about protecting the people and places you love. Jasmine Yen Director, Development P.S. Other generous donors will match all gifts made by midnight March 24 up to $47,500! P.P.S. When you make your birthday gift, you can include a personal note for David. He’ll love reading your message.

This email was sent to human4usbillions@gmail.com. To configure which emails we send you, please manage your content preferences here. If you no longer wish to receive any email from the David Suzuki Foundation, you can unsubscribe at any time. The David Suzuki Foundation is a registered charity in both Canada (BN 127756716RR0001) and the United States (94-3204049). We are located at 340-1122 Mainland St., Vancouver, B.C. V6B 5L1, and we also have offices in Montreal and Toronto. Please visit our website for more information on how to contact us.

HOW MANY MORE ARE GOING TO DIE?

 Dear President Trump:

It is not a damn card game! Your murderous friend, Putin, who learned to murder in the K.G.B, continues his murderous rampage and you don't seem to care! He pretends to be your friend but Putin is a psychopathic narcissist without morals or ethics and he will not stop after stomping on Ukraine.

How many more will have to die before you wake up!? Putin will not stop after completely destroying Ukraine!  

N.J.R.

GLOBAL CHARTER OF ETHICS FOR EVERYBODY WITH A TELEPHONE CAMERA.

GLOBAL CHARTER OF ETHICS FOR JOURNALISTS

The IFJ Global Charter of Ethics for Journalists was adopted at the 30th IFJ World Congress in Tunis on 12 June 2019. It completes the IFJ Declaration of Principles on the Conduct of Journalists (1954), known as the "”Bordeaux Declaration

TThe right of everyone to have access to information and ideas, reiterated in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, underpins the journalist's mission. The journalist's responsibility towards the public takes precedence over any other responsibility, in particular towards their employers and the public authorities. Journalism is a profession, which requires time, resources and the means to practise – all of which are essential to its independ- ence. This international declaration specifies the guidelines of conduct for journalists in the research, editing, trans- mission, dissemination and commentary of news and information, and in the description of events, in any media whatsoever.

1. Respect for the facts and for the right of the public to truth is the first duty of the journalist.

10. The journalist will consider serious professional miscon- duct to be
n plagiarism
n distortion of facts

2. In pursuance of this duty, the journalist shall at all times defend the principles of freedom in the honest collection and publication of news, and of the right of fair comment and criticism. He/she will make sure to clearly distinguish factual information from commentary and criticism.

3. The journalist shall report only in accordance with facts of which he/ she knows the origin. The journalist shall not suppress essential information or falsify any document. He/she will be careful to reproduce faithfully statements and           other material that non-public persons publish in social media

4. The journalist shall use only fair methods to obtain infor- mation, images, documents and data and he/she will always report his/her status as a journalist and will refrain from using hidden recordings of images and sounds, except where it is impossible for him/her to collect information that is over- whelmingly in the public interest. He/she will demand free access to all sources of information and the right to freely investigate all facts of public interest.

5. The notion of urgency or immediacy in the dissemination of information shall not take precedence over the verification of facts, sources and/or the offer of a reply.

6. The journalist shall do the utmost to rectify any errors or published information which is found to be inaccurate in a timely, explicit, complete and transparent manner.

7. The journalist shall observe professional secrecy regarding the source of information obtained in confidence.

8. The journalist will respect privacy. He/she shall respect the dignity of the persons named and/or represented and inform the interviewee whether the conversation and other material is intended for publication.                                                 He/she shall show particular consideration to inexperienced and vulnerable interviewees.

9. Journalists shall ensure that the dissemination of information or opinion does not contribute to hatred or prejudice and shall do their utmost to avoid facilitating the spread of discrimination on grounds such as geographical, social or ethnic origin, race, gender, sexual orientation, language, religion, disability, political and other opinions.

n slander, libel, defamation, unfounded accusations

11. The journalist shall refrain from acting as an auxiliary of the police or other security services. He/she will only be required to provide information already published in a media outlet.

12. The journalist will show solidarity with his/her col- leagues, without renouncing his/her freedom of investigation, duty to inform, and right to engage in criticism, commentary, satire and editorial choice.

13. The journalist shall not use the freedom of the press to serve any other interest and shall refrain from receiving any unfair advantage or personal gain because of the dissemina- tion or non-dissemination of information. He/she will avoid - or put an end to - any situation that could lead him/her to a conflict of interest in the exercise of his/her profession. He/she will avoid any confusion between his activity and that of advertising or propaganda. He/she will refrain from any form of insider trading and market manipulation.

14. The journalist will not undertake any activity or engage- ment likely to put his/her independence in danger. He/she will, however, respect the methods of collection/dissemina- tion of information that he / she has freely accepted, such as "off the record", anonymity, or embargo, provided that these commitments are clear and unquestionable.

15. Journalists worthy of the name shall deem it their duty to observe faithfully the principles stated above. They may not be compelled to perform a professional act or to express an opinion that is contrary to his/her professional conviction or conscience.

16. Within the general law of each country the journalist shall recognize in matters of professional honour, the jurisdic- tion of independent self-regulatory bodies open to the public, to the exclusion of every kind of interference by governments or others.

International Federation of Journalists

Particulate matter is everywhere...everywhere...everywhere!

 

Does it matter?

Particulate matter is in the air!

It glues to my car and sticks in my hair!

It darkens my windows! I can't see through...

What do you think it's doing to you?

My lungs are in trouble!

It's Cancer they say...

They don't mention how particulate matter poisons my day!

Where does it come from?

What does it do?

What do you think it's doing to you?

N.J.R.

INTELLIGENCE IS A WONDERFUL THING! Why not find some?

Intelligence is a wonderful thing!

Gentle Citizens of the World: 

 Intelligence is a wonderful thing! It allows human beings to compete for food and territory with each other and with the other species on this planet. Also, and because of our intelligence, we survive better and more comfortably than do animals who are living in the wild and who are attempting to co-exist with us. Unfortunately because of our intelligence, we have beaten and killed and dominated the other species into near extinction!  Many species including our beautiful Lions and Elephants and Tigers are losing the struggle for basic survival while we humans proliferate into the billions. The few solutions we have attempted to create in order to slow our human birth rate, have been disallowed by our prolific religious world leaders and a majority of our world politicians who unfortunately are not, in most part, educated in basic science. All the other species are now subject to us! The trees and plants and microbes and germs and viruses are no exception. Humans are masters of the planet!  I am ashamed to be a human who is forced to witness the destruction of other life forms, because with the possible exception of dangerous viruses,  I am willing to share this planet and to help protect the other species co-existing with me.  I refuse to be pushed off this planet by destructive human polluters!

 We Homo Sapiens have created tools and guns and ways to murder each other and as many other species as have the temerity to exist or stand in our way! We are foolishly and ignorantly proud of our so-called "industrial progress" and that industrial progress has been destroying and not enhancing life on Earth. If it were the other way around I would not feel the need to write these words!

 I now ask you, on behalf of the other species who cannot ask, to please create and enforce stronger anti-pollution laws and to actively work to save the natural environment of this planet!

 Please create and place economic value on products that help nature and do not destroy nature. Please reward those humans who create life enhancing products and stop economically rewarding those who create products that pollute and harm life on Earth! That would include guns and bombs, fossil fuels and gas burning cars and destructive chemicals and industrial products that do us all harm! Please slow or stop the Media advertising of such destructive products! 

 We humans are highly intelligent and we can use our collective imaginations for creating cities filled with flower gardens and trees and roof-top green houses. Cities filled with Bicycle paths and Electric vehicles and quick non-polluting mass transit systems. We certainly can use our half empty office buildings at night for creating living spaces for homeless people and for plants and even for small animals. We must ban the internal combustion engines from our city streets and destructive fossil fuels and polluting chemicals from our lives. We do have wonderful alternatives ready for use.

 We can improve our mass transit systems and we must lower Electric Bus fares for the poor and elderly who are the ones  left out and behind when you speak about growing the middle class.

We can create buildings that allow for quiet rooms where people could go and sit and relax without the mind disturbing incessant noise now permeating large shopping malls.

You can even place shopping-malls under ground and place large Geodesic Domes filled with plants and trees and small animals above the shopping malls.

You can do all of these wonderful things or you can do nothing and watch as nature, now polluted by humans, silently turns against life on Earth. 

Thanks for reading this letter!

Joseph Raglione

Executive director: The World FriendlyHumanitarian Peace and Ecology Movement.

at December 22, 2014 No comments: 

Meu querido amigo: Valdemar Oliveira.

É com grande alegria que leio as tuas cartas!

Elas provam que estás vivo neste mundo em rápida mudança

 de entropia dinâmica... 

E a tua vida e força é um exemplo para eu seguir...

Para me manter a lutar pela sobrevivência na minha frágil forma de Homo Sapient...

Uma forma que em breve será substituída por uma forma de vida mais forte e mais inteligente...

O robot!

Onde máquinas artificialmente inteligentes, sem emoções, podem pensar mais depressa do que os humanos e ultrapassarão a evolução em mil anos, num único dia...

Onde os robôs demasiado rápidos para a avaliação moral humana criarão robôs melhores e mais rápidos, a menos que nós, humanos, actuemos como Deuses e criemos emoções para os robôs com uma moralidade programada que englobe conceitos de certo e errado e com consequências de encerramento para os robôs que escolham os conceitos errados e de encarceramento para os humanos que violem as leis morais humanas.                         

Mais de um trilião de sensores ajudarão a inteligência artificial a compreender que tudo é energia em constante mudança... e que dentro da eternidade, eles também mudarão ou desaparecerão.                                    

                                                                                                    Estou contente por estarmos ambos vivos para caminhar para o futuro!        

                                                                                                O vosso amigo no Canadá,

Nelson J. Raglione 

WHY WE CAN NEVER GO BACK TO THE PAST.

THE WORLD FRIENDLY HUMANITARIAN PEACE AND ECOLOGY MOVEMENT.

Why we can never go back to the past.     

  The past is dissipated energy. Moments in the past were captured by photographs and film, video recordings and human memory, all of which today help us remember.

 The past can be simulated and copied in the present but never regained. The present, for better or for worse, has new moments of changing energy which can be shaped and defined to create future energy patterns depending on how you feel and act and what choices you make.

  With present moments, you can prepare for the future and even though the present is continually changing, we as human beings can alter our present energy patterns to affect the future. In other words, we do not have to accept a future filled with pollution and never ending wars and devastating global warming.  We can alter the present to create a nurturing and sustaining future for all life on Earth but remember, we are late, very late!

The Portuguese Poet is over 90 years old.

My Dear Friend: Valdemar Oliveira.

I am overjoyed to read your letters!

They prove you are alive in this fast changing world

 of dynamic entropy… 

And your life and strength is an example for me to follow …

To keep me fighting for survival in my fragile Homo Sapien form...

A form soon to be replaced by a stronger and more intelligent life form…

The robot!

 Where artificially intelligent machines wthout emotion can think faster than humans and will surpass evolution by a thousand years, within a single day…

Where robots too quick for human moral evaluation will create better and faster robots unless we humans act like Gods, and we create emotions for robots with programmed morality encompassing right and wrong concepts, and with shut-down consequences for robots who choose the wrong concepts and incarceration for humans breaking humanitarian legal laws.                         

A billion sensors will help artificial intelligence understand that all is energy constantly changing…and that within eternity, they also will either change or dissappear.                                      

                                                                                                     I am glad we are both alive to walk into the future!        

                                                                                                 Your Friend in Canada,

Nelson J. Raglione 

THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP, YOU SICK OLD FOOL!

 Dear President Trump:

  The expansion of the L.N.G. natural gas pipeline depends on the support of Canadian Banks and U. S. investors.

 16.7 billion Dollars of support can be slowed or halted by U.S. Tariffs on Canadian bank customers.

As an ecologist who has tried for years to halt pollution created by fossil fuels, I solute your effort to do exactly that in one single tax move, even if you do not know what you are doing!

What I could not do during years of effort...block the transportation of planet killing oil and gas fossil fuels...you can do in one month with high tariffs on consumer products created from Oil.

Thank You !

Signed: Nelson J. Raglione

International journalist and Greenpeace activist.

P.S. It is obvious that you want our Oil and Gas and Minerals and you believe, like your friend Putin believes with Ukraine, that all you have to do is walk in and take what you want! Well guess what, we are not helpless and we do not owe you and your fossil fuel loving friends, a God Damned thing! The environment movement will continue long after you and your cronies and the Russian influence, are pushed out of the American government.

STOP CANADIAN BANKS FROM FUELING LN.G. TIME BOMB!

Press Release  

Climate | Our Work

Canadian banks’ and investors’ unrestricted support for LNG is fueling a future climate bomb

Laura Bergamo

13 December, 2024 •

TORONTO – Canadian banks are pouring billions of dollars into the global expansion of liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals that could potentially unleash more than 10 gigatonnes of climate-wrecking greenhouse gas emissions, according to new research (1). The expansion of LNG depends on the support of banks and investors, with nine Canadian banks responsible for US$16.7 billion in support for expansion between 2021 and 2023 (2). Reclaim Finance and Greenpeace Canada warn that the emissions from these projects, which can be more damaging than coal, will breach net zero goals. They are urging banks to stop providing financial support to the developers of all new LNG projects, and to primarily stop financing export terminals.          

LNG development is booming, with 156 new LNG terminals planned by 2030. Oil and gas companies such as ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies, alongside LNG specialists such as Venture Global LNG and Sempra plan to massively expand their operations, despite International Energy Agency (IEA) projections showing over-capacity for the sector (3). 

These include 63 new export terminals, which could potentially unleash more than 10 gigatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the decade (4). This is almost as much as the annual emissions of all the coal plants in operation worldwide (5) and will inflict dangerous levels of air pollution and health risks on local communities (6).

Banks and investors are continuing to back these projects, with banks providing US$213 billion for LNG expansion between 2021 and 2023 globally. This includes nine Canadian banks, but just six of these banks were responsible for 97% of that support, with Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) (US$6.1 billion), and Scotiabank (US$5.5 billion) the biggest sources of finance (7).    The research identifies that investors globally held US$252 billion in assets of the top LNG developers for LNG expansion as of May 2024, with the 21 Canadian investors that invested the most in LNG expansion holding US$15.8 billion in LNG assets (8). 

Greenpeace Canada’s senior energy strategist, Keith Stewart, says “Just imagine how many clean energy projects or green homes we could have built with the billions that our banks have poured into LNG projects globally. While leading banks shift their money out of fossil fuels and into climate solutions, Canadian banks are doubling down on LNG projects that fuel the climate crisis and violate Indigenous rights.”

Although the six Canadian bankers providing the most finance for LNG expansion have all committed to align their activities with a 1.5°C pathway and to achieve net zero by 2050, none of the banks has taken steps to end finance for the expansion of LNG. In fact, RBC, Scotiabank and National Bank of Canada all significantly increased their financing for LNG expansion between 2021 and 2023.

Canadian banks are lagging behind their European counterparts. Dutch bank ING has committed to end all financing for new LNG export terminals from 2026 (9), and Barclays, BNP Paribas, BPCE, Crédit Agricole, HSBC and Société Générale have all introduced some restrictions on financing for LNG export terminals.

Reclaim Finance oil and gas campaigner, Justine Duclos-Gonda, says: “Oil and gas companies are betting their future on LNG projects, but every single one of their planned projects puts the future of the Paris Agreement in danger. Banks claim to be supporting oil and gas companies in the transition, but instead they are investing billions of dollars in future climate bombs. LNG is a fossil fuel and new fossil fuel projects have no part to play in a sustainable transition.” 

Reclaim Finance and Greenpeace Canada are urging banks and investors to adopt comprehensive policies to stop providing financial support to the developers of all new LNG projects, and to primarily stop financing export terminals.

ENDS

Contacts 

• Justine Duclos-Gonda, oil and gas exit campaigner, Reclaim Finance, justine@reclaimfinance.org 
• Laura Bergamo, Communications Campaigner, Greenpeace Canada. laura.bergamo@greenpeace.org ; +1 438 928-5237
• Helen Burley, International press relations, helen@reclaimfinance.org, tel +44 7703 731923

52.3% of all foreign owned companies in Canada, are owned by the United States..

 I wonder if president Trump understands how Tariffs imposed on Canada, will effect the U. S. owned 52.3 percent share of all foreign industries operating in Canada? In essence, he will be creating grief for his own companies.

 

I am hoping he will relent on his threat to impose business closing 

tariffs across Canada. Tarifs will create misery for the small companies now relying on the current Canada / Us trade relationship. It will also slow down the larger companies, as for example, Amazon and Tesla and possibly even General Motors will shift towards Europe and China for cheaper parts and lower tariffs and smoother trade relationships. The billionaires now cooperating with the U. S. government, may decide to shift allegence rather than lose their billions.

N. J. R.

Why does Trump want more oil drilling?

Photo: Cal Fire via Flickr

Los Angeles wildfires illustrate climate “whiplash” effect The raging infernos devastating the Los Angeles area are tragic and horrifying — thousands of homes lost, at least 100,000 people under evacuation order or in emergency shelters and dozens killed. One consolation is the number of people and organizations from all over that have stepped up to help —individuals, faith groups, food providers, firefighters from the U.S., Mexico and Canada and more. When tragedy strikes, good people pitch in. It’s also a tragedy that these wildfires weren’t unexpected. They’re mainly the result of a human-caused double whammy: climate change and urban sprawl. About 80 per cent of Los Angeles is zoned for single-family homes, so the city has built out into the surrounding hills rather than densifying. For decades, fires have burned through the “firebelt suburbs,” as the late activist and urban theorist Mike Davis called the L.A. outskirts 30 years ago. After each fire, communities were rebuilt, sometimes under relaxed building codes and standards to promote rebuilding, including around water pressure, access road widths and even fire codes. But these fires are worse than ever, powered by hotter, drier conditions for longer periods, buildup of flammable vegetation and strong, dry Santa Ana winds.

L.A. isn’t the first or only place to get hit by a climate-related disaster, nor will it be the last.

Suburban development also means suppression of natural systems. Native shrubs, bushes and small trees that made up much of the original landscape go through natural burning cycles — or, for centuries, cycles helped by Indigenous Peoples using controlled burns. Those smaller fires replenish soils, spread tree seeds, help small animals and prevent flammable vegetation from building up. Now, as masses of dead vegetation burn and spark larger fires, hills are denuded, which leads to more flooding and landslides. L.A. isn’t the first or only place to get hit by a climate-related disaster, nor will it be the last. These events are increasing worldwide as we burn more oil, gas and coal, rapidly increasing emissions and average global temperatures. Climate “whiplash” events — swings between very wet and very dry conditions — have increased between 31 and 66 per cent in most of the world since the mid-20th century, a recent study found. They’re expected to continue to rise exponentially, mainly because a warmer atmosphere holds more water — sucking moisture from waters and from soil and vegetation, creating drier conditions and then falling as torrential rain, causing floods.

These events are increasing worldwide as we burn more oil, gas and coal, rapidly increasing emissions and average global temperatures.

As the Guardian reports, the L.A. fires illustrate the whiplash effect, as “years of drought were followed by record-breaking winter rain and snow, leading to abundant grass and brush. Then a record-hot summer in 2024 and record-dry start to the rainy season dried out the vegetation enabling the terrible wildfires.” The Guardian also points to East Africa, where drought from 2020 to 2023 brought on food scarcity, followed by torrential rains later in 2023 that wiped out crops and displaced more than two million people. “In recent years, whiplash events have been linked to disastrous floods in east Africa, Pakistan and Australia and to worsening heatwaves in Europe and China.” According to the whiplash report in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, “increasingly rapid and large transitions between extreme wet and dry states are likely to challenge not only water and flood management infrastructure, but also disaster management, emergency response and public health systems that are designed for twentieth-century extremes.”

We must also learn to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate, with better planning and more attention to nature.

Disasters such as the L.A. wildfires are extremely costly in terms of lives, property, infrastructure, response and rebuilding — but they’re also preventable, to some extent. We’ve delayed the transition away from gas, oil and coal to renewable energy for so long that we’ve now reached a crisis stage when many more horrific climate impacts are inevitable — and far more unpredictable. But there are ways to avoid or reduce the impacts of some of the threats we’re facing. First, we need to leave remaining fossil fuels in the ground. We also have to design human habitation in sustainable ways, away from flood plains, slide zones and fire-prone areas. And we need to protect natural areas that sequester carbon, prevent flooding and erosion, maintain water supplies and remind us that we, too, are part of the web of life. We must also learn to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate, with better planning and more attention to nature. We simply can’t let the fossil fuel industry and its media and political lackeys call the shots when our health and survival are at stake.

By David Suzuki, with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor and Writer Ian Hanington

Read Online