Den Enews

Happy Pentecost

Welcome to the Enews. In this issue:

• The Feast of Creation on Sept.1st- an important celebration of Creation!

• An Editor’s thoughts on MSF’s Dispatches mag

• Save Our Old Forests needs petition volunteers

• Growing Forests investment opportunity

• lots of petitions

• Grandma cleans solar panels and needs help with herbs

Our very own Rev. Marian Lucas-Jefferies was invited to attend an international, ecumenical meeting in Assisi, Italy to discuss initiating an official Feast Day on September 1st. More information and exciting ways to kick off the Season of Creation can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10rBHfy0GlJwvcyqxoS8kLmFhpqzyoQyW/view

The editor received a copy this week of the Spring 2024 edition of the magazine Dispatches by Medicins Sans Frontiers. In Canada, climate change may bring us more storms than usual with increased precipitation or more droughts with wildfires but we fare better than many countries in the world. For an eye-opening read on the effects of climate change as lived by these global doctors in the field, I encourage you to read this issue. You can find it at: https://dispatches.doctorswithoutborders.ca/

Here are a few bullet points:

• _{“Those who wonder what climate change looks like should come to Mozambique,” says my colleague Adamo Armado Palame.”}

  _{“We are bearing the brunt of actions by the world’s most polluting countries. We now have malaria all year round and are struck by cyclone after cyclone.” https://dispatches.doctorswithoutborders.ca/article/from-the-deputy-executive-director}

• _{“Dengue is a public health crisis in Honduras and the wider region of the Americas. It is also a major global health threat and is rapidly spreading with reported incidence increasing 30-fold over the past 50 years. Today, more than half the world’s population is at risk and it is expected that another billion people will be exposed to dengue fever in the coming decades due to climate change” https://dispatches.doctorswithoutborders.ca/article/fighting-dengue-with-mosquitoes}

• _{In addition to multiple crises, including conflict and food insecurity, people in South Sudan have been affected by recurrent floods which, in certain regions, have reached unprecedented and catastrophic levels in recent years. The consequences of this phenomenon are disastrous: destruction of crops and livestock, forced displacement, malnutrition crises, contamination of drinking water and the spread of infectious diseases, including malaria.}

  _{“Land that was once arable is gradually being transformed into swampland, not seasonally as before, but permanently,” says Léo Lysandre Tremblay, lead for MSF’s Humanitarian Action on Climate and Environment unit, based in Canada. “These wetlands are incubators for the larvae of Anopheles mosquitoes that transmit malaria.” https://dispatches.doctorswithoutborders.ca/article/anticipating-malaria-peaks-amid-climate-change}

  If You are reading this issue of the enews you are probably not a climate change denier. Maybe you know someone who leans that way. Perhaps learning more about the global effects will help us educate others.

Do you like meeting people, collating data and feel you are making a difference? Here is a map where Save Our Old Forests is still looking for people to coordinate petitions until September 15, 2024!  Contact them here: https://saveouroldforests.ca/#:~:text=The%20Save%20Our%20Old%20Forests,and%20waters%20by%202030%3B%20and

_{Want more info on our Nova Scotia Forests. Check out the Facebook page for the Healthy Forest Coalition. “The Healthy Forest Coalition is an alliance of organizations and individuals united to raise public awareness of the critical state of our forests and the need for fundamental reform of forest policy.” Scroll down to read about the Lichen Camp striving to save the Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area and so many other critical efforts.}

Speaking of Forests, do you feel a need to put your money where your mouth is?

_{Growing Forests is a community of “ value-aligned shareholders” which is funded through investments in a Community Economic Development Investment Fund. From Dale Prest, the CEO and Chairperson: “We are offering a limited number of shares in the company for $100 per share, with a minimum share purchase of 5 shares. We restructured our share structure from our last offering to make joining Growing Forests as accessible as reasonable: our strength is in our numbers, and the more people that join our movement to save private forests the stronger we will be. With the money raised we will purchase more properties, similar to this 900+ acre forest I walked in the fall. “}

_{Shares may be purchased until the end of June.}

_{If you are interested, you can reach Dale at [email protected]}

_{Lots more information is available on their website https://www.growingforests.ca/}

_{Highway 413 is rolling ahead as a plan to cut forests, threaten precious farmland and species at risk, and rip through some of southern Ontario’s last remaining countryside. This mega-highway through the Greenbelt will destroy forests and wetlands. There are numerous examples of the harm, but one is the redside dace. This colourful minnow feeds on flying insects by leaping from the water! It acts as a conduit for nutrient transfers between terrestrial and aquatic environments, and the species can be used as an ecosystem health indicator since it is sensitive to environmental disturbances. The redside dace is listed as federally and provincially endangered. It only lives in Southern Ontario, with nearly 90% living in rivers and streams in the Greater Toronto Area. Highway 413 will destroy more than 65% of what is left of its habitat. Instead of protection, a choice is occurring to eradicate this creature. The Ford government is watering down its protections, the Ministry of the Environment Conservation and Parks is making changes without critical precautions, and plans for habitat destruction are moving forward. Take a moment to stand for the redside dace by telling our federal government to put an end to Highway 413!}

The Democratic Republic of Congo is the world largest supplier of copper and cobalt. These are critical minerals in lithium-ion batteries, which power many modern conveniences and play a major role in the energy transition away from fossil fuels. However, they come at a huge cost to the environment and human rights. The bottom of this supply chain, where almost all of the world's cobalt is coming from, has been called a horror show. Conditions are deplorable and mineral-rich regions are sacrificed to mining development and expansions. This has meant forced evictions and thousands losing their homes, schools, hospitals, and communities. Kolwezi is a town in the south that sits right about the mineral deposits. Despite being a home to more than 500,000 people, it’s a sacrificed zone now with water contamination and human rights abuses. Send a message to the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo asking to stop the mass evictions and to put people before profits.  

_{Join thousands of people across the country calling on Justin Trudeau and Steven Guilbeault to tax the excess profits of fossil fuel companies to pay for loss and damage, and fund a just transition to 100% clean energy that puts workers and communities first. Canada's oil and gas sector is making record profits. Meanwhile, the rest of us struggle with surging prices and more extreme weather. It’s time to make polluters pay their fair share with a Windfall Profits Tax.} 

_{The Outlaw Ocean Project and other experts continue to expose unthinkable atrocities in global seafood supply chains, including inhumane working conditions, neglect, murder, debt bondage, forced sterilizations, illegal antibiotic use…and the list goes on. Evidence reveals some of this seafood ends up on the shelves of North American grocers.  It’s time for grocers take true responsibility for the seafood they sell. Use the form in this link to urge Costco, Walmart, Sobeys, Loblaw, Metro, Save-On-Foods, and Buy-Low Foods to STOP the human rights atrocities and environmental harms in their seafood supply chains!}

_{Canada is about to build millions of new homes and the federal government has announced financial incentives for the construction of necessary new housing. But new homes shouldn’t be running on fossil fuels for heating and causing an increase in national greenhouse gas emissions. We have a much cleaner alternative for heating our homes than “natural gas” (more accurately: fossil gas) or other fossil fuels like oil: electric heat pumps! They run on electricity and lead to negligible emissions (depending on how the electricity is produced). They also provide lower monthly energy bills for residents and provide cooling in the summer.  As the federal government develops a Green Buildings Strategy, let’s demand they require new buildings run on electric heat pumps and provide additional support to retrofit existing buildings.}

Solar Panel Cleaning

_{When I pull out my tiny 10-watt solar panel to trickle charge my generator’s remote start in a winter power outage, I always wipe it off with a microfiber cloth. I know dust or dirt on the panel just reduces the amount of energy I can collect.}

_{You can’t do that with large solar panels on roofs or attached to stands in an area the size of a football field. All that dust and dirt still prevents energy collection.}

_{For images of Canada’s largest solar farm look at  https://thetyee.ca/Video/2015/11/23/Alberta-Hutterites-Solar-Farm/}

_{One company has come up with a way to have a self-cleaning solar panel.}

_{Solar panels are set up as usual except that there is a mechanism that goes across the panels that supply an electric current. This current burns off dust and dirt allowing the panels to have more clean collecting space.}

_{To add another twist, the cleaning mechanism gets its energy from windmills placed around the solar farms.}

_{https://www.intelligentliving.co/self-cleaning-solar-panel-device/}

_{Green Acres had a problem with weeds growing up around their solar panels. They did not like to use chemicals to kill the weeds.}

_{An answer to weed problems on other came with flocks of sheep, called green grazing or solar grazing.}

_{Sheep like to gnaw grass down to the ground, something that is appreciated when you want to keep plants away from the solar panels. Some solar companies hire farmers to graze their sheep under the panels fenced into pastures. Farms keep going with a new income source.}

_{Agrivoltaics or the process of growing low-level plants under solar panels is another way to decrease the cleaning processes needed around solar panels.}

_{https://pvbuzz.com/western-canada-solar-grazing/}

_{https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/spinach-and-sheep-are-showing-us-that-solar-farms-aren-t-solely-for-green-energy-1.6900467}

Now one tiny difference. Think Vertical solar panels, wider rows to grow crops

Now think Apartment Buildings

_{https://www.architectmagazine.com/technology/new-semi-transparent-solar-panels-for-vertical-applications_o}

_{There are ways to make our world so much greener if we just take time to think.}

_Gardens

_{It is so tempting right now to plant all the garden boxes. We know there is going to be a few more cold spells and we try to hold off}

_{Maybe a month ago on a particularly cold day when I couldn’t get outdoors, I had the bright idea of having an herb garden. I would find some little spot to set aside where all the herbs were together. Except for annual parsley, I don’t plant herbs every year.}

_{I planted a variety of herbs that day and put them under my new “grow lights”. I watered them every day or two. Nothing came up but I kept watering until I had time to start something else in those containers.}

_{Luckily I got busy with all the spring work. Yesterday I went to give a good watering to everything and there was the basil, summer savoury, garlic, parsley, thyme and even sage all standing in their little pots. They needed extra time to germinate.}

_{Since I have never had a herb garden, help! I have played with each of these herbs over the years but never put them together. Would those fabric garden containers work or do they need a box garden? Should the area be sunny or partly shaded? I feel the soil shouldn’t be too rich but need to make sure it is enough. Any info or better still a picture would help Grandma. Send ideas to [email protected].}

_{Cleaning Hack}

_{My new book this week is called “A Dirty Guide to a Clean Home” by Melissa Pateras. It is a treasure trove of cleaning tips. One page is devoted to things you can do with WD-40 (Water Displacement Formula 40).}

_{Clean stainless steel fridges and appliances}

_{Remove gum from counters, kid’s hair, etc. Removes crayons from walls}

_{Softens leather Polishes gold and brass}

_{Lubricate shovels and trowels so snow and dirt slide off}

_{Clean and renew patio furniture}

_{Remove sticky residue like the remainder of labels on plastic.}

_{Getting zippers to work properly. Slide rings off your fingers}

_{Besides stopping the sound of squeaky anything.}

_Dragonflies

_{Grandma is finding easier crafts since our little boys started coming to church. This one was so easy.}

_{I asked the boys to colour their clothespins any colour after showing my example. Their first comment was “We get to stick eyes on again” “Two eyes this time Jeffrey, right close together!” Having never seen a dragonfly we had beautiful creativity.}

_{You will need a clothespin, 2 pipe cleaners, eyes and glue. The pipe cleaner is folded in half and then each end is folded back to the middle to make wings. Just stuff the wings up in the middle of the hinge. No need to glue.}

_{Another craft a local artist did with the children recently was to let them put butterfly stickers on a page and then they drew a garden around the butterflies.}

_{Can you tell we are having fun here in the Parish of Blandford?}

_{Something to eat}

_{This was my Mom’s convenient supper dish once she got the big square electric fry pan that she used more like a slow cooker or oven.  I now make this in my oven and enjoy it on those busy days}

_{Sausage and Potato Bake}

_{In a bowl peel and chop}

_{Half a dozen potatoes}

_{3 carrots}

_{2 onions}

_{2 cloves garlic}

_{2 spoonfuls of olive oil}

_{2 tsp dried thyme}

_{1 tsp oregano}

_{A pack of breakfast sausages (Halifax sausages around here).}

_{Mix 2 spoonfuls of a beef or vegetable cube with a cup of water. You can use beef or veggie stock.}

_{Place the veggies in a casserole dish that is at least an inch or two high.}

_{Place the sausages on top.}

_{Pour the stock into the dish}

_{Cook 350 F for 45 minutes}

_{I had a pack of mushrooms in my fridge that I added. They took on the taste of the stock. Yummy!}

We pray for our forests this week but also for the countless people dedicated to changing the way forests are managed and building an industry based on sustainability to protect the habitats and diversity of species within. We give thanks to God for their leadership and their perseverance.