DEN Enews

Welcome and thanks for subscribing! We welcome all comments, suggestions, articles, etc. Feel free to email us anytime.

In this issue:

• Lenten course and actions

• Acid Rain - has it lessened?

• Free Energy Audit for your church

• People’s Parade for the Earth - are you entering?

• Save old growth forests and rainforests plus more petitions

• Garden Planting Guide

DEN Lenten Program: Join us this Thursday at 430 pm for the third session in our Lenten series: Returning to the Garden: An Environmental Lenten Examination. _{Each week will start at 4:30 pm AST, and run on average until 6pm. All are invited to attend either in the Nursery at the Cathedral of All Saints in Halifax, or on Zoom. Please contact Blane Finnie at [email protected] for more information. This week:}

^{Session 3: The Land Ethic: a way to rethink ethical approaches to the environment. This session will also touch on important theological themes with resonance to indigenous approaches to the land.}

March 3, 2024 • 3^rd Week of Lent

^{“You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath.” –Exodus 20:4. Pope Francis spoke about humanity’s new idols: money and profit. “It is no longer man who commands but money; money, cash commands… men and women are sacrificed to the idols of profit and consumption: it is the ‘culture of waste.’” (St. Peter’s Square, 2013). This week, confront the culture of waste in your life and home. Reduce single-use items (paper plates, plastic cups, etc) and don’t buy anything new that is not essential. Donate money and hardly-used items and clothes to local organizations supporting the homeless and those in need} .© The Pastoral Center / PastoralCenter.com. All rights reserved 

 ^{Sent to Us from the Ecology Action Centre: Applications are now open for their second annual People's Parade for Life on Earth!}

^{Check out this video if you'd like a reminder of the beauty, joy, and love that was present between us all at last year's parade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiYA3pv6tzA&t=2s . (Big thanks to iMOVe Media Arts Association for creating this awesome little film!)}

^{This year's event is happening on Saturday, April 20th, with the rain date of Sunday, April 21st.}

All the information and application forms are available here: https://linktr.ee/peoplesparade

^{For news on the Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area and efforts there to protect it from logging, please click here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1548614759236502/}

^{The SOOF Petitions Page is live again so please check out your area and what is needed: https://saveouroldforests.ca/index.php/petitions/}

^{Are you itching to get your hands in the soil? Have the longer days ignited your need to buy seeds, seeds and more seeds? Type your postal code into this page and get all the planting timelines for seeds indoors and transplants outdoors for your area: https://www.almanac.com/gardening/planting-calendar}

^{You may also enjoy this resource on Planting for Pollinators: https://bwsr.state.mn.us/sites/default/files/2020-03/Planting%20for%20Pollinators%20Design%20Guide%20with%20logos.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1MnhNWKfkdY8TSEmzIkj_oohSN3aSTYsSpfxbOTKZRiHZQ19vT9X_sKn4}A

_{This petition is on behalf of UK bill payers and going to their Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. People here are demanding an end to bills being inflated in order to fund the logging and burning of one of the most precious old growth forests in the world; the forests in British Columbia. The Drax power station is currently burning our trees. They have been exposed by the BBC and Canadian investigations for burning old growth. They have also received subsidies reaching nearly 3.5 million a day for the last 7 years. There is a decision being made on whether to grant them more. Join others from across the pond who are enraged this company has been decimating irreplaceable Canadian forests while receiving huge amounts of public green funding, obscuring their operations, and making record profits.}

^{The Sustainable Jobs Act passed second reading in the House of Commons last October. Since then, Conservatives have been doing everything in their power to keep it from moving forward. This includes extreme measures such as filibustering for 27.5 hrs and raising 20,000 amendments to a bill that is only 18 pages long. The result is this bill is currently off the reading paper, tangled in red tape, and with no sign from the Liberals of prioritizing it’s passing. The Sustainable Jobs Act shouldn’t be thwarted because of political bullying with tactics to protect Big Oil buddies and avoid climate action. 2023 was the hottest year on record, now is the time for our governments to be stepping up and preparing for a climate-safe future. Take a moment to stand for our future by emailing your Liberal MP and asking that they pass the Sustainable Jobs Act.}

/

Acid Rain

Remember the term “Acid Rain”? It was all the rage from 1970 onward. Acid rain refers to pollutants that, for example, could come out of a factory’s smokestack. The microparticles are caught in clouds and released when it rains. The pollutants then come back to the earth, particularly in our lakes and water supplies.

Acid rain can also be formed by natural occurrences such as volcanos. Hawaii would have an acid rain problem after last year’s volcanic eruption.

The main pollutants are sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. They can harm fields, aquatic life, forests, and soil quality. They can lead to acidification of lakes and rivers affecting the fish population and those that consume the fish.

One of the reasons we have so much clay in the Maritimes is that we have had acid rain for over a hundred years which has become an acid bedrock.

Our factories helped cause this, however, most pollutants came to us on air currents. The Maritimes have been dubbed “the end of the tailpipe” for pollutants coming out of the eastern United States. If we watch a weather segment of local news at any time, we notice how the storms tend to swirl up the eastern seacoast or swirl down from the Great Lakes. Historically these are the two highest industrialised sections of North America.

As there are less factories, there appears to be less Acid Rain

Fortunately, most of our acid rain is buffered by rocks and soil so ground aquifers are not affected. Lake water for human consumption is tested regularly for pollutants.

The best way to get rid of acid rain is the same way to help the planet in general; use renewable energy. As there are fewer factories there is less acid rain.

Do we still have acid rain in the Maritimes? Is anyone still concerned about acid rain? The latest facts I could find were by a Dalhousie Professor, Dr. Lindsay Anderson in 2015. This study showed that sulphur concentrations had dropped 52% in Lake Major and 38% in Pockwock Lake. These are major watersheds for HRM.

Reduced sulfur and nitrogen pollutants is always great news.

 www.novascotia.ca/nse/air/acidrain.asp

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/nova-scotia-watersheds-recovering-from-years-of-acid-rain-1.4382978

Gardening

Did you know that coffee grounds make a good medium for growing plants? If I drank coffee, I would still want to mix the grounds with potting soil. For all those people like me, trying to fill their new waist-high garden boxes, start saving your coffee grounds to add to other biodegradables like eggshells, newspaper and all those courier boxes. Some of my courier bags now state they will degrade.

 Oddity

I came across this picture in www.historydaily.org

Somehow it tells a story much longer than would be allowed in our little e-news.

Craft

Scrolling through the internet this week I came across a paper folding craft that we used with our Messy Church. In our case, we would put an individually wrapped candy in each and gave them away as people filed out after service. What I saw was using the same pocket for seeds. Let me show you how to make the original pocket and you can adapt them to any size for your purpose.

First, get a sheet of copy paper and make a square by taking the bottom right corner and bringing it up to meet the left side of the paper. Cut off the excess at the top but keep that for our second craft.

Turn the square into a triangle by folding it in half and having the long side at the bottom.

Take the left side bottom point and fold it about 2/3 of the way up the right side. Do the same with the right-side point. There will be two triangles at the top. Fold one down the front. I put a dab of glue or tape on this little triangle.

You can put whatever you want in the pocket and tape or put a sticker to close it up.

The second craft is a fun game after the kids have worked on the pockets. You will need what I call milkshake straws. You can even find them at your local coffee shop.

Pass out the long skinny pieces of paper and ask the kids to decorate them with markers and crayons. It doesn’t hurt to have names on them.

Roll the paper around the straw. Tape the side. Fold over the top and tape it. Blow through the straw and you have paper rockets! (Hint, try to take the kids outside. I found the rockets under pews weeks later.

 Something to eat

Nana and I do love our breakfasts. Lunches tend to be a bit of protein and fresh veggies and fruit, but we need a solid breakfast. Cleaning the freezers again I came across those tubes of crescent rolls. This made two meals for us but it sure was good.

Quick Breakfast Casserole

Open the crescent rolls and use half to make a base in a small casserole dish. I had leftover bacon but could have layered ham or any luncheon meat.

Next came some cheese. I used a couple of slices of Swiss but any cheese would work

Crack open 4 eggs, one in each corner of the casserole.

Layer the rest of the crescent rolls on top

Pop it in the microwave till cooked. I did 8 minutes, checking halfway through.

It was so easy and so good.