DEN Enews

Unless you have voted early, there is one more week to decide the future of Nova Scotia. We are pleased to offer you one more time the The Ecology Action Centre’s toolkit to help you engage your candidates on questions regarding the climate, biodiversity, coastal protection and environmental justice.

This week, the consultation period for the emissions cap policy opened and already, Conservative opponents are flooding the consultation with anti-cap messages. We need to act fast if we are going to drown them out and secure a strong policy. Please consider adding your name to show  our federal leaders that Canadians overwhelmingly support Big Oil doing their fair share to reduce their emissions.

 Aamjiwnaang First Nation is an Anishinaabe community near Sarnia, Ontario. They have endured more than a century of environmental racism with industrial pollution turning their home into one of Canada’s most polluted areas known as Chemical Valley. The toxic impacts are well documented. Industrial facilities emit high levels of chemicals like benzene and sulphur dioxide which creates community health risks such as increased respiratory illnesses, cancer, and impacts on mental and cultural well-being. Send a message to our government saying it’s time to take action through partnership and lasting solutions for the community.

The Atewa mountain rainforest in Ghana is rich in biodiversity and holds a lush landscape of jungle and rivers that provides a refuge for rare animals and plants. It is also a source of drinking water for five million people. Researchers have recently encountered a rare primate species; the endangered white-collared mangabey! It has never been spotted there before and is in danger of extinction in the wild. The forest range is an official protected area, but it contains an aluminum ore called bauxite that the government wants to mine and market. The Ghanaian government is closing on a billion-dollar deal with China to destroy this area and replace it with infrastructure projects and refineries. Please add your name to support the Atewa forest and the communities fighting to stop soil and water contamination and their protected forests from turning into mining wastelands.

A Spanish company is racing to open the world's first octopus mega farm. Over 1 million of these intelligent, sentient creatures will be crammed into tiny, barren tanks. They will have to endure immense suffering as farmed octopuses will face stress, aggression, and slow deaths in these conditions, and because of a loophole in the EU'S animal welfare laws. This loophole excludes aquatic species like octopuses from basic animal welfare protections, which allows cruel farming projects to spread unchecked. Take a moment to help the future of oceans by demanding the EU close this loophole and ban octopus farming.

Chainsaws, bulldozers, and fires are tearing through the beautiful rainforests of SouthEast Asia. This is destroying precious orangutan habitat, and all to plant row upon row of palm trees. Palm kernel is a cheap animal feed that comes directly from these palm plantations. The New Zealand dairy industry, led by Fonterra, is the world’s biggest importer of palm kernel. Industrial dairying is also New Zealand’s biggest climate polluter. There are so many cows that there is not enough grass to feed them. Fonterra buys palm kernel to feed the massive dairy herd, which continues feeding the demand to tear down rainforests in order to plant palm trees. It doesn't have to be this way, and already farmers and dairy companies across New Zealand are turning away from palm kernels. It is time for Fonterra to do the same. Help by signing this petition to call on Fonterra to end its use of rainforest-destroying palm kernel now

Environment Anxiety

Grandma has noticed that no matter how hard people work to improve the environment, many see only the negative.

The way we feel from all that negative news is called Environmental Anxiety or Eco Anxiety. The news tells you that the planet is in trouble, and nothing is being done fast enough to make a good change.

Yes, we are in a difficult time. Our planet needs help. There is so much more to do, BUT, enough with this negativity! Surely, we can be happy and be green at the same time. Let’s celebrate and enjoy all the wins we have.

And we do have them!

Grandma may be old(ER) and has fought for the environment for decades, but, my Goodness, we have come a long way.

I remember being laughed at for believing there was such a thing as climate change. The term,” climate change” didn’t exist till sometime in the last 20 years. Although the buzz term back then was conservationists, the slang term was “tree huggers”, said with the same distaste used for a garbage heap.

We weren’t wanted. We upset the status quo. How dare we not agree to let industries spew their toxins in rivers passing by! We were slowing industry!

All those environmental impact studies that are law now, did not exist!

Today environmental issues are taken seriously, sometimes too seriously. That pendulum has swung a bit too far in the opposite direction for Grandma. For some it is the fear and depression of what looms ahead of us that can be crippling.

There is no magic wand that makes anxiety stop at the snap of your fingers. You can however start the journey away from anxiety.

Get outdoors (and away from all the news) for a while. This could be a backyard, park, or walk in the woods near home.

Find other people who like to be in nature. If they are the nay-sayers, find another group till you can laugh with your chums. Some people are trying so hard, it sucks the joy out of nature.

Get involved in stewardship programs. Find groups who are doing a beach cleanup or trail cleanup and join them. No one will complain about an extra set of hands to help. You will know you are doing your part. You may just laugh a little.

Find a way to be calm. There are meditation and mindfulness programs. Maybe you need that quiet time to sit in nature. Trees pull negativity out of you just as well as they pull carbon from the atmosphere.

If all this doesn’t fit you, try the Living Lakes programs at https://livinglakescanada.ca/our-programs/lakes/lake-blitz/?

In this program, you collect data from a local lake near you and send the info to a data centre. Your data is updated and added to a pool of information from across Canada. They will teach you the skills needed to track progress.

Eco-anxiety is real. It creeps up on hard-working environmentalists and wears us down. This is a problem we must learn to cope with. All of us have one foot in an anxiety quicksand. Luckily there is a tree nearby to help pull us out.

A great book that not only touches on Eco Anxiety but talks of environmental groups here in Nova Scotia (and often mentioned on the pages of DEN) is called Hope Unleashed by Sara Avmaat. I found it at my local library (YGN FIC AVM). It may be designated as a Youth book, but it is one we all can enjoy.

Breathe, folks. By even reading my ramblings and being part of “us”. We can fend off the toxins: the ones in our rivers and the ones in us. Have a laugh today!

https://mentalhealthcommission.ca/resource/understanding-and-coping-with-eco-anxiety/

https://imagine5.com/climate-anxiety/?

Christmas Stars

This craft is so simple and can involve re-purposing. Find box board or old Christmas Cards.

Find a template for a 3 to 4 inch five-point star like the one at

https://www.freebiefindingmom.com/printable/free-printable-5-inch-5-point-star-template.pdf?

OR

https://worldofprintables.com/star-template/ 

I glued the printed template to the boxboard and cut one out. Trace the shape onto Christmas cards or card stock using that boxboard template.

I didn’t have enough old Christmas cards, so I cut the stars from cereal boxes and glued Christmas wrap to them. The green stars are made by repurposing a former two-pocket portfolio or duo-tang.

Glue one star shape to a second one placing the star points between the first star points to make a 10-point star. Another church member found Nativity stickers that we will put in the middle of our star.

Punch a hole at the top and add a bit of string to finish it.

These stars make nice bunting or garland in a room beside an ornament for the tree.

Something to Eat -  Dump and Go casserole

This month starts the busy season (as if any time of year is really slow). We need fast but good meals to put in our family's tummies. This recipe calls for a sausage roll like Calabasas, but any cooked meat would do. If need be, get “Halifax sausages” which the rest of the world probably knows as breakfast sausages, and throw them in a fry pan while you get 10 other things settled when you walk into the house.

Get your big bowl out. Throw in a small bag of hash browns

Sour cream or yoghurt

1 cup of grated cheese

An onion

Leftover vegetables or a tin of mixed vegetables.

A tin of cream of “anything” soup

Salt and pepper  

Add cooked sausages (or cooked and chopped chicken, beef, hamburger, ham, etc.)

Stir it up. Find a big casserole dish, Dump it in, smooth it off and bake 350 for 20-30 minutes while you run around and do a dozen other things.

It makes a good hot meal. Now if life gave you 10 minutes to prep this the night before, even better. Life usually isn’t like that. Smile folks

We pray for rain to refill watersheds and wells