DEN Enews

Are you thinking ahead to Earth Day? The DEN editors are and there is lots to capture your attention. If you have an event or know of one, let us know so we can feature it next week. Our editors will each be highlighting one petition that is their personal passion. What is yours? Send it to us and we will feature that as well. Here are several events. Hope you can find one near you.

  You are also invited to join us on Sunday, April 19 at 2 pm at St. Mary’s Anglican Church Hall, Summerside to hear more about DEN and discuss how your parish can engage in eco spirituality, participate in the Pollinator Seed Project, and answer God’s call to be a greener church, reducing your carbon footprint, and engage in outreach, building meaningful connections with the community you serve.

 You are also welcome to arrange for a conversation with people in your congregation or your community or simply share ideas over a coffee sometime between April 19 - 22. 

Please contact The Rev. Margaret Collins at: [email protected] or by telephone at 902-621-2920 for further information or to book a conversation or church visit with Marian regarding the work of DEN during her PEI visit.

Also check out PEI Anglican’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089123277997

Join us on the Eastern Shore!

Are you a resident of the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia (the Municipality of the District of Guysborough, the Municipality of the District of St. Mary’s, and the Halifax Regional Municipality)?

We’re hosting a half-day workshop with a complimentary meal to talk about coastal risks, preparedness, and resilience. Your participation, including a voluntary survey, will help inform future coastal risk governance efforts.

Join us at The Deanery Project (Lower Ship Harbour, HRM)

Date: 25 April 2026, 9:00 am

Everyone is welcome (adults aged 18 years and older), no prior contact required.

Worried about our province’s future and how you can make an impact? Educate yourself on the issues of fracking and why the moratorium was put in place years ago. 

NOFRAC's report can help with facts. https://nofrac.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/nofrac-ignoring-the-evidence-report-final.pdf

You can help by sharing the report or summary 

You can help by making your opposition to Houston's Gas Agenda loud and clear.

Follow this website for more info: https://nofrac.ca/

Follow on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/NOFRAC

Have Your Voice Heard: Attend a Dalhousie Fracking Community Engagement Session! The Subsurface Energy Research Development and Investment Program (SERDIP) is officially starting engagement. With a focus on fracking methane gas, SERDIP has budgeted $30 million in public funds awarded to Dalhousie – of which $24.3 million will be paid directly to private companies to extract and frack. Virtual engagement is on Tuesday, April 21 from 2 to 4 p.m. You can also submit comments online if you are unable to attend. If you are in Windsor, Amherst or Pictou, in-person engagements are being held on April 20, 22 and 23. For venues and times, see: Home - Subsurface Energy R&D Investment Program

They are making fracking sound like the next best thing to sliced bread. "Dalhousie’s involvement will help in understanding the potential for natural gas production in Nova Scotia and community readiness." I am not ready for fracking in NS; we need lots of people attending these 'community engagement sessions' who are not ready. EAC have a fact sheet to help us get 'the other side of the picture’: Fracking_Factsheet

One last event to help you celebrate our beautiful earth.

Nature Nova Scotia is excited to partner with Dr. Suzanne Simard and Bookmark on the Halifax launch of her new book, “When The Forest Breathes”. Forest ecologist Suzanne Simard advanced a new paradigm for what she describes as the intelligence and interconnectedness of trees. In her new book, Dr. Simard uncovers ways that nature's deep-rooted cycles of renewal can ensure the longevity of threatened ecosystems. Join us May 1st, at 7 PM at The Stage (St. Andrew’s Church, 6036 Coburg Rd, Halifax)

halifax.bookmarkreads.ca/events/4946520260501?mc_cid=3026bdd22b&mc_eid=678ee7ec8b

Celebrate Earth Day with a new rain barrel for your garden. Check out the sales in the link below and find one closest to you

Nova Scotia needs clean, reliable energy – not coal! We do not need a rushed 300MW fast acting fossil fuel burning peaker plant (natural gas & 9 million liters of diesel fuel). Marshdale, in rural Pictou County, does not need a water guzzler for next 30 years. This plant will consume water from underground aquifers that would cover the equivalent of 750 rural homes and cost almost 1 BILLION dollars. There are better ways, and they involve helping Nova Scotia build a brighter clean future without fossil fuels linked to world market prices. Sign the petition to say no to the rushed proposed Marshdale peaker plant.

Canada’s electricity demand will double, or even triple, by 2050. We need a power grid that provides for this future with clean, reliable, and affordable electricity. Join the petition calling on our government to invest $20 billion over five years in new electricity transmission connections between provinces. This financing would include supports for training workers and Indigenous-led projects. More than 100 organizations have been urging federal leaders to make this major investment. It would upgrade and build a truly Canadian east-west grid supported by renewable power and Indigenous-led energy projects. Help demand nation-building action for Canada’s renewable energy future.

The power plant poses significant risks to our local well water, environmental health, and overall safety. As a rural community, our way of life is intricately woven with the peace and quiet of our environment. The looming facility threatens not only our tranquility but also the value of our properties.

Royal Caribbean is a global cruise giant wanting to bulldoze magnificent Maya jungle to build a "Perfect Day" water park. The area they are after is home to the world’s second-largest coral reef and an ecological treasure for the Mexican Caribbean. Turtle nests are sheltered along beaches and a vital mangrove corridor provides access for jaguars, ocelots, and tapirs. Local resistance is fighting to hold the project off. The window to act is now as a federal judge recently ruled against the project, but Royal Caribbean’s lawyers are moving to overturn this verdict. The case is critical consultations with the Department of the Environment, and this agency has the final power to grant or deny a permit. Please join in providing pressure to show authorities the world is watching

Mondelēz International is the maker or Oreo cookies and one of the world’s largest snacks companies. They operate in about 160 countries and have an annual revenue of about $26.5 billion! This candy giant knows its palm oil is bulldozing orangutan habitat and wiping out Indonesia’s last rainforests. They fall short in transparency, sustainability, and in most things besides reckless profit chasing. Indonesia is currently opening up hundreds of thousands of hectares of new land to palm oil plantations. Mondelēz is ready to cash in while endangered species like orangutans and hornbills lose their homes forever. Their biggest shareholder meeting is around the corner, and this creates an opportunity to make what is happening be more seen. Use the petition to pressure this company to clean up their supply chain and make sweet treats without the rainforest harm.

AI

Grandma was listening to music the other evening when the radio host began talking about AI in writing. (Some of you may remember when my grandson researched our family tree and then had one of those AI chat programs write it all up for him.)

Well, this host said you can often tell something is written by AI because it uses a lot of “dashes.”

Grandma’s ears perked right up. Dashes!

You see, Grandma has always thought she didn’t use enough of them, the dashes, I mean. Recently I went back and reviewed my notes on dots, dashes, and hyphens. Yes indeed, I even took another look at the en dash and the em dash. (Yeah, Grandma is that fussy)

And then I started noticing them everywhere. Have you seen that too? Articles just sprinkled with dashes as if they were seasoning. For a moment, I thought perhaps I’d missed a whole new writing trend. Well, Grandma can’t have that.

So, I began adding dashes into my own work: rereading, proofing, and slipping dashes into sentences that might “improve” with a little dash here or there.

Well… I think I’ll stop that exercise now.

If I really want more dashes, I suppose I can just ask an AI to do the writing for me.

Apparently, there are plenty of them quite willing.

Brilliant

Well now, Grandma has stumbled across a few brilliant ideas this week, and this one truly made me smile.

It comes from, where else, the Netherlands. You know those data centres, the places where “the cloud” actually lives? They need an enormous amount of cooling to keep everything running smoothly. Cooling takes a lot of electricity.

Now what does the Netherlands have plenty of? Water, canals everywhere you look.

So of course, some clever souls thought: why not put the data centres right on the water?

They’ve begun setting up cube-shaped data centres in canals or sheltered coves. Then, to make things even greener, they place solar panels on top to help power the operation. The canal water is pumped through the system to keep everything cool, doing double duty by helping oxygenate the water, too.

So there you have it: it cools itself, makes its own electricity, and stores data without gobbling up precious farmland.

Now that’s what I call a win, win, win.

Floating Data Centers in the Netherlands Signal a New Era of Sustainable Digital Infrastructure - Ecosphere News Correspondent :: Ecosphere News Environmental & Developmental Issues

Bing Videos

Dare I title this, Canadian?

Grandma is as patriotic as any Canadian, maybe a bit more than some. I don’t refuse American things. I just prefer to use Canadian things, when I can. I don’t yell and title things Canadian, but I keep a quiet ledger of what is or isn’t. Moderation would be my guiding principle.

I have discovered something new. A Canadian Google Docs that doesn’t scream AI. In fact, it screams that they aren’t AI.

I quote from their pages “Your drafts live on Canadian servers, governed by Canadian law, and are never used to train AI systems. “

Well, that had me almost fall in love at first read. I want to learn more. Maybe you do too. http://cdox.ca or cDox | Canadian-Hosted Google Docs and Sheets Alternative

Updates

Grandma was so pleased that a few parishes asked for their Seed Share seeds early. Their rectors were doing a spring theme at Easter complete with gardens. What better times to give out seed packets.

The planting kits will be assembled on April 11^th at the Hubbards Area Lions Club in Fox Point. This is one of my favorite work parties. Someone fills a bag of potting soil, which is put in a pot along with a plant marker and this year lettuce seeds with a planting guide. Then everything is placed in a lunch bags and tie a tag in place. Of course, I can’t help but add a pack of wildflower seeds.

An entire school, Shatford Memorial takes 130 of the kits for Earth Day. Another hundred will be given away at the April Community breakfast in Blandford. The rest come with me to an enviro day in Early June. A total of 300 kits go into kids hands.

(Update: we had 13 people turn up to assemble nearly 300 planting kits in less than 2 hours.  We decided to add another school next year. The Lions love this program)

A new member to our congregation but long-time resident here has stepped up to make our community garden boxes for this year. We will have 6 new boxes built at height for walkers, wheelchairs and younger children.

We plan our Seed and Plant exchange/give away for Mother’s Day Saturday in May. The time is being worked out but definitely there by 11 for a couple hours.

Gardening hints

One of my favorite gardening info site is https://fermetournesol.qc.ca/ Sophie and Dan pour their hearts into gardening in colder climates. If it can grow for them in Quebec, it will grow here.

Please sign up for their newsletter and their new podcast. If you are an Anglophone like I mainly am, your computer will pop up a translate button and give you everything in English.

They had a great chart for growing in April which I include here. They realize we spread their news. As you can see they get all the credit, Tourne-sol.

Tis enough for this week. We all will be busy bees or looking after our busy bees this month.

We love pictures here at DEN. Did something just pop out of the ground? Let us see by either emailing Grandma at [email protected] or DEN at [email protected]

Leaving you with one more picture of a busy Easter visit with the grandbabies. I title this one, Child Labour. These three, Emily, Nicholas and Ben, put together close to 250 seed packets for Seed Share.