I have 18 boxes of cards sitting in the campaign office, ready to be handed out to the public. I can’t wait to start.
I’m exhausted. I had to take over the office today because my campaign manager had other non-campaign duties. He had thought he could do them while managing the campaign, but it has just been too busy.
We have had a tremendous response from people outraged at Elizabeth’s exclusion from the debates. Even non-Green voters are walking into the office and asking who they can write to in order to get Elizabeth in.
The campaign feels good. Positive and wonderful. I hope and expect sense to prevail. Elizabeth will be in the debates.
I’m a worrier. For most of my life, I’ve fretted over my children like many mothers do. Their health, their grades, their social development. The last few years I’ve been worried at a whole new level. When I was a young woman, analysts predicted a clean future powered by the sun and wind. They pointed out the urgency of starting this great transformation because a few decades later it would be too late. For multiple reasons including climate change, the imminent decline of oil and the stress on vulnerable but critical water and other resources, delay would bring on miserable results. That was a now a few decades ago. We are more dependent than ever on oil, our emissions keep rising, water tables are declining all over the world and food stresses are leading to riots in countries all over the world. Governments in North Africa are tumbling to populations that demand to be fed.
I remain hopeful that by investing in a green economy, we may still turn things around in time and deliver a future not too unlike the present for our children. That is what I’m working for, that is what I want to see – a Canada much like the Canada we all know, but moving boldly into a transitional economy from which we will emerge into a more permanent economy that’s more efficient and respectful of our limits. Read more »
The Green Party of Canada calls for an end to smear campaigns and attack ads. Let’s run an election trying to win hearts and minds on the strength of our own policies and principles.
View their attack ad on attack ads and ask representatives of all parties to stop the negative campaigning.
Tim’s action to block the sale of federal lands for mining rights to the fossil fuel industry was one of those pure, spontaneous and beautiful expressions of nonviolent public opposition to monstrous policy. The publicity raised by his actions led directly to the withdrawal of the mining leases by the incoming Obama administration. Nonetheless, yesterday Tim DeChristopher was convicted and faces prison time. He is a hero.
A few years ago, Elizabeth May said that we need to plan cities around the child, instead of around the car. There’s now a movement around 8-80 cities that calls on cities to be planned with two groups of people in mind – 8 year olds and 80 year olds. The theory is that if you take care of the young and old, the able-bodied in between will be able to look after themselves. It’s a compassionate approach to community building with the goal of safe streets, local economies and cohesive neighbourhoods, rather than maximum mobility. And it’s very much at the heart of what the Green Party is all about.
Something truly magical is happening in Cancun. Patricia Espinosa got a standing ovation when she returned after giving people a couple of hours to peruse the text. Read more »
COP 16 President Patricia Espinosa just received a prolonged standing ovation simply for announcing 10 hours late that negotiations were still ongoing and a deal was still possible. I am in tears.
The youth action outside this building was forcibly stopped.
The best analysis I’ve seen of the new text is offered by BBC. It is better than nothing.
A ceremony announcing the Colossal Fossil was widely expected to award Canada for the fourth year in a row, given the large number of fossils accumulated during this year’s negotiations. But in the confusion outside, the announcement has been put off. I’m proud of the young Canadians for their courage, and disgusted by our leaders for their lack of it.
[Adriana is blogging from the UN climate change negotiations in Cancun, in an attempt to keep the Canadian delegation honest.]
The open meetings have all been delayed as last-minute negotiations continue behind closed doors. I’m sitting in the Cancunmesse area where displays are being taken down and people are tense and bored. For anyone following in Canada, now would be a good time to call the Prime Minister’s Office and tell him you want Canada to show some leadership in breaking the logjam by going along with the majority of countries and supporting a second Kyoto period, and urging Japan and Russia to do the same.
[Adriana is blogging from the UN climate change negotiations in Cancun, in an attempt to keep the Canadian delegation honest.]
This morning, a group of 30 Greens from all over the world gathered for breakfast in Cancun. Most were officeholders in Europe, either in the EU Parliament or in country governments. But municipal councillor Cathy Oke arrived from Melbourne, Australia, former Santa Monica mayor Mike Feinstein came from the United States, and four Canadian Greens joined in with three Brazilians, including the leader of the Brazilian Greens, Senator Marina Silva, who gathered 20 million votes in the last presidential election, earning 20% of the popular vote, 30% of the urban vote and winning the popular vote outright in Brazil’s capital city of Brasilia.
From left to right: Ronan Dantec, Deputy Mayor of the city of Nantes (France); Marina Silva, Presidential Candidate (Brazil); Dr Cathy Oke, City of Melbourne Councillor (Australia); Adriana Mugnatto-Hamu, Green Party of Canada Climate Change Critic; Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada
I had wanted to meet Marina ever since she left Lula’s government over disagreements about dam-building and other environmentally damaging policies and began to consider running for the Greens. Read more »
I’ve never been to a COP before, but I’ve been involved in climate change issues long enough to recognize a very sad trend from fighting to prevent it to squabbling over the money to deal with it. Far more energy is being spent today to discuss the costs of adaptation, primarily for countries that have had very little to do with causing it. More and more effort is spent by scientists not in evaluating the broad implications of a warming planet, but in evaluating the much more narrow human-scale impacts it will cause. Read more »
Pembina Institute has been great at this conference and as a back up organization with tremendous resources you might want to look at. They have a new report just out this morning that might be of interest, pointing out how Canada is not keeping up with the United States.
[Adriana is blogging from the UN climate change negotiations in Cancun, in an attempt to keep the Canadian delegation honest.]
I invite everyone to enjoy a solar-heated potluck Thanksgiving dinner with my family at our home. My friend Rita is lending us her solar oven, which we’ll set up in the yard. Bring something to share. Make it local if you can to cut down on emissions because this event is one of the Global Work Day events to fight climate change. We’ll share whatever is left over with a soup kitchen to honour the first annual World Homeless Day.
Thanksgiving solar potluck dinner
Sunday, 2010 October 10, 5pm – 9pm
18 Victor Ave (2 blocks north of Gerrard; just east of Broadview) all welcome
I’ll be at the Ride for Renewables on October 3. We meet at the Exhibition Place wind turbine with our bikes. You can come early if you need a tune-up. We’ll be visiting six green energy projects as inspiration for the 10/10/10 events the following week.
Ride for Renewables
Sunday, 2010 October 3, 11am – 3pm
Exhibition Place wind turbine (with bicycle)
All cyclists welcome – free
I attended the Canadian Organic Growers Toronto conference today, and could easily write a dozen posts. I’ll write about just one speaker, Percy Schmeiser, who I had first listened to perhaps a decade ago or more at a Toronto Vegetarian Association event. In those days I was not a food activist at all. I just liked vegetables and wanted to be informed about what I was eating and feeding my family. So I went to Mr. Schmeiser’s talk then not necessarily expecting to be convinced of the harm of genetically modified foods.
Mr. Schmeiser’s story is one of profound and infuriating wrong. When I first heard him speak, he was embroiled in a legal battle with Monsanto, which had identified their genetically modified crop on his field, and demanded that he pay for using their patented product. As a heritage seed developer, he certainly didn’t welcome Monsanto’s “contribution”, which had contaminated all his fields and destroyed 50 years worth of work. All he did was refuse to pay. And in retribution, Monsanto dragged him right up to the Supreme Court, counting on the fact that he would succumb to the immense pressure of overwhelming legal bills. Read more »
I watched Avatar with my family on New Year’s Day and highly recommend it. One of my friends described it as a futuristic Pocahontas story that ends well for the natives. He also found it amusing that the substance for which mankind was willing to lay waste to the beautiful moon of Pandora was called unobtainium. Spoilers ahead. Read more »
Toronto-Danforth riding residents are all covered by the City of Toronto Solar Neighbourhoods program. You can get help plus over $4,000 in government incentives to install a solar water heater. Learn more at the workshop below.
Solar Neighbourhoods workshop
Danforth-Coxwell Library, 1675 Danforth Ave
Wednesday, 2009 October 14, 6:30 – 8 pm
Toronto-Danforth riding residents are all covered by the City of Toronto Solar Neighbourhoods program. You can get help plus over $4,000 in government incentives to install a solar water heater. Learn more at the workshop below.
Solar Neighbourhoods workshop
East York Community Centre, 1081 Pape Ave
Thursday, 2009 October 22, 6:30 – 8 pm
I’ll be participating in the Second Annual Danforth Multifaith Peace Walk and urge everyone to join me. The walk begins at Glen Rhodes United Church and continues past the Danforth Jewish Circle, the Pakistani Community Centre and the Madina Masjid on Danforth to celebrate the newly renovated space, ending at Eastminster United Church.
Women are asked to wear a head scarf inside the Madina Masjid.
Second Annual Danforth Multifaith Peace Walk
Sunday, 2009 October 4, 1 pm
Glen Rhodes United Church, 1470 Gerrard St E
Around dusk yesterday, while out meeting people with a friend, we spotted two foxes. They were beautiful. One was probably a momma — she was more wary and I didn’t see much of her. The juvenile was stalking some neighbourhood cats, flicking her ears, looking all adolescent and geeky on legs that looked too long for her. Seeing her there, next to rumbling trains, cars, houses, streetlights and onlookers like me, I was filled with hope for the future.
Toronto-Danforth riding residents are all covered by the City of Toronto Solar Neighbourhoods program. You can get help plus over $4,000 in government incentives to install a solar water heater. Learn more at the workshop below.
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