Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Breaking News... Astroturf 'Ethical Oil' files CRA complaint against Sierra Club Canada Foundation]


Sierra Club Canada

Astroturf 'Ethical Oil' files CRA complaint against Sierra Club Canada Foundation

This time last year I told you about a storm gathering here in Ottawa that threatened to blow Sierra Club and other environmental groups out of existence. At the time I asked you to consider making a donation as it may be the last time you could do so and receive a tax receipt. I would have forgiven you for thinking I was overstating the seriousness of the situation at the time. Unfortunately, much of what I predicted came to pass in 2012.
You know all about Joe Oliver and Peter Kent calling us money-laundering radicals and anti-Canadian puppets of foreign billionaire socialists. You certainly know about the Omnibus Bills that gutted federal environmental protection – a regulatory and legal system that took 40 years to build.
Unfortunately, I nailed it when I wrote:

"In this context discrediting the environmental movement at every turn while attacking its sources of funding and ability to communicate is not only a necessary measure – it's key to their strategy. After all, once our ability to influence public opinion is destroyed they'll have a free-hand to build, dig, drill, dam and burn whatever, wherever and whenever they want."

BREAKING PETRO-UPDATE
Tuesday the pressure further escalated when a thick 65 page fax arrived from lawyers (JSS Barristers Jensen Shawa Solomon Duguid Hawkes LLP) representing Ethical Oil. It was a copy of a complaint Ethical Oil filed with the Canadian Revenue Agency the previous week alleging the Sierra Club Canada Foundation was in violation of tax rules.
I'm sure you remember Big Oil's 'Ethical Oil' – the ugly spawn of Ezra Levant. It's the organization that adamantly refuses to disclose where its funds come from, and has mysterious ties to the Prime Minister's office. Could this latest legal attack be raw vengeance for the shellacking they took on CBC's Power and Politics last winter? For the record it was largely Evan who did the ass-kicking. The show became an internet hit – that is, until it was mysteriously scrubbed from You Tube (after 70,000 views). We found a link in the CBC website archive for you here.
I know Ethical Oil was damaged after the show; their credibility really took a hit. I'd guess they privately (and wisely) vowed to never make that mistake again; No more shows with Sierra Club Canada. I know for a fact they refused at least one invitation to re-appear with me on Power and Politics (in spring 2012).
While not very believable, the folks at Ethical Oil aren't fools. They are afraid of Sierra Club Canada for good reason and would love nothing more to than remove us from the picture completely. A hundred years ago big industry sent thugs to smash printing presses. Today, it's lawyers, accountants and the petro-pundits - but the effect is the same.
Are we supposed to be afraid?
I am afraid of a lot of things. I'm afraid my grandson will live in a world of turmoil brought on by climate change or a nuclear disaster. I'm afraid one of my daughters will develop cancer from the toxic bath we're forced to swim in every day. But I'm not afraid of being jack-booted, be it by brown shirts or thugs in expensive suits (or dress suits).
There is nothing like the scepter of a CRA tax audit to put a chill in your Christmas Holiday plans. It's psychological warfare really. A Merry Christmas greeting from Big Oil! Ho Ho Ho.
Normally I wouldn't take notice; we've been audited before – I've seen that movie and have the t-shirt... But back to my prediction - look at Ethical Oil's complaint in the broader picture. Over the past twelve months we've seen the anti-environment Omnibus Bills, then a McCarthyian investigation by a Conservative-dominated senate committee and announcement of new (extra) funding to "investigate" charities. And now we receive this fax.
There is a word to describe when a government and powerful private interests suppress opposition through fear, censorship and other forms of oppression. When I wrote about my fears last year I correctly called what was happening for what it was: an attack on democracy and the environment.
Our society was founded on Freedom of Speech - it's guaranteed in the Charter. But now that freedom is fast becoming no longer "free". How can we "freely" share our words of concern when the bank account is empty and the power has been shut off?
Donations received by Sierra Club Canada and Sierra Club Canada Foundation are used to protect the environment, the air we breathe, the water we drink and the climate we depend on.
This December, I'm asking you to please consider making an anti-bullying donation. You have 2 options:
  1. If you want to support the Sierra Club Canada Foundation and its education and research initiatives (AND receive a charitable tax receipt) then do that! Good solutions always depend on knowledge and sound science.
  2. As always, if you want your gift unfettered by CRA tax rules then donate directly to Sierra Club Canada and support our advocacy work (I promise to make your voice loud and clear).
Let's show Ethical Oil the meaning of ethical.
I wish you and your loved ones a safe, happy and healthy holiday!
Sincerely,
John Bennett, Executive Director
Sierra Club Canada
Executive.Director@sierraclub.ca
Follow John on Twitter
Read more from the Bennett Blog
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P.S. -- Every donation is precious so please donate today.

Sierra Club Canada National Office
412-1 Nicholas St
Ottawa, ON K1N 7B7
Canada
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Sunday, December 16, 2012

LNG: Calais LNG drops lump of coal in Quoddy's Xmas Stocking!

The post below appeared 2 years ago. DLNG remains in the game this Christmas and concerned citizens need to stay engaged on this issue.

While groups and individuals around the Passamaquoddy Bay area, celebrate the withdrawal of State of Maine apl;lications, CLNG dropped a lump of coal into their Christmas Stockings by requesting the further indulgence of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. See the entire letter at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/45554014/CLNG-abandons-State-Applications-but-requests-FERC-s-indulgence
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BBC: “One of the most contaminated places on Earth” — Silence is deafening 10 miles from Fukushima plant — Nuclear power’s lie has been so tragically exposed

Think Bay of Fundy when you read this.
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EARTHQUAKE / 11.3.2011 - 14:45 (PT) / 9 MAGNITUDE
EARTHQUAKE / 11.3.2011 - 14:45 (PT) / 9 MAGNITUDE (Photo credit: Wikipedia)


BBC: “One of the most contaminated places on Earth” — Silence is deafening 10 miles from Fukushima plant — Nuclear power’s lie has been so tragically exposed

Title: Why Japan’s ‘Fukushima 50′ remain unknown
Source: BBC News
Author: Rupert Wingfield-Hayes
Date: 13 December 2012
Entering the exclusion zone around the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant is an unnerving experience.
It is, strictly speaking, also illegal. It is an old cliché to say that radiation is invisible. But without a Geiger counter, it would be easy to forget that this is now one of the most contaminated places on Earth.
The small village of Tatsuno lies in a valley 15km (9.3 miles) from the plant. In the sunlight, the trees on the hillsides are a riot of yellow and gold. But then I realise the fields were once neat rice paddies. Now the grass and weeds tower over me.
On the village main street, the silence is deafening – not a person, car, bike or dog. At one house, washing still flaps in the breeze. And all around me, invisible, in the soil, on the trees, the radiation lingers. [...]
Back in the 1960s and 70s, getting rural Japanese communities to accept nuclear power plants was hard.
[...] they were promised that nuclear power was completely safe.
Now that the lie has been so tragically exposed, the feeling of betrayal is huge. [...]


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Saturday, December 15, 2012

INBOX: Healthy Habitat Helps Create Healthy Fisheries


Sea Anemones and Kelp. Photo Art MacKay

From: Conservation Law Foundation

One of the fundamental concepts of marine ecology and modern fisheries management is that fish and other ocean wildlife need various types of habitat to feed, grow, and reproduce. Healthy ocean habitat is crucial to the well-being of ocean ecosystems and also provides spawning grounds for commercially important groundfish. New England’s ocean waters are home to several special places that deserve permanent protection.

Cashes Ledge, an underwater mountain range 80 miles off the coast of Maine, supports the largest and deepest kelp forest off the Northeastern United States and is home to an enormous diversity of ocean wildlife – from whales, Atlantic wolffish, and blue sharks, to fields of anemones and sponges. This kelp forest provides an important source of food and habitat for a vast array of ocean wildlife. Other places such as Jeffreys Ledge and Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary provide rich habitat for highly depleted cod and haddock, sea turtles, and four species of whales.
Most of these three areas in the Gulf of Maine currently benefit from fishing regulations which prohibit harmful bottom trawling, but these protections are temporary. Some of the largest commercial fishing trawlers in the region are pushing for changes in regulations to allow bottom trawling in Cashes Ledge, Jeffreys Ledge and the only protected portion of Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.

After the last cod crisis in the 1990s the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC), after a court decree spurred by a CLF legal action, designated Cashes Ledge and an area known as the “Western Gulf of Maine” which holds Jeffreys Ledge and 22% of Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, as “mortality closures.” The action restricted destructive trawling, but it allowed a wide array of other commercial fishing gear such as bottom gillnets, purse seines, hook and line and more the questionable practice of “mid-water trawls,” which despite their name, often catch groundfish. Recreational fishing and charter boats were not restricted.

This single protective measure restricting commercial bottom trawling helped to restore seriously depleted populations in these areas. Moreover, protecting areas like Cashes Ledge created the “spillover effect” where larger populations of fish migrate out of the boundaries of the protected area. This is why commercial fishing vessels often “fish the borders” of protected areas.
After a new stock assessment released one year ago showed that populations of cod, haddock and other groundfish were at all time lows, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) under pressure from some of the largest trawlers in the New England fleet started to hint that allowing bottom trawling in previously protected habitat areas – places like Cashes Ledge – might help to increase falling harvest amounts. At a time of the lowest recorded groundfish populations in history, how does it make sense to increase trawling in the best, remaining habitat areas?

This is why we must urge NOAA to keep our habitat protections in place.
Cashes Ledge is important not only to fish and ocean wildlife but also to scientists hoping to learn about the health and function of New England’s oceans. Many scientists believe that Cashes Ledge represents the best remaining example of an undisturbed Gulf of Maine ecosystem and have used Cashes Ledge as an underwater laboratory to which they have compared more degraded habitat in the Gulf of Maine.

The basic fact is that opening scarce protected habitat in the Gulf of Maine to bottom trawling at a time of historically low groundfish populations is among the worst ideas for recovering fish populations and the industry which depend upon them. But fisheries politics in New England remain.

On Dec. 20th the NEFMC may take action through a backdoor exemption process to allow bottom trawling in a large portion of Cashes Ledge and other areas. NOAA needs to keep current protections in place. CLF is committed to securing permanent protection to ensure the long-term health of this important and vulnerable ecosystem. Click here to urge NOAA to protect New England ocean habitat and help ensure a healthy future for New England’s ocean.