Every day people and environmental groups take action to protect and restore New Brunswick’s environment.
Over this past year, who stands out in your mind?
We invite you to nominate a group or individual deserving of one of the NBEN awards which will be presented in style at Eco-Confluence 2020. Send an e-mail (up to 500 words) to nben@nben.ca describing your nominee’s work. Nominees must be members or associates of the NBEN , not including current Steering Committee members.
The nomination deadline has been extended to November 2nd, 2020.
Action Alerts
- Posted by Sam McWilliams
- Hits: 2285
Six of eight members of the NBEN Board of Directors (commonly known as our Steering Committee) will be finishing up their mandate this year. We are recruiting!
The Steering Committee is responsible for operational and administrative policies of the NBEN, including the health of its finances and the alignment of its programs with the organization’s mission. Individual Steering Committee members must stem from NBEN member groups in good standing. All Steering Committee members shall hold office for 2 years, except for the youth members who will have the option to hold office for a 1 or 2 year term. The NBEN will strive to structure the Steering Committee as follows: 2 Youth members, 2 Aboriginal members, 2 Francophone members and 2 Anglophone members. This is a commitment of approximately 10-15 hours per year.
If you are interested in joining the NBEN Steering Committee, please email Tim at tim.murphy@nben.ca
- Posted by Jim Emberger
- Hits: 3272
I want to urge all of you in groups to have your group sign on to this letter, requesting that the German government not guarantee a $4.5 billion loan to Pieridae Energy to build a liquid natural gas (LNG) export terminal in Goldboro, Nova Scotia.
This project has been progressing under the radar for some time now and is approaching a critical point. The scope of this project encompasses shale gas wells in Alberta, and potentially fracking in Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, as well as new gas pipelines through Quebec to Maine, along with the main object - the LNG terminal in Goldboro.
These big LNG export projects are the last gasp of the fossil fuel industry, and if built, the new fossil fuel infrastructure will seriously slow down the necessary move to a clean energy economy to address climate change. It will put us back years. New Brunswick currently has no fracking, but ask yourself what Blaine Higgs or Kevin Vickers would do if told that a company with a huge loan from Germany wanted to restart the shale gas industry in NB? I think we all know the answer.
So we need to stop this before any money actually enters the picture! Pieridae currently has leases near Hillsborough and Memramcook, but remember that over 40% of the province was opened to fracking the last time around. We will all be affected.
So it is REALLY IMPORTANT that groups sign on to show Germany that opposition is broad and deep. We expect in the next few days to have signatures from several of Canada's well-know national environmental stewardship groups, but we also need to show that the grassroots groups - including local chapters - are united. To sign-on, just have a representative from your group go to:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BIhbCqo6aYH3NcYxevscbacUmGGxpNIv8cZZ2kGCh18/edit#gid=0
and scroll down the list to the end, where you can enter your group's name, a contact person and email (or phone or address). That's it. As you scroll, you will see that support is coming from all the provinces involved plus our international allies in Germany and elsewhere around the world.
Our Germans allies are doing their part by demonstrating against the LNG terminals that will have to be built at their end - as noted yesterday in these tweets from Andy Gheorghiu, our colleague at Food and Water Watch - Europe
https://twitter.com/GheorghiuAndy/status/1302923156320063490?s=19
https://twitter.com/GheorghiuAndy/status/1302930718792843266?s=19
and this story (google translation of article by the German Press Agency)
Hanover - Five climate activists attached themselves to the building of the Lower Saxony State Chancellery in Hanover with superglue on Monday. According to the police, they were part of a group of 25 demonstrators who protested against imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States. The police said they negotiated with the five people who were stuck so that they could free themselves with solvent. Various environmental groups had called for the action. They criticized the plans to build terminals for the import of LNG in Wilhelmshaven and Stade. In the USA and Canada, a lot of natural gas is currently extracted using the fracking method, which is considered to be particularly harmful to the environment. State Chancellery officials spoke to the demonstrators, a press spokeswoman said.
So it is real! If you need to read the letter again before signing, you can do so here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12UAYENzvBF-Nc4f5GcEUQb6xqDmmWyWx/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TCkFxbw6J_bukKsbkg5WkEyd5Q9CrMN2/view?usp=sharing (en francaise)
Many local groups faded into inactivity once we got a moratorium, but if there is even a shell of your group, please sign, because we know that we would once again have massive turnout if we had to mobilize. I personally think that this could be our largest threat since the moratorium if it gains any momentum. So please sign any group you can - it doesn't matter what kind of group it is - if they are concerned about climate change and/or opposed to shale gas in NB. And please pass along. Thanks. Jim
NBASGA in the News:
There is so much going on that I didn't send out these pieces, which appeared last week in the Brunswick News papers.
I had a Commentary in the daily Gleaner about the connections between climate change and the COVID pandemic, and how the parties needed to tell us how they will weave the two together in their COVID recovery plans. It briefly touches on SMNR's as well.
https://www.noshalegasnb.ca/leaders-must-say-how-theyll-combat-climate-change/
Sam Arnold, of the Sustainable Energy Group in Woodstock had a letter to the editor on SMNR's.
https://www.noshalegasnb.ca/small-nuclear-reactors-not-the-solution-to-the-climate-crisis/
SMNR's
As SMNR's have become an election issue, you may want to know more about them. Here is a link to a video of a presentation on the topic recently given in Saint John by Dr. Gordon Edwards, scientist, nuclear consultant and president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
https://nbmediacoop.org/2020/03/15/gordon-edwards-on-small-modular-nuclear-reactors-video/
-- Jim Emberger, Spokesperson New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance
- Hits: 2273
We offer a variety of sessions to help plan events, apply for funding and more. Here are some of the sessions we offer:
- Staff-facing sessions on our program, grantable criteria, and how to best recognize and support grant-eligible projects when you encounter them. While best-suited to youth-facing staff, we can customize this a bit to meet the needs of the org. we're working with.
- Youth-facing sessions on ideation - best-suited to youth who want to do something but are not certain what yet, exactly. We capture idea prompts and help youth to develop grantable ideas.
- Youth-facing sessions on grantwriting - best-suited to youth who have some ideas already, we engage them in developing a project outline, budget, and backcasting/forecasting their project stages.
- Co-facilitation with our partners - we are increasingly more often called upon to co-deliver sessions with our partners. This takes on many different forms, from conferences and panels, to shared facilitation of workshops, to creating redistributable media to be housed permanently online, and many more. We can work together to meet your mandate outcomes and help amplify youth voices along the way.
These are a start, but we can help with other offerings not on that list as well, and try to do so on a case-by-case basis. Let me know if you see anything on your radar that looks like it might be a fit, and we can see about finding a way to support. Additionally, we do have funds for events if you have opportunities to deliver relevant programming or events, and think that we should be involved, we can provide support to help ensure the success of the event.
Please contact Cory at cory@takingitglobal.org for more information on these grants. #RisingYouth
Please contact Cory at cory@takingitglobal.org for more information on these grants. #RisingYouth
- Posted by Caroline Lubbe-D'Arcy
- Hits: 3240
CALL TO ACTION!
SSNB has launched a new sign campaign to call out THREE NB politicians, who have to power to #StopSprayingNB, namely DNRE Minister Mike Holland, DOELG Minister Jeff Carr, and Premier Blaine Higgs.
Forestinf.ca has published the 2020 Forest Herbicide Spray Map,
SSNB has launched a new sign campaign to call out THREE NB politicians, who have to power to #StopSprayingNB, namely DNRE Minister Mike Holland, DOELG Minister Jeff Carr, and Premier Blaine Higgs.
Forestinf.ca has published the 2020 Forest Herbicide Spray Map,
- We need you to pose in as many of your favourite clearcuts (preferably on Crown land) with our new signs.
- Choose which sign you would like to pose with (all three if you like or pose with a few friends).
- Please REUSE the signs by passing them on to friends to do the same photo-op, or return to us if not too much trouble. Of course you can put the sign on your property AFTERWARDS.
- Too far away for a sign pickup? We can send you the pdf so you can print your own paper signs at home. Please don’t sell these though.
- As a thanks for your participation we won’t charge you for the signs, but please remember that they cost us $14 each (incl tax). So please don’t waste them. DONATIONS WELCOME of course so we can buy more! (e-transfer to stopsprayinginnewbrunswick@gmail.com. EMAIL US YOUR PASSWORD! Or a cheque works too to our Petitcodiac mailing address 31 Main Street, Petitcodiac E4Z4L8.
- Please email stopsprayinginnewbrunswick@gmail.com if you have any questions, or if you want to participate in this campaign. We have signs in different parts of NB
MANY of our supportesr have picked up signs and have submitted photos on our public Facebook group.
MANY of our supportesr have picked up signs and have submitted photos on our public Facebook group.
FACTS NOT SPIN: These are the facts and promises we at SSNB have been given by DNRE minister Mike Holland, during two meetings Bruce Dryer and I had with Mr. Holland, his assistant DM Chris Ward and DOELG minister Jeff Carr, since March 2019:
- A very very small reduction of spraying in watersheds (121 hectares) is the only forest spraying reduction we saw in 2019.
We have been given 4 promises:
- 5% more conservation (the land parcels not decided yet) from a dismal 5% to 10% (still way below national suggested 17%). Feds will provide $9.3 million from the federal Canada Nature Fund to achieve its goal. NB ngo Nature Trust, started the lobbying for this and was joined by CCNB, NB chapter of CPAWS, NB Chapter of NCC, NATURENB.
- Enforcement of buffers promised with zero details.
- More intensive spraying promised to make up for the enforced buffers/increased conservation, which will result in no decrease in hectares sprayed.
- a promise that Irving will not receive greater alotment for the next 7 years, BUT Chris Ward mentioned in Feb’20 during the standing committee hearings that there are plans to increase plantations on crown land from 14% to 20%!
- We were never given any indication that more wood will be sourced from NB private woodlot owners.
