Nouvelles des groupes
- Détails
- Publié par : Terry Wishart
- Affichages : 17902
(Personal Submission to Dr. Louis LaPierre and the Natural Gas Group, June 19 2012 Hillsborough, New Brunswick by Margo Sheppard)
(Page 1 of 4)
Dr. LaPierre and members of the Shale Gas Group, I would like to express my concern with shale gas development as informed by my experience assessing the environmental impacts of major infrastructure projects from both the proponent’s and regulator’s perspectives
After twelve years in environmental assessment and policy in the Ontario government, I moved here and since 1996 have worked for the Nature Trust of New Brunswick, fourteen of which as Executive Director. I currently chair the Canadian Land Trust Alliance, an umbrella group for conservation trusts across this country. I am on the Minister’s Advisory Committee on Protected Natural Areas in New Brunswick because I care about the future of this province’s wild spaces and species. I speak as an individual, not as a representative of any group.
“The waste of time, money and human energy that this shale gas misadventure has caused, when we should be focusing on clean, green, sustainable activities and business ventures to actually benefit New Brunswick and bring our children home”
As a fresh-faced environmental planner back in the early 1980s, I studied and consulted the public on new highways. Walking pastoral landscapes I made lists of flora and fauna, knowing that a four-lane expressway would soon flatten it all. I assured people that the effects would be small; the forests and farms soon to be bisected would heal or just cease to be. The need for the highway, the sustainability of the highway or the urban sprawl and loss of countryside it caused I never questioned.
How blithely my ministry paved over Class I agricultural land in the interest of cars and development; how irreverently we dismissed the public’s concerns-- about homes lost, villages split in two—mostly, as facilitators of this upheaval, in order to be able to sleep at night. To address the true impacts would have meant to listen to people and actually prevent the destruction before it started. From the perspective of today, how I wish I had questioned authority and challenged all we did. Alas I did not. I was a few years into an environmental planning career when I discovered my role was to simply minimize, or downplay the damage in the public’s eyes, not actually prevent it.
That was in 1984; global population was 4.8 billion and C02 levels in the atmosphere were 340ppm. Environmental concern worldwide was growing, but there was not the vast store of scientific fact, understanding of the threats or their causes that we have today.
“…but the lure of short-term profits, temporary jobs and delusions of budget surpluses militate that we proceed blindly down this path, unquestioning and uncritical of its folly”
Fast forward to 2012, global population is 7 billion according to the United Nations and the C02 concentration in the atmosphere is close to 400ppm. The cumulative effects of 160 years of industrial activity supercharged by fossil fuels and unconstrained consumption have caught up with us in the form of climatic changes that are going to eclipse any remediation that could, but likely won’t, be administered. At least we now know how to avoid causing further harm, don’t we?
Yet here we are tonight, discussing the merits of still another emissions-intensive fossil-fuel development: shale gas. Clearly we have learned nothing from our current predicament and past failures. Or perhaps we have learned, but the lure of short-term profits, temporary jobs and delusions of budget surpluses militate that we proceed blindly down this path, unquestioning and uncritical of its folly.
I do not criticize the shale gas group. I criticize its political masters who, encouraged by industry representatives and growth advocates, are willing, no, eager, to sacrifice the clean environment and landscapes of New Brunswick to further their careers and twisted ideas of what it is to have true prosperity. The waste of time, money and human energy that this shale gas misadventure has caused, when we should be focusing on clean, green, sustainable activities and business ventures to actually benefit New Brunswick and bring our children home, is so huge it makes my head spin and my heart break. […]
[Please Note: Download attachment Hillsborough Shale Gas Presentation]
- Détails
- Publié par : Nature Trust of New Brunswick
- Affichages : 82067
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The Nature Trust of New Brunswick is proud to present * New Brunswick Nature Sessions *! Musicians from across Canada were invited out to some of the Nature Trust's beautiful nature preserves this summer to participate in "take-away" shows. Take-away shows are performances that are recorded in one single take, no do-overs or editing. All the Nature Sessions were filmed by Joseph Crawford, a student from Renaissance College who helped the Nature Trust design our Youth in Nature Campaign with his classmates. Please enjoy this NB Nature Session video by Goshawk (aka Scott Mallory) performing "Play the Fool" at Minister's Face Nature Preserve on Long Island.
More NB Nature Session videos are available on the Nature Trust's website at: http://www.naturetrust.nb.ca/wp/?page_id=376 with new releases every week! Please write to [email protected] with your comments. Enjoy!
- Détails
- Publié par : Nature Trust of New Brunswick
- Affichages : 7375
Notice of Annual General Meeting
Including official preserve opening ceremony (outdoors) and
field tour by boat of Southern Wolf Island Nature Preserve (weather permitting)
Please join the Nature Trust of New Brunswick for their annual general meeting. Following the meeting there will be an official preserve opening ceremony on Pea Point and a tour, by boat, of nearby Southern Wolf Island Nature Preserve.
Saturday, September 29th, 2012
Blacks Harbour School
800 Main St.
Blacks Harbour, NB
E5H 1E6
12:45pm – 1:20pm:
Annual General Meeting
1:30pm – 2:00pm:
Presentation: Official opening ceremony of Connors Bros. Nature Preserve at Pea Point (outdoors)
2:15pm – 5:00pm:
Field tour by boat of Southern Wolf Island Nature Preserve (weather permitting)
ALL ARE WELCOME
Please RSVP to [email protected] or phone (506) 457-2398
- Détails
- Publié par : Tashina Thomas
- Affichages : 5485
lan Weatherley est décédé le 1er septembre 2012. Depuis un certain nombre d’années, Alan était un leadeur dans le monde environnemental de Cambridge Narrows à titre de membre des Environnementalistes de Washademoak et de fondateur de l’Association du bassin versant de la Canaan – Washademoak. Alan manquera beaucoup à tous ceux qui le connaissaient, particulièrement à ceux travaillaient pour la protection du lac Washademoak. Nous offrons nos condoléances à Robena, sa femme et partenaire dans ses travaux environnementaux et à sa famille et à ses amis.
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Nécrologie (disponible en anglais seulement)
Alan Weatherley passed away on September 1, 2012 at Everett Chalmers Hospital in Fredericton, NB, Canada after a brief illness. He was born on March 28, 1928 in Sydney, Australia, and was a third generation Australian. In his childhood Sydney was already a city of a million and a half, but with its warm temperate climate, its airy spaces, the proximity of its great Harbour and splendid ocean beaches it provided a uniquely open environment. Like many boys of his time, Alan roamed the spacious parklands and hills of its eastern suburbs. He loved the outdoors and developed an early fascination with nature and with sports. His career as a zoologist began when he attended Sydney University, from which he graduated in 1949 with a BSc. He received an MSc from the University of Tasmania in 1959 and a PhD from the University of Glasgow in 1961. He began his major scientific research in freshwater biology (especially on fish) in Tasmania (1951-57), continued in Scotland (1958-60) and subsequently at the Australian National University from 1961-73 where he became a Reader in Zoology. He continued fish investigations as Professor of Fishery Biology at University of Tromsø, Norway (1974-75) and as Professor of Zoology at the University of Toronto (1975-93). He was a co-founder of the Australian Society for Limnology (ASL) and its President in 1965. He was also Secretary of the Ecological Society of Australia and a member of the Executive Committee of the Great Barrier Reef Committee. He was active for many years in teaching and supervising students in numerous aspects of animal biology. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the ASL in Australia and the Publication Award of The Wildlife Society in North America for his scientific research and writings. He and his wife Robena Weatherley were active members of Science for Peace for ten years in Toronto. He also became involved in nature conservation problems beginning in 1961, and continued to work seriously in conservation with Robena, centred on the area where they lived in New Brunswick following his retirement from the University of Toronto. Alan and Robena were early members of Washademoak Environmentalists and later were co-founders of the Canaan-Washademoak Watershed Association. Alan was keenly interested in the arts of writing and painting and during his retirement became a serious painter and published two novels as well as a nonfiction book on conservation. In all intellectual matters that interested him Alan maintained a critical and often skeptical approach and looked for strong, reliable evidence. During his life he was active in recreational sports, including cricket, tennis and squash, and remained very interested in participating as a spectator when unable to participate actively. His love of the outdoors, nature and scenery continued.
Alan Weatherley is survived by his wife Robena of Cambridge-Narrows, NB, his stepdaughter Lisa Jeffrey of Toronto (Robena's daughter) and his two children from his first marriage to Jacqueline Robin (Katherine of Canberra and Robert of Sydney, Australia) as well as his granddaughters Kylie of Canberra (Katherine's daughter) and Eleanor (Lisa's daughter).
According to Alan's wishes, there will be no funeral service or formal visiting. A memorial will take place on Monday, September 17 at 7 pm at the Cambridge-Narrows Municipal Building. No flowers by request. For those wishing to make donations in Alan's memory, we suggest that they may be made to the following organizations:
1. Everett Chalmers Hospital Foundation, Fredericton, NB
[email protected]">[email protected]
2. Conservation Council of New Brunswick
180 St. John St
Fredericton, NB E3B 4A9
3. Canaan-Washademoak Watershed Association
c/o 25 Colonial Heights, Fredericton, NB E3B 5M2
McAdam's Funeral Home has been entrusted with the arrangements. Condolences may be made online at www.mcadamsfh.com.
- Détails
- Publié par : Terry Wishart
- Affichages : 11726
(Posted on behalf of the Taymouth Community Association)
A Response to the New Brunswick Government’s White Paper on Recommendations
To Govern the Development of Shale Gas From The Taymouth Community Association
(Page 11 of 11)
Our Remaining Important Questions
- First, what will be the legal instrument used to deny leases to companies who have lawfully fulfilled their license agreements?
- Secondly, who will decide on what is safe, what will be the decision-making process and who will provide the criteria to decide the standard of ‘safeness’?
- Will the entire decision making process by open to public comment?
- If a large portion of the medical profession in the province, backed by other medical societies around the world and supported by studies, says it is not safe to continue, given their commitment to the ethic of “first do no harm”, can they be overridden by a political decision?
- What percentage of leaking gas wells or water well contaminations will our ‘safety standards’ allow as ‘acceptable’? How will that be decided?
- If local communities have different conceptions of what is safe, what can they do?
We need answers to these basic questions before we can give any serious consideration to the government’s current position.
- Détails
- Publié par : Terry Wishart
- Affichages : 12171
Forward
We wish to make it clear at the start that we do not believe any regulation or current technology can make shale gas and oil extraction safe enough to justify its presence in New Brunswick, or elsewhere. Public consultation on the issue of shale gas extraction is critical, as the risks to health and economic and political well being touch every New Brunswicker.
Our views have sometimes been characterized as mere ‘emotional’ responses. It is not the word ‘emotional’ that offends us, since one would be a fool not to have an emotional response to threats to one’s health, family, and way of life. It is the ‘mere’ part that is troubling our multigenerational experience with local land and water issues and the countless hours spent researching this issue by those of us with academic training. We ask you to recognize us as the serious and intelligent citizens we are. [...]
