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Time for Ford to Get With the Times and Opt for a        100 Per Cent Renewable Future

A Message from the Ontario Clean Air Coalition

Posted August 19th, 2019 on Niagara At Large

**Have you heard the hum?**

Hydroelectric generating turbines in Quebec. Could they be a source of more renewable energy for Ontario too?

There’s a hum in the air – one that seems to get a little louder each summer. It’s air conditioning season and many people’s electricity bills will be climbing as temperatures soar.

So what happened to that 12% cut in hydro bills that Premier Ford promised more than a year ago? Absolutely nothing.

In fact, the Ford government has stubbornly stuck with one of the worst decisions of the former government -doubling down on high-cost nuclear power instead of taking Quebec up on its offer to sell us low-cost water power. Continue reading →

The Future Survival of Every Species on this Planet – including our own –  depends on it

“The fact is that no species has ever had such wholesale control over everything on earth, living or dead, as we now have. That lies upon us, whether we like it or not, an awesome responsibility. In our hands now lies not only our own future, but that of all other living creatures with whom we share the earth.”
― British broadcaster and natural historian David Attenborough

A News Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter and publisher Doug Draper

Posted August 14^th, 2019 on Niagara At Large

Donald Trump has a hell of a lot of nerve pointing his fat little fingers at brown people and calling them “rapists.”

Trump should look in the mirror and ask the question; “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the biggest rapist of all?”

The orange-hair monster would probably not like the answer because he mirror would be reflecting those little fingers back at him.

And this is not just about the growing list of women who have accused Trump of groping or raping them. This is about the biggest rape of all on a victim that we all need to nurture and protect to survive on this planet.

That victim is Mother Nature, which Trump has proven time and time again that he could care less about going back to the earliest days of his nightmare presidency when he moved unilateral decision to pull out of a Paris Climate Accord that less than a year earlier – in 2016 – his country signed following negotiations with more than 190 other signature nations around the world. Continue reading →

Despite Overwhelming Public Opposition, Trump Administration Moves Forward on Plans to Roll Back Critical Endangered Species Protections

“We are in the midst of an unprecedented extinction crisis, yet the Trump Administration is steamrolling our most effective wildlife protection law. This Administration seems set on damaging fragile ecosystems by prioritizing industry interests over science. We intend to fight these regulatory rollbacks so that we can preserve the natural world for generations to come.”                                   — Rebecca Riley, Legal Director of the Nature Program, Natural Resources Defense Council

An Urgent Message from the Sierra Club, one of the world’s oldest, grassroots environmental organizations

Posted August 13^th, 2019 on Niagara At Large

(A Foreword Note from Doug Draper, Niagara At Large –

If Canadians do not believe Trump’s ongoing war on our planet does not affect us, we are sorely mistaken.

Any significant decline or extinction of animal species on this continent as a result of his (I would call them criminally negligent) cutting and gutting of his country’s environmental protection programs and regulations will have a profoundly tragic impact on us all, and it is another act of hostility on our children and grandchildren, and their future.

And let’s not forget, Ontario’s Ford government is also moving to roll back endangered species protections in this province as a way of offering up welfare to its friends and supporters in the development industry. )

WASHINGTON, D.C. – This past August 12th, against a backdrop of recent reports of global mass extinction, the Trump administration released final regulations weakening the Endangered Species Act, the nation’s most effective tool in saving wildlife from extinction.

The Trump Extinction Plan would gut critical endangered species protections by making it much more difficult to extend protections to threatened species, delaying lifesaving action until a species’ population is potentially impossible to save; making it more difficult to protect polar bears, coral reefs, and other species that are impacted by the effects of climate change; allowing economic factors to be analyzed when deciding if a species should be saved; and making it easier for companies to build roads, pipelines, mines, and other industrial projects in critical habitat areas that are essential to imperiled species’ survival. Continue reading →

People across the country want our governments to do more to combat climate change,according to a new Abacus Data survey commissioned by former Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives–BC Director Seth Klein

Earlier this year, countless thousands of young students across Canada went out on a one-day strike for climate action

“My overall conclusion is that our politicians have been underestimating the public. … When it comes to bold climate solutions, the Canadian public is ahead of our elected leaders”     – Seth Klein, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

News from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a not-for-profit, nation-wide research group

Posted August 13^th, 2019 on Niagara At Large

Vancouver, Canada —The results of an extensive nationwide survey released today suggest Canadians are increasingly anxious about the climate crisis, and have a stronger appetite for “systems-level” climate solutions than political leaders tend to assume.

Among the findings:

Continue reading →

Wetland-Rich Forest in Niagara Falls, Ontario has been Targetted for Urban Sprawl

“It is our opinion that the PSWs (Provincially Significant Wetlands) on the (Thundering Waters) site, along with PSWs throughout our (Niagara) watershed should be protected and allowed to remain in a natural state.”                                               – from a letter sent to Ontario Natural Resources and Forestry Minister John Yakabuski from the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority’s Board of Directors

A look at some of the more than 280 acres of wetlands inside Thundering Waters Forest in Niagara, Falls, Ontario. The environmentally rich area is located near the Niagara River and within the Niagara watershed.

By Doug Draper, reporter and publisher, Niagara At Large

Posted August 12^th, 2019 on Niagara At Large

In a letter sent to Ontario Natural Resources and Forestry Minister John Yakabuski, the board of directors of the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority (NPCA) is asking the province not to remove any protective designations for significant wetlands located within the more than 190 hectares (280 acres) of Thundering Waters Forest in Niagara Falls’ southwest end.

A computerized image of what urban development might look like on the Thunder Waters property

The letter, dated July 24^th and included in the agenda package for the NPCA board’s upcoming August 14^th, meeting, follows in the wake of concerns raised by some board members earlier last month that parties interested in building on parts of the Thundering Waters Forest property may be lobbying the province to have at least some protective boundaries for provincial significant wetlands (PSWs) on the property adjusted or removed completely to better accommodate plans for a multi-use urbanization project said to be worth more than $1.5 billion. Continue reading →

“Tackling things such as gender inequality, racism, heterosexism and environmental degradation in schools would contribute to the notion that we are an interconnected community of people who need to support and help each other.”                                           – Shauna Pomerantz, Associate Professor of Child and Youth Studies (CHYS), Brock University 

News from Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario 

Posted August 12^th, 2019 on Niagara At Large 

Niagara, Ontario – With the United Nations marking this Monday, Aug. 12 as International Youth Day<https://www.un.org/development/desa/youth/iyd2019.html>, two Brock University professors say today’s youth are taking matters into their own hands to solve the world’s problems. 

Brock University Associate Professor Shauna Pomerantz, left, and Professor Rebecca Raby from the Department of Child and Youth Studies say young people are speaking out about social issues at a younger age than ever before.

“Young people seem to be changing the world,” said Shauna Pomerantz, Associate Professor of Child and Youth Studies (CHYS). “I don’t recall living though a time where young people have been so vocal, active and heard.”

United Nations established International Youth Day to celebrate and encourage youth around the world. This year’s theme — transforming education — highlights efforts, including efforts by youth themselves, to make education more relevant, equitable and inclusive.

According to Pomerantz and her CHYS colleague, Professor Rebecca Raby, a key to transforming education would be to acknowledge inequality and confront ideology that values independence and self-reliance above compassion and community. Continue reading →

“I need my dad … mommy. My dad didn’t do nothing. He’s not a criminal.”

A Brief Commentary by Doug Draper

Posted August 11^th, 2019 on Niagara At Large

Eleven-year-old Christina Peralta pleas for the release of her parents

Some of you may already have seen the heartbreaking video of an 11-year-old girl down in Mississippi, shaking with tears for her parents and begging for their release after they and hundreds of other allegedly undocumented workers were arrested in Gestapo-like raids under the jackboot of Trump’s cruelty and hate.

“Government, please put your heart — let my parents be free with everybody else, please,” pleads the girl that a shocked world is coming to know as Christina Peralta and a face for all of that rage and hate. “I need my dad … mommy,” the girl pleads. “My dad didn’t do nothing. He’s not a criminal.”

Christina was reportedly one of many children who headed off to their first day of a school year that begins early in that state, only to discover that their parents had been arrested during raids at food-processing plants where they were employed – all of this happening in the wake of the hate-filled mass murder of more than 20 people at a shopping mall in El Paso, Texas.

If you haven’t already, I urge you to watch the brief video clip of this little girl by clicking on the screen below. Certainly every American should watch it –

.I watch this and I wonder what the hell has gone so terribly wrong in a country where I have many good friends – a country I once had a good deal of respect for? Continue reading →