[Image-1] Shit has officially gotten real at the Paris climate talks. Canada’s new Environment and Climate Change minister, Catherine McKenna, left the negotiating table at 7am this morning and returned five hours later for another round of overlapping meetings. Every room in the sprawling airplane-hanger compound that hosts the conference has at least three napping […]
Catherine Abreu
Posted inNews + Opinion
Talking Paris: Life isn’t fair, and neither are climate negotiations
[Image-1] The agreement that comes out of the Paris climate negotiations will include commitments to cut carbon pollution from both developed and developing countries. In the world of United Nations climate change talks, this is a real big deal. The Kyoto Protocol was the first international agreement that required countries to commit to reducing carbon pollution. […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Talking Paris: We’re in serious need of some cultural evolution
[Image-1] Welcome to The Coast’s United Nations Climate Change Conference coverage. Over the next week, several Nova Scotians visiting Paris for the annual summit will be blogging for us on the ground. Our first entry is from the Ecology Action Centre’s Catherine Abreu (a version of this blog ran on the EAC’s website yesterday). Forty-thousand […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Refusing to vote is not an effective way to criticize Canada
[Image-1] We are constantly being told that the dismal representation of “young people” at polls in recent elections displays a political apathy that threatens the nation. What utter bullshit. From where I sit, the level of political awareness and engagement of youth in Canada and the First Nations of Turtle Island is unprecedented. Low voter […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Expressing some sidewalk fury
[Image-1] Today, on the short walk from Ecology Action Centre offices to the Carrot Co-op on Gottingen Street, I helped an older man with a cane, a middle-aged man on crutches and an older woman move from the dangerous sidewalk to the middle of the road. I held the hands of that woman as she […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Here’s to a new Nova Scotian economy
I have spent several weeks on a rollercoaster of feelings when it comes to fracking. First came relief, as the Nova Scotia review of hydraulic fracturing, led by David Wheeler, acknowledged the complete lack of social license for development of Nova Scotia’s unconventional onshore resources. The panel’s final report enshrined community consent as the only […]