FIRST UNITARIAN CONGREGATION OF OTTAWA
Picture


​our Congregational Focus:
climate action - building a better future

ENVIRONMENTAL ​ACTION GROUP: Engagement strategies

 ​​​
1- Earth Speaks Presentation Series

Speakers present on a variety of environmentalist topics. Check out our Earth Speaks Playlist on YouTube!
​
​​
​2 - EAG Advocacy, Workshops, & Webinars

Click here to jump to upcoming events and environmental actions ​YOU can take


3 - Green Sanctuary ACCREDITATION

Click Here to learn more about FirstU's Green Sanctuary Accreditation and the Ajashki Project

Personal enrichment

New Items Added!
A row of books, colourful spines facing out, overlayed by the words
Old fashioned TV screens, curving around a wall, showing obscure black and blue images. The words
A pair of orange ear buds appear against a light blue denim background, overlayed by the words
A circle of people, piling their hands together, one on top of the other, in a show of teamwork. The image is oveerlayed by the words

​Ongoing Action:
 ​
  Fridays for Future Ottawa
​FirstU on Facebook:   
Unitarians for Climaction
Hope In Action:   PhotoVoice
 
  • Welcome
  • What's Happening
    • Congregational Focus - Climate Action >
      • Green Sanctuary Accreditation
      • AJASHKI Garden Project
      • EARTH SPEAKS FORUMS
    • Pandemic Safety Protocols
  • About Us
    • Our Ministry Team
    • About Unitarian Universalism
    • Our Campus >
      • Affordable Housing
      • Cleary Detour
    • Member Information >
      • Steps to Membership
      • Members' Page
      • Campus Planning Member Page
      • Governing Documents
      • Death Notices and Memorial Details for Members
  • Worship
    • Sunday Service FAQ
    • Past Sermons
    • Children's Religious Exploration
    • Youth
  • Get Involved
    • Embracing Diversity
    • Music
    • Lifespan Learning
    • OWL
  • Social Justice
    • Climate Action
    • Truth and Reconciliation
  • Communications
    • eUU Weekly Newsletter
    • Archives
    • Lectures and Presentations >
      • HOLTOM LECTURES
  • Contact Us
    • Staff Directory
    • Board of Directors
    • Ceremonies and Rentals >
      • Weddings, Memorials, Child Dedications and other Rites of Passage
      • Facility Rentals
  • Make a Donation
    • Legacy Giving

Upcoming events

Ritchie Feed & Seed
Worm Composting Q&A
Tuesday, February 7 - 6:00pm
1290 Windmill Ln (near Hwy 417 & Innes Rd)


Interested in knowing more about worm composting indoors, but you're concerned about the smell and the potential for fruit flies?
Meet Akil, the founder of the Box of Life, and a vermi-composting expert who will teach you how to compost at home without smells and bugs!

Registration Required. $20.
​Max spots: 50
Register HERE
Climate Café
From Hopelessness to Active Hope!
Wednesday, February 8 -9:00am
Online


Climate Cafés are safe and supportive spaces where people come together to discuss topics related to climate change. With this series of ten Climate Cafés, we want to keep the conversation going and create a supportive community of likeminded people who are interested in discussing the psychological impacts and dimensions of climate change.

Click HERE to Register
Friends of Carlington/Hampton Park
Dr Lenore Fahrig on Small Spaces
Wednesday, February 8 - 7:30pm
Online


Join us for an interview with Carleton University Chancellor's Professor, Lenore Fahrig. Dr Fahrig studies the effects of landscape structure (types of land cover, and their spatial arrangement) on abundance, distribution and persistence of organisms. Her research shows how small ecosystems make a big difference to biodiversity.
Free, registration required.

Register HERE

Photos from the December 7 rally against bill 23

Crowd shot featuring congregants wearing masks and winter coats. Some are carrying signs and some are banging on pots and pans.
Musician Chris White sings and plays guitar as part of the rally against Bill 23. Protestors in coats and masks sing along while carrying signs.
Another crowd shot featuring congregants wearing masks and winter coats. Some are carrying signs and some are banging on pots and pans.

Picture
ENVIRO-ADVOCACY  BE HEARD!

Join our First Advocacy for 2023! Federal Fossil Fuel Subsidies: Due to a lack of transparency and public reporting, tracking Canadian government subsidies provided to the oil and gas sector remains a difficult task. However, Environmental Defense Canada has compiled a running total of those subsidies they were able to track and assessed it at $18,429 billion. At the same time Canadian renewable energy received about $1 billion in public financial support. We encourage you to join Environmental Defence in pressuring the government to stop subsidizing the fossil fuel industry, and to place a hard cap on oil and gas, reducing emissions immediately with a goal to reach a 60% reduction by 2030.

For ongoing information and action on Bill 23, follow: Ontario Nature and Environmental Defence. For news on what's happening with THE ALLIANCE FOR A LIVEABLE ONTARIO, click HERE.

Alliance for a Livable Ontario  is an umbrella group bringing together people who oppose Ontario's Bill 23.  They are coming together to provide a united front to oppose the Ford Government's destructive plans to implement Bills 23, to build an Ontario that welcomes a growing population with affordable, mixed housing situated within communities that offer many transportation options and are vibrant, healthy, affordable, climate resilient and surrounded by permanently protected farmland and natural areas; and to fight for planning, infrastructure, and housing decisions that support and to protect the building of sustainable, healthy communities.
Sign up to receive information HERE.

Background Information and Action on Bill 23:
Ontario Nature
Environmental Defence
Canadian Environmental Law Association

For Local Action against Bills 23 and 29:
Give A Bang!
Thursdays at 6:00pm

Residents of Ottawa and communities across Ontario continue to bang pots and pans to protest every Thursday at 6:00pm. ​Make some noise with family and neighbours on your door steps for a just few minutes, once a week, to spread the word and pressure Queens Park to ditch these bills that choose development over environment and allow a one-third minority to pass motions at city councils.
Picture
ENVIRO-BITS

What about our pension plans?
According to an exhaustive report from Shift Action, covering the top 11 Canadian retirement plans, Canadians are not well served by the major retirement funds. Part of the reason is the revolving door between the boards of these funds and the fossil fuel companies. Most funds have no meaningful interim targets to decarbonize; none have absolute emission commitments. Greenwashing is common, and little has been done to build indigenous rights and reconciliation into their investment decisions. Investing our retirement savings in a waning fossil fuel industry seems a foolish gamble.​

It is not only Canada's national government whose promise to terminate its support for the fossil fuel industry rings hollow in light of its increased subsidies to them. The banks and investors associated with Mark Carney's Glascow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero (GFANZ) poured US$269 billion into "fossil fuel expanders" only months after the formation of the alliance which pledged action to make investments in line with a net zero goal.  This included $37 billion from Canada's top five banks.  Only a handful of the members have policies which meaningfully limit investment in fossil fuel expansion.  

Canada has committed to net zero emissions by 2050, and has taken some steps to limit oil and gas development.  However, its real focus continues to be the increase of oil and gas production and investment in the industry. Indeed lobbying of the feds by the Oil giants has netted $2.6 billion in taxpayers' money, the amount more than doubling from 2019 to 2021. All-the-while the oil and gas sector is making massive gains on the back of high oil prices and the war in Ukraine. Sadly, Canada ranks worst among the G20 countries in terms of public financing of fossil fuels relative to the size of the economy.

Historic Deal at UN Biodiversity Summit
While financing was probably the most contentious issue at the conference, concerns that  the timeline was not ambitious enough and that inadequate action had been taken against subsidies that make food and fuel so cheap in many parts of the world, while disadvantaging others, also created discord.  However, it was agreed that it was an ambitious package which would work towards halting and reversing biodiversity loss and reduction of the use of pesticide use.
Picture
ENVIRO-ACTIONS

NEW Action for February
February's Action is especially directed at those of you who live in multi-unit residences like apartments or town homes. Feedback has suggested that our home related Enviro-Actions are often more applicable to single family dwellings. So we propose a collection of Ideas for "Climate Friendly Living in a Multi-Unit Residential Situation".  To that end we have put together a draft of some ideas. This month's suggested action is for readers, especially those in a multi-unit situation, to read through the draft, assess what you find helpful, and what you feel could be improved or changed, and send comments to us before the end of February.
​We will formalize the content and produce a final copy for the use of congregants and friends.


Action for January
To celebrate the beginning of the New Year, choose an environmental group fighting climate change and make a contribution of time or money to help them advance their work.  A partial list of such groups may be found here.

REPORT: Extension Cord Protest
There was a small but mighty group who braved last Saturday's cold wind at the Extension Cord Rally.  There was much cheering as Hydro Quebec and Ottawa Hydro representatives connected their extension cords to produce power for our performer and his electric guitar.  There was universal agreement in this group that Ontario should renew the seven year clean electrical energy contract with Quebec when it expires next year, and indeed, expand it, not drop it.
​

We have left a copy of a slightly revised "after the vote" letter to our municipal and provincial leaders supporting changes in Bill 23, More Homes Built Faster Act.
Click HERE for a sample letter that includes a list of contact information for local and provincial leaders. We can let them know we are still not happy with Bill 23.

Picture

good news!

Hydro Ottawa Holding Inc is Leading the Way

On average hydroelectric power is the lowest cost electricity in Ontario, and being zero waste, zero carbon emissions and zero greenhouse gases, it has minimal impact on the environment.   Through its subsidiary, Portage Power, Ottawa Hydro Holding Inc has acquired two additional hydroelectric generating stations located on the Mississippi River making it, with 18 hydroelectric stations and 16 solar installations, the largest municipally-owned producer of green power in the province of Ontario.
Councilor Kavanaugh Moves to Eliminate Plastics

This past week at Ottawa City Council,  Councilor Kavanaugh put forward a motion, seconded by Mayor Sutcliffe, asking "staff to review all avenues within municipal jurisdiction to eliminate plastic waste in city facilities within the next term of council or as soon as is practicable; and that the goals and directions of the Solid Waste Master Plan supports the direction of reducing waste and increasing diversion of waste, including plastic waste, with the aim to promote the broader elimination of single use plastics within the community... also... to  stop the purchase of single-use plastics such as straws and stir sticks whenever possible..."
A Change of Heart

The International Energy Agency has not traditionally been supportive when it comes to climate action, projecting future increases in fossil fuel demand that would ensure a failure to meet climate and emission targets. It was dismissive of how quickly clean technology costs could fall, or how soon those technologies would be broadly accepted. So when the IEA called for no new investment in oil, gas or coal development and a massive increase in renewable energy adoption, and then, more recently, outlined support for the lowly heat pump as a cornerstone for its energy modelling, it was clear change was in the air!

Picture

​30 Cleary Ave   K2A 4A1   
613-725-1066
  
uuoffice@firstunitarianottawa.ca

"We acknowledge that our campus is located on traditional, unsurrendered and unceded Algonquin Anishinabeg Territory;
and that the work of reconciliation is a responsibility of our congregation, and of all Canadians.  "Our goal is to educate ourselves and all
who have ears to hear, to be of service to those who are at risk, and to advocate for justice.


Find full contact information, maps and directions HERE
Find our Sitemap HERE
  • Welcome
  • What's Happening
    • Congregational Focus - Climate Action >
      • Green Sanctuary Accreditation
      • AJASHKI Garden Project
      • EARTH SPEAKS FORUMS
    • Pandemic Safety Protocols
  • About Us
    • Our Ministry Team
    • About Unitarian Universalism
    • Our Campus >
      • Affordable Housing
      • Cleary Detour
    • Member Information >
      • Steps to Membership
      • Members' Page
      • Campus Planning Member Page
      • Governing Documents
      • Death Notices and Memorial Details for Members
  • Worship
    • Sunday Service FAQ
    • Past Sermons
    • Children's Religious Exploration
    • Youth
  • Get Involved
    • Embracing Diversity
    • Music
    • Lifespan Learning
    • OWL
  • Social Justice
    • Climate Action
    • Truth and Reconciliation
  • Communications
    • eUU Weekly Newsletter
    • Archives
    • Lectures and Presentations >
      • HOLTOM LECTURES
  • Contact Us
    • Staff Directory
    • Board of Directors
    • Ceremonies and Rentals >
      • Weddings, Memorials, Child Dedications and other Rites of Passage
      • Facility Rentals
  • Make a Donation
    • Legacy Giving