Upcoming events

For upcoming community environment and climate events
check the CAFES* Ottawa Events Calendar.

* Community Associations for Environmental Sustainability (CAFES) is a network of local environmental and climate leaders in the city of Ottawa.

---

Climate Strike 2023 In Photos

Want to know more about the Climate Strike?  Check out Jen's article in the September Spire, pg7!

---

ENVIRO-ADVOCACY  BE HEARD!

Greening Our School Buses
What else can you do? Write a letter to your MPP, outlining the importance and advantages of greening our yellow buses. Ecology Ottawa has provided a template, that they can send on your behalf, HERE, OR use their script to tailor a letter of your own and email your MPP directly.

It is time for yellow buses to become green!
While there is federal funding now available, Ontario cancelled its Electric School Bus Pilot in 2018.  Join Ecology Ottawa in petitioning Ottawa City Council and the Province of Ontario to work together to accelerate the necessary transition to electric school buses to ensure that we can safeguard our children's health.

Collective Action Works!
This past weekend, rallies planned to protest the development of the greenbelt were turned to celebrations with the announcement that the greenbelt decision would be rescinded.  Protesters were adamant that the reversal would not have taken place without the tens of thousands of people who spoke, wrote, marched and petitioned against it. Yet it was a feeling of cautious optimism, this being only the first of many necessary adjustments in Ontario's misguided planning and environmental policies - forced boundary expansions and decreased density requirements; gutting of conservation authorities; and attempts to repeal laws promoting efficient land use and construction to name but a few.

ENVIRO-BITS

An Afternoon to Remember
On the afternoon of Sunday, Nov 5, the Environmental Action Group, with the benefit of Aella, one of Ottawa's finest upper voice ensembles, marked the culmination of First U's four-year congregational focus on Climate Action with a unique environmental experience.  Aella, directed by our own Director of Music, Jenn Berntson, offered to us The Earth Is Tired,  a remarkable choral presentation interspersed with spoken word.  The afternoon  carried us on a journey from collective feelings of climate anxiety and grief to those of empowerment, awareness and hope. Click HERE to learn more.​

Yellow Buses Go Green 4
The best way for kids to get to school is to walk or bike, but this is not a feasible option for all children.  Environmentally, a bus is preferable to  private vehicles, but an electric bus is far superior: fewer emissions, healthier, and cheaper in the long run to diesel buses. It's time to support groups like Ecology Ottawa and For our Kids who are educating the community and our elected representatives on the importance of this issue.

Yellow Buses Go Green
It's shocking that our society, while observing the undeniable effects of the climate crisis and recognizing the urgent need to get off fossil fuels, continues to transport our school children in diesel fueled buses. Exposure to diesel emissions contribute to many cardiovascular, respiratory, and reproductive issues. Children, especially those in low-income neighbourhoods, are particularly vulnerable. Most of our yellow buses are expelling a "noxious soup" of diesel emissions every day. While the up-front cost of electric buses is higher than "traditional" ones, indirect economic benefits issue from vehicle-to-grid integration, fewer health care costs, and a reduction in emissions related damage, not to mention the potential for future economic growth in the manufacturing of electric buses and lithium batteries. Read the report HERE.

ENVIRO-ACTIONS

December Enviro-Action: Reuse Old Pill Bottles
Our Ethical Bean Coffee Free Recycling Project has been a great success. Now, Susan has volunteered to help us keep our pill bottles out of the land-fill!
Starting in December, we will set up a box in the office hall, close to the one for flexible coffee bags, where we will accept capped plastic medicine bottles which will be sent to Earthub, Ottawa and forwarded to Mathew 25: Ministries, a disaster relief organization where they will be reused as medical supplies. They will accept both large and small prescription and over-the-counter pill bottles. The bottles should be label free, (Use of a hair drier for labels that don't peel off easily), washed in soap and hot water, dried and recapped.  There is a cost to mail the pill bottles to where they are needed. Please put 10 cents (or more) in each bottle.

Climate Moment Ponderings from the Post It Notes
We received a range of learnings, doings and planned doings from congregants before our concert on November 5. Click HERE to take a look!

Take a climate moment and ponder:

1. What are the two most important things you have learned about Climate Change in the past four years?
2. What actions have you taken in the past four years to contribute to the adaptation or mitigation of climate change.
3. What actions to you plan to take in the near future to contribute to the adaptation or mitigation of climate change.

​
Check out our Personal Enrichment Pages and nourish yourself with reading, watching, and listening over the summer.

---

good news!

The Environmental Action Group welcomes our new Good News Hunter: Jen B will be rounding up morsels of hope and victory ​to keep you in the loop on where we're succeeding, locally and globally, in protecting and preserving our home. Read on, below, for the latest good news!

Cooking for Climate
Demand for climate-friendly recipes is on the rise and a new sub-genre of cookbooks is emerging in response. 1 in 5 U.S. millennials have changed their diets to help the climate and the term "climatarian" now refers to a person who bases their diet on the lowest possible carbon footprint. It's one thing to tell people to eat less meat, waste less food, and buy local ingredients, but these cookbooks bring the change to life and show people how to transition to sustainable diets.

Accelerating EVs in BC
The BC government has moved the target date to complete the transition to zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) five years earlier. By 2030, 90 per cent of vehicles sold in BC will need to be fully electric. By 2035, it will be 100 per cent.
​Kudos to BC for this measure that reflects the need to rapidly de-carbonize our economy.

Alberta Métis Solar Farm
The Métis Nation of Alberta is building a 4.86-megawatt solar farm that will power the equivalent of 1,200 homes and prevent 4,700 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year. The project is named Salay Prayzaan, meaning 'gift from the sun' in Michif. The solar farm is 100% Métis-owned, and revenue will fund social and economic development initiatives, including other green energy projects.

---