Local food for New Year's Eve, New Year's and the weekend:

Charlottetown's Farmers' Market open, 9AM-2PM, today (and NOT Saturday, January 2nd). 

Farmacy and Fermentary (Heart Beet Organics) open 1-6PM for kombucha and local goods, 152 Great George Street, Charlottetown.

Some New Year's Eve retrospects, with a positive spin:

an excerpt from a note from activist Avi Lewis and The Leap:

If your inbox is anything like mine, you have a dozen emails that start something like, “2020 is almost over and good riddance!” Or, “2020: Worst. Year. Ever.” 

Ok, fine, 2020 has been horrible. 

But one thing has been keeping me going: all of you. Despite all of the fear and suffering, seeing the uprisings of 2020, people in the streets demanding justice has given me so much hope, and  conviction, that we can win a better world for all.

2021 is going to be the fight of our lives, and at the Leap, we’re fighting to ensure that care work, the low-carbon life-saving work that holds our communities together, is valued and that care workers are treated with dignity and respect.

  <snip>

And more good news:

Samara Centre for Democracy describes its year's work, here (LINK ONLY):
https://www.samaracanada.com/samarablog/blog-post/samara-main-blog/2020/12/22/the-samara-centre's-highlights-from-2020
improving democracy in Canada.  It won't reprint well, so best to go to the link and shee see all that they were doing.
-----------------------------------------
Consider organizations like this for charitable giving, and consider publications offering year-end deals today for subscriptions (like the National Observer, details here:
https://www.nationalobserver.com/subscribe?

There are a spate of recent letters in The Guardian, smoting some of our provincial leaders for poor decisions, demanding access to shared natural resources, and pretty much being curmudgeoney.  Maybe New Year's wishes for all to acknowledge the simplicity and truth in what are more than bromides of being kind and patient with each other, and of getting out and absorbing the beauty, and fragility, of our natural world in our little corner of it. 

Best wishes to you all.

Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming:
https://www.metopera.org/

Verdi’s Rigoletto, until 3:30PM this afternoon
Starring Christiane Eda-Pierre, Isola Jones, Luciano Pavarotti, Louis Quilico, and Ara Berberian. From December 15, 1981. Everybody loves the Duke (Paravotti), except his jester, Rigoletto.

Because this is from Europe, it's afternoon our time--- 5PM today
New Year's Eve Gala
The Met rings in the new year with a gala performance featuring a dazzling quartet of Met stars—sopranos Angel Blue and Pretty Yende, and tenors Javier Camarena and Matthew Polenzani—live from the Parktheater im Kurhaus Göggingen, in Augsburg, Germany, a stunning example of neo-Baroque architecture. The program will include arias, duets, and ensembles from Donizetti to Puccini, as well as arrangements of operetta and Neapolitan songs.
Ticketed event -- details here.

Verdi’s Ernani, tonight 7:30PM until Friday about 6:30PM
Starring Leona Mitchell, Luciano Pavarotti, Sherrill Milnes, and Ruggero Raimondi. From December 17, 1983.  "Nobleman turned bandit", love quadrangle, so sad.

saving the best for last, and with heartfelt thanks to Todd MacLean for a whole year of sharing this positive, big-hearted gift of his Global Chorus project with us again:

Global Chorus essay for December 31 Maya Angelou

There’s a hospital in my town that has the Maya Angelou Women’s Health & Wellness Center in it, and in each wing there are statements which say, “I promise to treat every patient as if she’s a valued member of my family.” “I promise to treat the hospital as my home, and respect it and keep it clean.” This is what we should be doing on our planet. Because this is all we have, as far as we can be sure. We may have walked on the moon, but nobody is colonizing another planet. So we should be careful with how we treat this planet, since it is not only our home now, and has been the home of our ancestors, but is going to be the home of our children to come. And so we should be careful with it – be careful with the temperature, and we should look after ourselves and our home with respect and gratitude: to have a constant attitude of gratitude.

We really have enough food on this planet to feed everybody alive. We don’t need to have somebody starving in order for us to give. We are encouraged by every religious tract, whether the Bible, or the Talmud, or the Torah, or the Bhagavad Gita, to be respectful and care for each other. And that is whether we look alike – whether we are caring for somebody who looks like us and speaks our language or not. Until we evolve into a group which has enough courage to really care about each other, we will continue to be at odds.

When I speak of love, I speak of that condition in the human spirit so profound that it encourages us to develop courage – courage enough to care for somebody else, who may not look like us, who may call God a different name if they call God at all. I don’t speak of sentimentality when I’m speaking of love. I speak of that condition which may be that which holds the stars in the firmament. That causes the blood to run orderly through our veins. It’s a powerful condition. It crosses ignorance. It spans the mountains and the rivers. It dares us, and allows us, to look after someone else’s children. To care about the people who are yet to come. That, to me, is love. And this is our way forward.

     — Maya Angelou (1928-2014), poet, memoirist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker and civil rights activist

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/maya-angelou
________________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca

Fruit tree orders deadline today:

from the P.E.I. Farm Centre Legacy Garden:

We are making a wholesale order for fruit trees from Southern Ontario and want to share the benefit of a reduced rate with those who are looking to plant fruit trees in the spring on PEI! The varieties that we have selected are known to be disease resistant, cold hardy, and grow well in backyards, orchards, and farmland! These trees will make a great Christmas present this season!

Even if you don’t have space for a tree, there is always space in the Legacy Garden where you can see your tree thrive in our edible forest, or in our Memorial Garden (where trees and bushes, and plants can be planted in memory of a loved one).

The deadline for orders is December 30th, 2020, and the trees are expected arrive in PEI in mid-June. Apple trees will arrive on PEI about 10 inches tall and are $12/tree + HST. Peach trees will arrive 4-5 feet tall and are $30/tree + HST.

You can place your order here: https://forms.gle/W8CGqC1XzKw9RsyCA

New Year Farmers' Markets:
Charlottetown:
Tomorrow, Thursday, December 31st, 9AM-2PM
(no Market Saturday this weekend)

Summerside:
Saturday, January 2nd, 9AM-2PM
(no market before New Year's)

Considerations for places for Year-end donations for tax receipts (if that is something that you can take advantage of) :

multitude of nature/climate change organizations (local, national and internation)....
social justice organizations
political parties
PEI Symphony Orchestra or other cultural organizations

Next door  https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/nova-scotia-conservation-group-buys-220-hectare-wildland-outside-halifax-1.5247190

Nova Scotia conservation group buys 220-hectare wildland outside Halifax - CTV News post

Published by The Canadian Press on Tuesday, December 29th, 2020

HALIFAX -- The recent purchase of a huge swath of land just outside Nova Scotia's capital city marks a "huge win" for conservation efforts in the province, according to a local environmental advocate.

On Tuesday, the Nova Scotia Nature Trust said it had successfully completed the purchase of the Blue Mountain Wilderness Connector, a 220-hectare private plot of wildland west of Halifax.

The group's executive director, Bonnie Sutherland, said the purchase will help protect thousands of untouched hectares of wilderness from future industrial, residential and logging development. "It helps to provide that landscape level connectivity that's so important for the long term for nature to survive and thrive," Sutherland said Tuesday. "It's a huge win for conservation."

The group said the formerly private land is located between two sections of the provincially protected Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes Wilderness Area. The newly purchased plot of land includes forests, bogs and wetlands and supports over 150 different bird species

Sutherland said the group raised $2.8 million over the last two years to complete the purchase, which went through in mid-December. Funding partners included the city Halifax, the Nova Scotia Crown Share Land Legacy Trust and the Canada Nature Fund.

The protection of the area is a crucial step in warding off encroaching urban expansion, Sutherland said. "If you look at an aerial view, you can see that there are intense developments right up to the edges of what's been protected in almost every direction so those pressures are real."

The protected area will only be open for "non-mechanized recreation," including hiking, paddling and swimming, Sutherland added.

Momentum for the protection of nature has been steadily growing over the past decade, she said. "Twenty-five years ago, there was just a sense that we have tons of nature and we don't really need to protect it," she said.

Sutherland's group said it plans to protect more than 12,000 hectares across the province by the end of 2023.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 29, 2020.

-30-

Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming:
https://www.metopera.org/

Puccini’s Tosca, today until 6:30PM
Starring Shirley Verrett, Luciano Pavarotti, and Cornell MacNeil, conducted by James Conlon. From December 19, 1978.

Verdi’s Rigoletto, tonight 7:30PM until tomorrow afternoon
From December 15, 1981. " Luciano Pavarotti is the elegant, reckless Duke of Mantua whose betrayal of the innocent Gilda (Christiane Eda-Pierre) leads to a tragic ending. Louis Quilico plays Rigoletto, the court jester and Gilda’s father, who has dedicated his life to keeping his daughter away from the Duke—only to have her sacrifice her own life for the villainous nobleman."  It is hard to think of the buoyant Pavarotti as a "villainous" anything, but he still sings so beautifully.....

Global Chorus essay for December 30
David W. Orr

No sane gambler would bet on us. Armed and dangerous, we are loading the atmosphere with carbon as fast as we can, thereby changing the climatic and ecological conditions necessary to our own survival. The reasons are said to be economic necessity, but to paraphrase Thoreau, what good is a booming economy if you don’t have a decent planet to put it on?

For a species pleased to call itself Homo sapiens our situation is ironic. Many scientists saw the peril decades ago, but the powers that be were deaf to warnings and dumb to opportunities.

That too is ironic because the knowledge and capacity to build a sunshine-powered, ecologically resilient civilization has grown in pace with the dangers. It is possible to power civilization by efficiency and sunlight, feed humanity sustainably, eliminate waste and build cities in harmony with Nature. Such things are not just technically possible and economically feasible, they are moral imperatives.

Are there grounds for optimism? Not if you know enough. Are there reasons for despair? Not if you care enough. But in contrast to optimism or despair, hope requires us to act in ways that change the odds. And everywhere on Earth, people are rising to the challenge. They are dreaming, planting, building, tending, caring, healing, organizing and restoring. They are working from the bottom up to lay the foundation for decent and durable communities and societies. And someday, on a farther horizon, our descendants will know that this was, indeed, humankind’s “finest hour.”

     — David W. Orr, Paul Sears Distinguished Professor, Oberlin College, Ohio

https://www.oberlin.edu/david-orr
________________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca

A year's end often brings thoughts of resolutions, and since most resolutions of the traditional type (get out and be more social, get to the gym more, make more money) were laughable in retrospect of 2020, the Climate Change-minded Umbra at Grist last week looked at some other old resolutions and reprints this, and though it is from 2018, and United States-focused, perhaps you will find some use, and smiles:

Old Movie Department:

Today, Tuesday, December 29th:

The Wizard of Oz, broadcast at 4PM, CBC TV

-----

Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming: https://www.metopera.org/

Two classic performances from the 1970s with the truly legendary Luciano Pavarotti.

Puccini’s La Bohème, today until 6:30PM
Starring Renata Scotto, Maralin Niska, Luciano Pavarotti, Ingvar Wixell, and Paul Plishka. From March 15, 1977.

Puccini’s Tosca, tonight 7:30PM until Wednesday around 6:30PM
Starring Shirley Verrett, Luciano Pavarotti, and Cornell MacNeil, conducted by James Conlon. From December 19, 1978.

Global Chorus essay for December 29 Guujaaw

what of the Beast
that has no face
no head
no heart within
the motherless Beast
though born of man
became his master

the wily Beast
revels in our selfish desires
while guiding its makers
to their own demise

the Beast feels no guilt
as it spoils the earth
and no regard
for the sentient being

the powerful Beast
it rules the rulers
and rids itself
of those in its way

our fathers sit at its table
do its bidding
then reap its reward
… or be replaced by another

the repulsive Beast
will not be satisfied
and cannot be slain
though the beast be unleashed
it is within …

to the Beast we say
Enough, you loathsome error
you bring no peace
you bring no love
be of with you

We are of life
precious life
it is time for living
     — Guujaaw
Guujaaw is a Raven of the Haida Nation.
http://guujaaw.info/
________________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca

Local Food this week:

Charlottetown Farmers' Market to Go *online* ordering is *closed* this week.

Charlottetown Farmers' Market will be open Thursday, December 31st, from 9AM-2PM.
and *not open* Saturday, January 2nd, 2021.

Regular ordering and Market hours resume the week of January 4th, 2021.

When local food is not really local and some might argue not really food....

This article from last week is labeled, and as an 18-minute read, it says, and a very good overview of an area that doesn't get much oversight, and is so close to home, behind closed doors.  I don't often tell people what to eat and what not to, but let's go with the point that there may be better ways of getting protein than "farmed-raised" Atlantic salmon, GMO or not.

(and apologies for formatting issues on either computer or phone versions of this newsletter.  Going to the original The Narwhal article may help.)

In-Depth https://thenarwhal.ca/gmo-salmon-canada/

Frankenfish or food of the future? The risks and rewards of Canada’s genetically engineered salmon - The Narwhal article by Sara Cox

Published on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2020

Some Canadians with an appetite for salmon may have already consumed the world’s first genetically modified food animal without even knowing it. As the aquaculture industry tinkers with fish DNA to more efficiently feed the world’s growing population, critics say we’re moving too far, too fast without adequate transparency

This is the second part of The Narwhal’s three-part series on the future of sustainable salmon.

On Prince Edward Island, anchored between Rollo Bay and a sea of potato fields, the first genetically engineered salmon raised in Canada for food are swimming in tanks.  

Grown in a land-based containment system, they look like any other Atlantic salmon: silvery, pale-bellied and speckled on top. But hidden in their DNA is a growth hormone gene from chinook salmon — spliced into genetic coding from ocean pout, an eel-like fish — that allows them to grow to full size at twice the speed.

When the salmon are harvested early in the new year, they will be shipped to seafood distributors, finding their way to restaurants, hotels, hospitals and grocery stores. Yet Canadians munching on salmon tacos or salmon au gratin won’t have a clue they are eating the world’s first genetically modified food animal. Unlike the European Union and the United States, Canada does not require GMO foods to be labelled — and the fast-growing fish are no exception. 

AquaBounty Technologies, the U.S.-based biotechnology company pioneering the genetically engineered salmon, says it is “combining the goodness of nature with the power of science and technology.” 

“We believe savouring your favourite fish and helping save the planet should be one and the same,” the company’s website says. “And that’s why we believe in using science and technology to help solve global problems, like food scarcity and climate change.” 

AquaBounty markets the salmon as disease- and antibiotic-free, saying its product comes with a reduced carbon footprint and no risk of pollution of marine ecosystems compared to traditional sea-cage farming. 

But others have a wildly different view of the AquaBounty salmon, grown with technology called AquAdvantage, a name that would be at home on the pages of a dystopian Margaret Atwood novel. 

“It’s Frankenfish,” says Charlie Sark, a member of the Mi’kmaq First Nations and professor in the school of climate change and adaptation at the University of P.E.I. “It’s science fiction. Just because we’ve created a machine that can splice genes together, does it mean we should do it?” 

Even if the engineered salmon are raised only in land-based containment systems, Sark and others say human error could lead to the genetic contamination of threatened wild salmon stocks, underscoring that the federal government’s behind-closed-doors approval of AquAdvantage fish has far reaching consequences for Indigenous Rights and nature.

“Salmon are sacred,” Sark says in an interview. “You just can’t change the genetics of an animal that Indigenous peoples have used for thousands of years without first consulting them.” 

Genetically modified salmon eggs approved by Harper government

Genetically engineered salmon eggs were approved for land-based production in Canada in 2013, when Stephen Harper’s Conservatives were in power. 

The government only permitted one company, AquaBounty, to produce the eggs — and only at a P.E.I. facility. Today, the Rollo Bay operation is also the sole supplier of genetically engineered Atlantic salmon eggs for the company’s land-based salmon farm in Albany, Indiana, which planned to send salmon to market late this year or early in 2021.

The eggs had their genesis in a laboratory at Newfoundland’s Memorial University, where scientist Garth Fletcher and his colleagues isolated the anti-freeze gene in ocean pout, which can survive year-round in near-freezing waters.

They replaced the coding region in the middle of the anti-freeze gene — unlike in other fish, the gene doesn’t turn off seasonally — with the growth hormone gene from chinook salmon (the scientists used chinook because it was readily available at the time). 

Then the team injected the new coding sequence into Atlantic salmon eggs. “It took a while for us not to kill the eggs,” Fletcher, head of the ocean sciences department, says in an interview. 

After tweaking their technique, Fletcher and his colleagues were excited to discover the genetic trait was passed on through breeding. And then came another exciting finding for the team; the rapidly-growing salmon reached maturity in just under two years, compared to three. 

“It was an enormous change in the rate of growth,” Fletcher says, noting that cross-breeding has further enhanced growth speed. “It’s the same with any crop, if you can replant land or get another set of fish earlier than normal, you have increased productivity.”

By comparison, regular Atlantic salmon grown in optimal conditions in Atlantic Sapphire’s land-based facility in Florida reach maturity in 22 to 24 months.

Fletcher doesn’t consider the genetically modified salmon to be much different than new fruit and vegetable products created through cross-breeding, such as the Cosmic Crisp apple that has a longer shelf life or Depurple, a purple cauliflower sweeter than the typical white variety.

He says food companies are “getting rid of everything that doesn’t meet their standards in terms of a commercial product. You’re actually changing nature … all these kinds of things are unnatural if you want to call it that.” 

“There is a problem with food production in the world. I know some of it is political, but if I have an idea or a technique that might be able to help with food production then I’m all for it, as a scientist.”

The need for protein is growing in tandem with the world’s rising population, expected to top nine billion before 2025. Salmon, which have Omega-3 fatty acids and are a good source of minerals and vitamins, are increasingly in demand. But the on-going decline of wild stocks is constricting supply. And as tighter regulations make open net pen salmon farming more challenging, investors — including AquaBounty — are turning to land-based salmon farming.

Fletcher’s team, which was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, partnered with a small company that morphed into AquaBounty, largely bankrolled by billionaire biotech entrepreneur Randall Kirk. 

When AquaBounty set up its research and development facility on Prince Edward Island to produce the genetically modified eggs, the federal government did not permit the fish to be grown to adult size, so eggs were shipped to an AquaBounty research and development facility in Panama.

Once Health Canada approved the salmon for consumption in 2016, Ottawa allowed AquAdvantage salmon grown in the Panama facility to be sold to unwitting Canadian consumers.

The first batch of genetically modified Atlantic salmon from the Panama facility arrived at Montreal’s Pierre Elliot Trudeau airport in 2017, according to import documents obtained by the Quebec food watchdog group Vigilance OGM. More than 4.5 tonnes of AquAdvantage salmon subsequently flowed, unlabelled and untraceable, into Canada’s food supply.

“There is no mandatory labelling for consumers in the grocery stores and there’s very little transparency, and yet we find ourselves in the position of eating the world’s first genetically engineered animal,” says Lucy Sharratt, coordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, which represents 16 groups working on issues related to genetic engineering in food and farming.

Sharratt, who has an extensive background working as a researcher and campaigner for groups involved in genetic engineering and global justice issues, says the lack of transparency extends to Ottawa’s decision-making process for approving the engineered salmon.

Starting in 2019, following a federal risk assessment, Ottawa allowed the salmon to be raised to maturity at the Rollo Bay facility, which also produces conventional salmon eggs, triggering concerns about a potential mix-up.

The biotechnology action network has tried to obtain information about the “behind closed door” approval process, Sharratt says, but information AquaBounty submitted to the government is confidential and the network’s questions haven’t been satisfactorily answered.

“The information that’s used to decide the safety of genetically engineered food is submitted by the companies that want approval,” she says. “Very little of that information is publicly available. Very little is peer-reviewed.” 

The absence of information is all the more concerning, she says, because of the broad — and also unknown — implications of tampering with nature and the precedents it sets. 

“What we have here is potentially a very profound shift in the way we view food and where it comes from. Do fish come from the ocean, do they come from our rivers, do they come from an ecosystem? Or do they come from an on land factory? … What decisions are we making that further threaten the future of wild salmon?” 

Nature Canada senior advisor Mark Butler says the federal government has opened a Pandora’s box by approving the development and sale of genetically engineered salmon and eggs without a robust public discussion about the potential consequences.

“You could say, ‘what’s wrong with pink blue jays or blue cardinals?’ We are now applying engineering to the genome to the very blueprint of life. It has big implications and this technology is racing along. I think it gets at the whole issue of what’s wild and what’s nature, and where do humans stop and where does nature start?”

“Do we have the right to edit the genome of a wild species from an Indigenous perspective? This raises some pretty fundamental questions and challenges.”

Salmon are sacred to Indigenous peoples like the Mi’kmaq, and are part and parcel of food security and food sovereignty, Sark points out. They are also an integral part of cultures through ceremony, song, oral history and art. As wild stocks decline, it has a reverberating impact on the physical and spiritual health of Indigenous communities. 

Sark says Indigenous peoples should have been properly consulted and Ottawa should have obtained their free, prior and informed consent before approving genetically engineered salmon.

“As a Mi’kmaq I have a right to food, I have a right to fish lobster, I have an inherent right to access and harvest fish out of the ocean or out of the streams, the brooks, the rivers, the lakes. The Canadian government cannot extinguish that right.”

He wonders what would happen if he caught an Atlantic salmon that somehow contained DNA owned by AquaBounty. 

“I’m holding a salmon that I’ve caught in my traditional waters, that my ancestors have used for thousands of years, but because it’s an escaped salmon or an inbred salmon from this genetically modified [organism], is it illegal for me to hold that fish and eat it without paying AquaBounty?” Sark asks. “Where does this end?” 

Kris Hunter of the Atlantic Salmon Federation, a science and advocacy organization dedicated to conserving and restoring wild Atlantic salmon, says genetically engineered salmon could be an ecological disaster for wild salmon, especially if rules change and they become the fish of choice for the farmed salmon industry.

He points to the escape of hundreds of thousands of Atlantic salmon from fish farms in B.C. and Washington state. In December 2019, more than 20,000 salmon escaped from a Mowi fish farm near Port Hardy on northern Vancouver Island, while more than 160,000 Atlantic salmon escaped from a Cooke Aquaculture fish farm in Washington State in 2018, leading to a state ban on raising Atlantic salmon in open net pens. 

Some escaped Atlantic salmon have been found in the salmon-bearing Fraser River, heightening worries that they will compete for food and habitat given evidence that the farmed fish can naturally reproduce.

“Our concern would be if these animals were to get out and what impact that would have on the wild fishery? The wild fishery is not doing well right now.”

Karen Wristen, executive director of Living Oceans Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting Canada’s oceans, is uneasy about how the fast-growing genetically modified salmon might behave in the wild, possibly mating with endangered salmon populations, preying on wild juvenile salmon and outcompeting wild salmon and other ocean creatures for food. “You can picture it wanting to hoover up everything in its path.” 

And if the salmon farming industry transitions to land-based containment systems, Wristen and Butler say there will be pressure on companies from investors to embrace genetically engineered salmon, to keep costs in line with competitors.

‘Systems fail and accidents happen’

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved AquaBounty’s genetically engineered salmon in 2010, on the condition that the salmon be sterile. Sterility is achieved through a process that creates a condition called triploidy — the salmon have three chromosome sets instead of two — that is between 99.5 and 99.8 per cent effective. 

“It’s an important barrier, but not a fool proof barrier,” Butler notes. For every 10,000 salmon the company produces, between 20 and 50 fish will be fertile.

Hunter, director of programs for P.E.I. and Nova Scotia, says the Atlantic Salmon Federation has met with AquaBounty and the company appears to be doing due diligence to make sure the genetically engineered salmon don’t escape. 

“Our concern is an accident. A truck goes off the road carrying these things as it’s crossing a salmon river, and the next thing you know these fish are out and they’re breeding amongst other fish populations and causing untold damage.” 

Genetically engineered salmon eggs could also get mixed up with the regular salmon eggs harvested at the same AquaBounty facility and end up at an open net pen farm, Hunter points out. The company isn’t currently permitted to sell the eggs to open net pen operations in Canada, but Hunter says that could always change.

“Systems fail and accidents happen. Once the genie is out of the bottle you can’t put it back in … We think this is a very risky enterprise. And we don’t necessarily see the benefit.”

In an emailed response to questions from The Narwhal, AquaBounty president and CEO Sylvia Wulf said the company does not plan to supply AquAdvantage salmon eggs to open net pen farms and will produce the genetically modified salmon in its own land-based facilities.

AquaBounty’s land-based farm in Albany, Indiana, plans to send its first salmon to market later this year or early next year, depending on demand, which has been dampened by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company also plans to build a much larger facility in Mayfield, Kentucky, that will produce 10,000 metric tonnes of salmon a year, about eight times more than its Indiana plant.

Wulf says all of the company’s market production salmon are female and sterile, which means they cannot mate with each other or with other Atlantic salmon. In addition to the biological barrier, she says the company’s land-based containment systems are equipped with physical barriers, including screens, grates, netting, pumps and chemical disinfection, to prevent escape of salmon at all life stages, from eggs to full size.

And AquaBounty will address egg mix-up concerns by ensuring that eggs are from conventional salmon before sending them out to farms, says Wulf, who declined a telephone interview.

Sark calls the secretive federal approval process of AquAdvantage salmon a “coup d’etat,” noting that the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which regulates genetically modified organisms, hasn’t been updated for 20 years and doesn’t have the bandwidth to consider genetically modified salmon.

The act, according to Butler, is a “really complicated and obtuse piece of legislation,” while Wristen says as challenging to decipher as the often maligned income tax act.

“Our act is outdated,” Sark says, “and I would say extremely colonial in its essence that it can’t consider genetic modification of animals that Indigenous people to a large extent still rely on, or use for ceremonial purposes, which is a matter of our sovereignty. Using the animals for sustenance is a matter of food security. The role it plays in ceremony and in culture and identity is a matter of our food sovereignty.”

In the September Speech from the Throne, the Trudeau government pledged to update the environmental protection act. But Butler says senior officials in Environment Canada have indicated the changes will be minor, much to the dismay of those considering the impacts of genetically engineered salmon.

“This is a first in the world,” Sark says. “You’re approving it to go ahead. And your legislation is inadequate and you’re not considering making it adequate? Wait a second. Isn’t that your job? Isn’t that the role of government … to make sure our health and security is looked after? Isn’t that the ultimate number one goal when you sit there in Parliament… to look after our interests, not the economic interests of one company?”

U.S. groups sued FDA for approving engineered salmon

In 2016, the Centre for Food Safety and the environmental law organization EarthJustice sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approving genetically engineered salmon, acting on behalf of a broad coalition of environmental, consumer, commercial and recreational fishing organizations and the Quinault Indian Nation.

In early November, a U.S. federal court judge ruled the Food and Drug Administration failed to analyze the risks to endangered salmon from an escape and to take into account the full extent of plans to grow the genetically modified salmon in the U.S. and around the world.

The court also ruled that the Food and Drug Administration’s conclusion that genetically engineered salmon could have no possible effect on endangered wild Atlantic salmon stocks was wrong, and violated the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

While Judge Vincent Chhabria found the current risk to wild salmon stocks is low, he said the possibility of exposure increases with each new facility built.

“Understanding the harm that could result from that exposure — and having an explanation of it on record — will only become more important,” the judge said, ordering the FDA to go back to the drawing board to sketch out a full explanation of potential environmental consequences.

The decision, watched closely by Nature Canada, the Atlantic Salmon Federation and other groups in Canada, was celebrated by Earthjustice and its clients. “Our efforts should be focused on saving the wild salmon populations that we already have — not manufacturing new species that pose yet another threat to their survival,” Earthjustice managing attorney Steve Mashuda said in a media statement.

Earthjustice cited studies showing there is a high risk for genetically engineered organisms to escape into the natural environment, and that genetically engineered salmon can crossbreed with native fish. Genetically engineered crops commonly cross-pollinate or establish themselves in nearby fields or the wild — a process known as transgenic contamination. The contamination episodes have cost American farmers billions of dollars over the past decade, Earthjustice noted.

“In wild organisms like fish, it would be even more damaging.”

Wulf says the company is disappointed with some of the judge’s conclusions but remains confident “in the robust scientific studies and review” that led to the 2015 FDA approval of AquaBounty salmon.

“This case did not call into question FDA’s approval regarding the health and safety of our AquAdvantage salmon,” she wrote in her email. “The focus of this decision was on the potential environmental impacts, and the judge confirmed the ‘low’ threat to the environment of our salmon.”
The decision will not impact operations at the Prince Edward Island or Indiana facilities, according to Wulf, who says the company will work with the FDA on next steps and will “continue to evaluate the legal decision.”  

“The future of our domestic and global food supply will depend on innovation and technology and AquaBounty remains steadfast in our commitment to leading that charge.” 

Butler, who supports land-based salmon farming operations, has a piece of advice for AquaBounty: “Skip the genetically engineered salmon and just raise normal fish using the best techniques and the best genetic strains — and we won’t have a problem with your operation,” he says. 

“Most Canadians, if they had to assess the risks and benefits, would just say, ‘Give me a normal salmon.’ ”

-30-

Citizens' Alliance Board member Doug Millington is captured on film playing holiday music outdoors on his trombone with the "COVID Quartet", on page 2 of today's Guardian.  It's been a tough time for live music and fun to see creative people giving the gift to others in any (safe) way possible. It you enjoy listening to holiday music, even after the 25th, there are some selections at the Slideshow Bones YouTube channel, here.

Atlantic Skies for December 28th, 2020 to  January 3rd, 2021 - by Glenn K. Roberts

Closer Though Not Warmer 

When I tell people that Earth will actually be at its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) for the year on Jan. 2, 2021, they have a hard time understanding why, if we are closer to the Sun then, we don't have warmer weather. One would logically assume that, being approximately 10 million kilometers closer to the Sun, we would experience warmer weather. If the Earth's northern hemisphere was actually tilted towards the Sun at this time of the year, we would, indeed, experience much warmer weather. However, as the Earth travels along its orbital path around the Sun each year,  it wobbles slightly, its poles transcribing circles much like a child's spinning top, tilting about 21 degrees from perpendicular (relative to its orbital plane around the Sun), first towards the Sun, then away from it at different times of the year (which gives us our summer season and winter season respectively). Only at the two equinoxes (Vernal and Autumnal) are the Earth's two poles aligned at 90 degrees relative to Earth's orbital plane to the Sun. Earth's annual orbit around the Sun is not circular, but is, instead, elliptical in shape, with the Sun just slightly closer to one end of Earth's oval-shaped orbital path than the other.

As a consequence, on Jan. 2, 2021, Earth is on the end of the oval shape closest to the Sun, and, thus, at its closest point to the Sun. Because the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the Sun at this point in time, it receives less direct sunlight; what it does receive is spread out at a lower angle over that portion of the hemisphere facing the Sun, resulting in less warmth, and the onset of colder weather. The southern hemisphere, however, being pointed towards the Sun at this time of the year, and approximately 10 million kms closer, receives a greater amount of direct sunlight, and enjoys their hot summer weather. Take heart though, as of Dec. 21 (the Winter Solstice), the days are now slowly getting longer, and, as the Earth continues its journey around the Sun, are working their way towards the Summer Solstice in June.

Early January brings the new year's first meteor shower. The Quadrantids peak on the overnight period of Jan. 2 -3, 2021. The radiant (the meteor shower's apparent point of origin in the night sky) lies between the constellations of Draco - the Dragon and Bootes - the Herdsman. This meteor shower (first observed in 1825) is actually named after a now defunct constellation - Quadrans Muralis (an angle measuring device used by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks) - removed from the official list of constellations in 1922 by the International Astronomical Union, but because the shower had already been named, the label Quadrantid was retained. The Quadrantids are debris from the asteroid 2003 EH1, discovered on Mar. 6, 2003, and subsequently found to be the parent source of the Quadrantid meteors. Unlike many meteor showers whose peak may last a couple of days (nights), that of  the Quadrantids lasts only about 6 hours. Begin to look for the Quadrantids once the radiant has cleared to NNE horizon just before midnight, with the best viewing likely to be during the pre-dawn period. Unfortunately, the waning, gibbous Moon will be up all night, and will wash out the fainter meteors. The Quadrantis hit the Earth's upper atmosphere at about 150,000 kms/hr, so you can expect to see some bright fireballs, despite the moonlight, especially away from city lights.

Mercury is still too close to the Sun to be seen. Venus (mag.-3.94) remains just visible in the eastern, pre-dawn sky, rising around 6:20 a.m., reaching 9 degrees above the southeast horizon before fading from view by about 7:35 a.m. Mars (mag. -0.32) is visible shortly after 5 p.m., 44 degrees above the southeast horizon, reaching an altitude of 54 degrees above the southern horizon by about 7:15 p.m., and remaining visible until about 1:10a.m. when it drops below 9 degrees above the western horizon. Jupiter and Saturn have now drifted far apart from one another in the western, post-sunset sky. Jupiter (mag. -1.96) is visible about 12 degrees above the southwest horizon shortly before 5 p.m., setting by about 6:30 p.m. Saturn is now too close to the Sun to be seen. 

The last Full Moon of the year occurs on  Dec. 30, 2020. It is often referred to as the "Cold Moon", the reasons for which are, no doubt , self-evident.

Until next week, clear skies, and may 2021 be a prosperous and healthy year for you all.

Events:

Dec. 30 - Full (Cold) Moon

Jan.   2 - Earth at perihelion (closest approach to the Sun)

            - Quadrantid meteor shower peak (after midnight)

-30-

Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming:
https://www.metopera.org/

Verdi’s Falstaff, until 6:30PM tonight
Starring Lisette Oropesa, Angela Meade, Stephanie Blythe, Jennifer Johnson Cano, Paolo Fanale, Ambrogio Maestri, and Franco Vassallo. From December 14, 2013.

Nightly Opera Streams, December 28–January 3

This week of free streams celebrates the great Luciano Pavarotti, one of the greatest singers of all time. Featuring seven of the beloved tenor’s most memorable performances—from the inaugural 1977 Live from the Met telecast of La Bohème to broadcasts of Un Ballo in Maschera and L’Elisir d’Amore from 1991—the lineup traces Pavarotti’s extraordinary Met career. Explore the articles and resources below to expand your knowledge and enhance your experience as you enjoy the screenings.

Monday, December 28
Puccini’s La Bohème, from 7:30PM tonight until about 6:30PM Tuesday
Starring Renata Scotto, Maralin Niska, Luciano Pavarotti, Ingvar Wixell, and Paul Plishka. From March 15, 1977.
An amazing cast can transport you, even if you've seen this before and know how it ends.  And at just two hours, it's a good opera to watch, for people who don't think they like opera.

Global Chorus essay for December 28
Ta’ Kaiya Blaney

We humans have been travelling on a road of consumerism. Ever since the start of the industrial revolution (which brought about corporate colonization and environmental injustice), we’ve been witnessing signs saying “Stop,” “Dead End,” “Yield,” and “Wrong Way.” We continue to drive ahead despite the obvious. Our steering wheel is becoming weaker and weaker, and our brakes are becoming looser and less functional. Our warnings have been given. Someday we’ll drive of that cliff and fall, and then there’s no turning back. Presently, we’re still driving on that road, and our solutions lie right in front of our noses.

Our options for our future under the context of sustainability are vast and wide, yet we make no actions to officially begin using our alternatives. Why? Why do we continue to wait for change in our societies, led by authorities such as our prime ministers and officials? We are denying the fact that if we wait for change it may never come.

We must be the voice, for that is what we were given. Our role is to be the Healer, the Warrior and the Teacher. We must be the change for our many generations to come, and for our Mother Earth. The decisions made within the last few centuries shaped our society into what it is today. I believe that positive decisions made today to influence sustainability can also shape the society of the next generation and the generations to come. However, we need our actions to flow now, and our change needs to happen before our steering wheel slacks, and we plunge from the cliff. We still have time to turn around.

We have a voice to speak up, and a superpower called change. Let’s use it. :)

     —Ta’Kaiya Blaney
singer/songwriter, youth environmental activist

http://www.takaiyablaney.com/
________________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca

An event:

Christmas Bird Count in Hillsborough area today --  it is different this year, with details at Nature PEI
https://naturepei.ca/

An article about a fabulous teacher and wonderful Bonshaw neighbour, Emma Boswell. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-teacher-covid-responsibility-1.5848090 

'An enormous responsibility': COVID-19 through the eyes of Grade 3 teacher Emma Boswell - CBC online article by Sheehan Desjardins

Published on Thursday, December 24th, 2020, at CBC online

If you spoke with her high school teachers years ago, Emma Boswell says they would likely tell you they never expected her to enter the teaching profession. 

But if you spoke with Boswell herself now, you wouldn't be surprised she's currently teaching Grade 3 French immersion at West Kent Elementary in Charlottetown. 

Even through a phone call, her quick wit, gentle humanity and raw honesty is apparent as she reflects on what her life has been like since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down Island classrooms in mid-March, only reopening them this fall.

"I actually made a joke about it," she told CBC News. "I jokingly said in a group [message] to my staff that if we shut schools down or had to do online learning, I was going to quit. 

"I very quickly went back and said, 'I don't really mean that,' because I realized I may be eating my own words in the future.'"

'Double the work'

As COVID-19 crawled its way across the globe, public schools on Prince Edward Island shut their doors on March 17 and eventually switched to online learning.

"I was devastated," said Boswell. "Maybe 'shock' is probably a better way of putting it.I guess I just didn't see it getting to that."

Suddenly Boswell was forced to figure out a way of teaching 8- and 9-year-olds online, and in a second language. "I had to make almost double the work, because I had to explain to parents what it was I was asking the kids to do in English, and then create the lessons in French," she said. 

Spencer the cat helps (Emma Boswell photo)
------------------------
Teaching from home

Boswell quickly realized that creating virtual lesson plans wasn't the only uncharted territory she would have to navigate.

"It's very different face to face with a child," she said. "You want to still create a healthy boundary between the fact that they are still your students, even though they're at home and you're at home." 

Boswell recognized she wasn't the only one dealing with the additional stress of COVID-19. And with that, she said she had to learn to keep her conversation with her students "human" while maintaining those boundaries.

"Sometimes, especially in the pandemic situation, you're having conversations with people that are pretty raw," she said.

But Boswell there were pleasant aspects to working from home, like being able to take walks on her lunch hour. 

Boswell said the most difficult part of the pandemic for her has been the uncertainty. 

First, officials planned to reopen schools April 16 — but that date ended up being delayed almost five months. 

Having to plan to start up in September with no certainty over whether that might change at the last minute if an outbreak happened?

"That was very, very hard."

Few complaints from students

Public schools on the Island eventually re-opened the second week of September. Arrow stickers were plastered on school floors, maximum capacity signs hung outside bathrooms and, again, there was no other option than to adjust. 

"It's unbelievable how resilient and adaptive [students] have been and for the most part, with almost no complaints," said Boswell.

"Obviously, some of the things were harder for them to process, like not being able to see some of the other kids in the other grades."

Boswell said she has had to remind herself what she can control and what she can't. "You're not the one who decides whether they're at school or not. So that's not my responsibility," she said. 

'Enormous responsibility'

As someone entrusted with keeping so many children safe during a global pandemic, Boswell said she tries her best not to focus on it.

"It's an enormous responsibility and it can be almost like freezing," she said. "It almost, like, stops you in your tracks if you think too much about it. At least, for me it does."

Instead she's taking it one day at a time, thanking those at her school and remembering that she's not the only one working to educate children in the face of the pandemic. 

"There is not a single teacher, administrator, staff member…  not a single one of us who doesn't come to work remembering the importance of what we're doing and the responsibility of it."

With the holidays finally here, Boswell said she has been looking forward to a break.

"I'm just really excited to have a little bit of time, because it has felt absolutely like non-stop," she said. "It feels almost like it hasn't stopped since March." 

-30-

Some not-so-light reading for a chilly Sunday: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-real-cure-for-covid-is-renewing-our-fractured-relationship-with/

The real cure for COVID is renewing our fractured relationship with the planet - The Globe and Mail article by James Maskalyk and Dave Courchene

Contributed to The Globe and Mail and published December 18, 2020

James Maskalyk is an emergency physician, associate professor in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine and author of the forthcoming book Doctor: Heal Thyself. Dave Courchene is the founder of the Turtle Lodge International Centre for Indigenous Education and Wellness and chair of its National Knowledge Keepers’ Council.

If humanity is to endure, the coming months must hold healing, not just of populations across the globe from the coronavirus, but of the Earth herself. As is true of many zoonoses (diseases that jumped from animals), this virus emerged from pressure humans put on a global ecosystem.

A lack of healthy, natural habitat weakens the immune systems of animals and the resulting sicknesses pass rapidly through them. Birds, prairie dogs, pigs, bats. With each infection, a chance for a virus to mutate into one that can sicken humans, and sometimes, global livelihoods. As such, a vaccine alone, no matter how effective, will not tip the balance toward health because COVID-19 is not a disease; it is a symptom of an exhausted planet. The renewal of a healthy relationship to our one shared mother, planet Earth, is the cure.

There is good news. We do not need to wait to determine how, because the answer is already here, and has been known for thousands of years. It is in the wisdom and sacred teachings of Indigenous people across the world. They have the deepest connection to the spirit of the Earth and its history, and from this intimacy, healing can occur.

This is neither speculation nor fantasy. A 2019 study from the University of British Columbia, looking at biodiversity in Canada, Australia and Brazil, found more species of birds, animals and amphibians on land managed by Indigenous people, even greater than in national parks. In the same year, a collaboration involving 50 countries and more than 500 scientists, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), concluded that human activity and the resultant lack of biodiversity allowed for five new diseases to emerge every year with the potential to infect humans. They noticed that Indigenous land, though it faced the same pressures, was eroding less quickly. Capturing their knowledge, and expanding their stewardship, was cited as necessary for a healthier world.

No one created the problems that threaten to overwhelm us from malice. Not the plagues, nor climate change, nor extinctions. They have occurred as side effects of a system whose rapid growth is both encouraged at all costs, and blind to natural limits.

If the Earth is as alive as both climate scientists and Indigenous peoples say, and like a body, kept well by a diversity of cells, deeply connected, then the medical diagnosis that fits most neatly our modern sickness is not an infection, but a malignancy. If unaddressed, it threatens to use every last joule of energy, not from need, but from appetite until only it, and a husk, remain. As the IPBES concluded, we must “decouple the idea of a good and meaningful life from ever-increasing material consumption.” This must be the priority of our Group of 20 leaders, who met recently to talk about “recovery.” The solution will not be found by beating back the symptoms so we might return to business as usual, but fanning the flame of aliveness of the beautiful and healthier world beyond them that is in retreat.

This past summer, at Turtle Lodge in Manitoba, a sacred Anishinaabe lodge of traditional teaching and wellness, Indigenous knowledge keepers from coast to coast met and discussed challenges affecting their communities and the world. Their main concern was a disconnect of people from the land and its lessons. In that rupture, like a break in the body’s immune system, sickness has crept. Opiate and alcohol addiction, anxiety and depression. COVID-19. We can learn from the line of inquiry of some traditional healers, who instead of asking their patients first about their pain, start with a more direct question: Who are you?

We have forgotten who we are. There is a remedy held in the gathering statement of the Turtle Lodge National Knowledge Keepers’ Council, and endorsed by Indigenous people across six continents. On Dec. 21, as the Earth reaches equilibrium and begins its solstitial yaw, we are all invited, Indigenous and those of us displaced from our traditional lands, to light a sacred fire, and keep it burning throughout the day. A fireplace, a candle. In its flame, the sun’s light, the Earth’s gifts, and our own spirit. It is the first step toward knowing our nature, and that of the planet, as not two, but one.

We are of the Earth, and have everything we need to heal. The cure for COVID-19 is here. It is us.

-30-

Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming:
https://www.metopera.org/

Lehár’s The Merry Widow, until 6:30pm tonight
Starring Renée Fleming, Kelli O'Hara, Nathan Gunn, Alek Shrader, and Sir Thomas Allen, conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. From January 17, 2015.

Verdi’s Falstaff, 7:30PM until 6:30PM Monday
Starring Lisette Oropesa, Angela Meade, Stephanie Blythe, Jennifer Johnson Cano, Paolo Fanale, Ambrogio Maestri, and Franco Vassallo. From December 14, 2013.

Global Chorus essay for December 27
Xavier Rudd

If I think too much about this topic I find myself hitting a brick wall, as the issue is so layered and so vast. If I feel it out in my heart and my dreaming, certain messages arrive: if every human being on the planet began with taking even one minute in their day to simply reflect on the fact that we are of this Earth and not just on this Earth, would that alone start a swing towards healing the simple energetic connection between human and land? As we know, energy is in everything and its power is often overlooked. And by changing each individual’s energetic focus on the importance of our Earth, even without physically doing anything, it would be an important start in reigniting the lost sacred harmony between human and Earth, which has been the platform for so much environmental destruction.

We are seeing more and more little pockets of society taking their own initiatives to educate and implement sustainable living practices and to stand up with force against environmental threat. These ideals need to grow and expand and our children have to be somewhat reprogrammed. The power of the Internet in activism has proven to be amazing and really is all so new in the scheme of things. If we consider victories we’ve had at this point, it is exciting to imagine the power of our Earth guardians and the spread of imperative environmental education even only ten years from now. It is extremely important that active groups become more united around the planet. There is too much division and that alone is unsustainable. If we are to create conditions necessary for our own survival, we are going to need to build a massive syndicate greater than anything we’ve ever seen in order to be able to keep things on track.

Yes we have hope – hope is revealed daily in our magical ancient ecosystems still thriving around our Earth. Victories like the recent win at James Price Point in the Kimberley and the many sustainable-living practices growing daily show that we can do it. The big question is time and the balance of the scales between the healing and the destruction. Either way, I feel our great Mother will be okay eventually, whether she hosts humans or not, and that makes me smile.

     — Xavier Rudd, Australian singer, artist and activist

https://www.xavierrudd.com/
________________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca

Events:
Christmas Bird Counts look a little different this year, and Nature PEI has details on them here:
https://naturepei.ca/

with Montague being today and Hillsborough area tomorrow.

A good day for an annual reading of this good essay: https://www.saltwire.com/opinion/eastern-passages-the-ties-that-bind-3385/?location=nova-scotia

The Ties That Bind -  by Russell Wangersky in his column "Eastern Passages"

Published on December 26th, 2015,

For me, it’s clementines first.

The lasting smell of the torn peel on your fingertips, the tart slices, the horn-of-plenty feeling of that old-school wooden slat box stacked high with fruit, that box that you can bust down into kindling as soon as the fruit is gone.

I don’t know about you, but right about now, I’m probably eating something. Washing it down with something else. And that will be Christmas more than anything I know.

I’m not much for the lights and the carols and the cards and, as the years have gone by, for the presents either. Christmas, especially with children pretty much fully-grown, is a smaller thing now. And I always get cranky in the lead-up. I don’t like the way the songs start in the malls in the second week of November — I don’t much like the malls, either. I never have.

But what I do like is that handful of days that really are Christmastime. Like today.

And the foods. Some things are expensive — some things not. Brewis, the soaked hardbread that, in Newfoundland, you soak and then fry up with salt fish or steak. Fishcakes, made with salt cod, the noble rot smell of the fish when you drain it that’s both enticing and off-putting at the same time. Enticing, because you know how good it will taste. Off-putting, because some primal part of your senses says “there’s something slightly off about this” — what you might call the Stilton or blue cheese reflex.

Dark, fresh strong coffee in the morning shadows of some of the shortest nights of the year. Dark chocolate, one bittersweet square at a time. Somewhere, you might be fortunate enough to get to cadge a strip of smoked salmon, salty and oily and rich and so smooth on the tongue. Deep red olives with their sharp-ended pits and almonds, smoked.

I remember that, when I was growing up in Halifax, a family my older brother knew passed on one of their favourite foods. It was simple enough, but also a fascinatingly different flavour. We’d always had pancakes with butter and syrup, or butter and cinnamon sugar. They introduced us to putting dark brown sugar on pancakes, and then squeezing lemon juice over the top. A sweet and sour concoction that you can bring up in your mind at will after you’ve tried it even just once. Flavours that are their own bookmarks.

And ham.
My son once dared me, years ago, to buy a ham in the grocery store. A Christmas ham — a monster ham. A ham so large, the girl at the checkout burst into laughter at the sight of it. I gave ham to everyone that Christmas, and I nipped salty strands of it from the fridge and ate them every time I opened the door. Ham sandwiches with mustard. Fried ham. A stupid extravagance. One I repeat now, on a smaller and more dignified scale, every year.

A big screen television? No chance. No out-of-reach, pay-for-months bills, no need to break the bank on finding just the right present. It’s present enough to be, well, present.

The smell of a real Christmas tree, a hint of wood smoke in cold, clean winter air, a strange cheese or two, the smell wafting up as they warm, ungentle as a locker room.

I hope you can find that simple comfort, and that you have helped others to find it, too.

--Russell Wangersky is Saltwire's Media’s Atlantic regional columnist and author

Metropolitan Opera Saturday Afternoon at the Opera Radio Broadcast:
Mozart's The Magic Flute, Abridged English version, 2PM, CBC Radio Music 104.7FM.
More info

Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming:
https://www.metopera.org/

Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, until 6:30PM tonight
Starring Christine Schäfer, Alice Coote, Rosalind Plowright, Philip Langridge, and Alan Held, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski. From January 1, 2008. Two hours of confection!

Lehár’s The Merry Widow, tonight 7:30PM until Sunday about 6:30PM
Starring Renée Fleming, Kelli O'Hara, Nathan Gunn, Alek Shrader, and Sir Thomas Allen, conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. From January 17, 2015. About 2 1/2 hours

Global Chorus essay for December 26
Bill McKibben

        I decided some time ago that I was going to spend no more energy trying to figure out if things were going to come out alright or not. We’re engaged in a civilization-scale wager with enormously high stakes – my role, I think, is to get up every morning and try to change the odds of that wager a little bit, without any guarantee that it will come out okay.

        And there can be no guarantee, I fear, for we’ve done massive damage to the planet’s most important physical systems. The most important of these is the climate – after 10,000 quite stable years, the period that scientists call the Holocene, we’ve moved on to a new, much tougher period. How tough is still up to us, though the damage done so far (the melted Arctic, for instance) is sobering.

        In short, the single thing we must do is get off fossil fuel, and in a matter of years. Physically we could do it, but it would mean a colossal effort, in the face of the power of the coal, oil and gas industries, the richest and most powerful enterprises in human history. It would mean changing some of our rich-world notions about economic growth. And it would mean, most of all, trading in the hyper-individualism of high consumer society for tighter, closer communities. Cultural, technological, political change of large magnitude, in other words. There are days I think it can’t be done, and days – looking at the huge swath of organizing 350.org has managed to do in the last three years – when I think we might just figure out a way. But as I say, I’m not going to think any more about it. Back to work, all of us!

        — Bill McKibben, author, educator, environmentalist, founder of 350.org  

So much to think about, consider a year-end donation, etc., at the website:
350.org
________________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca

 Merry Christmas and best holiday wishes to all.

A day to celebrate (including some local talent below), and hope for "peace, order and good governance"; and I appreciate your interest, hope, and works all the year though, to be part of that "public voice for positive change" that the Citizens' Alliance of P.E.I. strives to be

And by way of CBC's Mainstreet with Matt Rainnie and producer Lee Rosevere, a solstice holiday song, by Dar Williams, "The Christians and the Pagans" (three minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vggo_9EDZU

and about Dar: https://www.darwilliams.com/

And opera offerings, too:
Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming:
https://www.metopera.org/

Puccini’s La Bohème, today until 6:30PM
Starring Teresa Stratas, Renata Scotto, José Carreras, Richard Stilwell, and James Morris. From January 16, 1982.

Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, 7:30PM today until 6:30PM Saturday
Starring Christine Schäfer, Alice Coote, Rosalind Plowright, Philip Langridge, and Alan Held, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski. From January 1, 2008.  So much fun for all ages  --- this version was just broadcast on Saturday, too, so great to be able to share the video. 

Global Chorus essay for December 25
Nelson Mandela

Note: For this December 25th entry, editor Todd MacLean wrote: "Applicable extracts from various public addresses have been arranged below to bring forth Nelson Mandela’s representation in Global Chorus".

        When I go to the place and area of my birth, so often as I do, the changed geography of the place strikes me with a force that I cannot escape. And that geography is not one of mere landscapes and topography, it is the geography of the people. Where once there were trees and even forests, we now see barrenness …
        I try to live by the simple precept of making the world one in which there is a better life for all, particularly the poor, marginalized and vulnerable. A devastated geography makes for a devastated people …
        Let us stand together to make of our world a sustainable source for our future as humanity on this planet.
--------------        
        The world is becoming ever more interdependent. What each one of us does as an independent nation impacts on others. We therefore have no choice but to build a system of relations which, while it guarantees such independence and seeks to exclude the possibility of one country’s imposing its will on another, creates the possibility for each to have a meaningful say in how we should live together in one peaceful, stable, prosperous and free world.
---------------
        The new world that is being born foresees the dawn of the age of peace, in which wars within nations, between countries and among peoples will be a thing of the past.
---------------
        Peace is not just the absence of conflict; peace is the creation of an environment where all can flourish, regardless of race, colour, creed, religion, gender, class, caste or any other social markers of difference. Religion, ethnicity, language, social and cultural practices are elements which enrich human civilization, adding to the wealth of our diversity. Why should they be allowed to become a cause of division and violence? We demean our common humanity by allowing that to happen …
        Human beings will always be able to find arguments for confrontation and no compromise. We humans are, however, the beings capable of reason, compassion and change. May this be the century of compassion, peace and non-violence … in all the conflict-ridden parts of the world and on our planet universally.
        — Nelson Mandela 
________________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca

Hello, all -- have a great day with perhaps some errands, getting ready for the Christmas holidays, good snacks and warm drinks, enjoying being around the people near you, and thankful for the real gifts we have.  All the slightly grumpy political stuff can wait a few days :-)

Events:
Charlottetown Farmers' Market is open from 9AM-2PM today.
There will NOT be a Market on Boxing Day Saturday, but there will be on-line orders next week, and a Market on New Year's Eve Thursday.

Though reindeer are presumably pretty busy this time of year, here is a short video from the website "The Kids Should See This" (TKSST) that shows one part of their incredible migration.  Three minutes long, from Public Broadcasting in the States.
https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/thousands-of-reindeer-take-an-epic-journey-across-lapland

Island Waste Management has not produced any new social media or guides for preparing for sorting trash for the holidays, but here are some notes ...adapted from previous years, and sorry for any inaccuracies.

Some main points:

• Three R's plus the "pre-R" of Rethink:  Less is better

• with the big one of REDUCE what you bring in

For stuff you have to deal with:

• COMPOST:  Most wrapping paper, greeting cards and present box boxboard (not wavy like corrugated cardboard)

• WASTE: Tinsel, foil wrapping paper, bows, styrofoam, and broken and artificial stuff.  Wreaths, unless you dismantle them scrupulously into their components.

• TREE PICK-UP: Real trees can be picked-up curbside if they are out before 7AM, Monday, January 11th, 2021, or dropped off at a IWMC when they are open during the month of January, or contact them to make other arrangements, like for getting your tree to hungry or bored goats

• CARDBOARD (wavy) (including pizza boxes and brown paper bags) is to be flattened and bundles and tied up with string or something and set out with Recyclables

• Recycling Blue Bags --paper  and paper bags can go in paper recycling, and items with recycle symbols 1-5 in the other Blue Bags (though we know recycling has its issues, too)

• "No Bag is Best", just put the waste and compost in their respective bins, without bags.   Be careful dumping on windy days!!

From 2017, but an extensive article from CBC on sorting tips during the holidays:  https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-waste-watch-garbage-1.4457874

Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming:
https://www.metopera.org/

Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia; until 6:30PM tonight
Starring Isabel Leonard, Lawrence Brownlee, Christopher Maltman, Maurizo Muraro, and Paata Burchuladze, conducted by Michele Mariotti. From November 22, 2014.

Puccini’s La Bohème, tonight 7:30PM until Friday at 6:30PM
Starring Teresa Stratas, Renata Scotto, José Carreras, Richard Stilwell, and James Morris. From January 16, 1982.

Ah, nothing says Christmas Eve like the the most wonderful 1830's Parisian Christmas Eve packed stage scene in Act II (but followed by the most tragic story of Mimi and Rodolfo, and you'll tearfully wish they had a Basic Income Guarantee and treatment for consumption back then). 
This is a classic, gorgeous recording.  Two hours.

Besides Opera ;-)
Handel's Messiah, a free virtual sing-along, available anytime until Saturday, January 2nd, 2021.

Sing along at home to excerpts from the 2019 performance of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic and Cappella Festiva, with lyrics on the screen and commentary by Guest Conductor Christine Howlett.

Click to view day of show - https://youtu.be/VNQPRHgAIgE

Facebook event details

The Nutcracker ballet, a free virtual event, anytime today after 8PM out time, until Friday, January 1st, 2021.

Click to view day of show - https://youtu.be/Lb2tGCmjfnY

Premieres December 24 at 7pm EST. This video will be available to watch any time after its premier on our YouTube channel through January 1.

Presented by the New Paltz Ballet Theatre. Catch the performance filmed at the Bardavon in 2019! The New Paltz Ballet Theatre’s 22nd season presenting this classic holiday event featuring dancers from the New York City Ballet.

Facebook event details

Theatre Calgary is showing a three-person production of a play of Dickens' A Christmas Carol (ticketed, $25 per household for access for five days) with Stephen Hair and two others.  Mr. Hair has been Scrooge for over twenty years.
Theatre Calgary details

Global Chorus essay for December 24
Kira Salak

Do you think this world of ours must be changed? Or must we instead change ourselves?

When we lose our faith in God, in the goodness of the Universe, the world becomes a barren, heartless place, and we, its prisoners.

Hope for this world must start from within.

It must begin with a faith – a knowingness – that all that happens needs to happen. All of it. The “good,” the “bad.” Everything is evolving to the next level.

Through our triumphs, we bring grace to the world. Through our pains, our anguishes, we learn how to open our hearts to compassion.

It is compassion that will save this world, and nothing else.

It is compassion that will save all of us.

     — Dr. Kira Salak, writer, journalist, philosopher, National Geographic Emerging Explorer and extreme adventurer, author of The White Mary and The Cruelest Journey: 600 Miles to Timbuktu

www.kirasalak.com
________________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca

Event today:
Summerside Farmers' Market, 9AM-1PM

Book signing with Todd MacLean:
2-4PM, Green Eye Designs, Victoria Row in Charlottetown,
Todd MacLean, creator and editor of Global Chorus, will be signing copies of his new and first for children's book, Christmas at Squirrel Castle, but there will be no copies for sale (advance copies, due to publishing quirks in Covid times, are only available from Amazon)

Word that Eric P. MacPhail, of New Haven, has passed away.  I only had glimmers of experiences with him, but can tell he touched so many in his 94 years with this gentlemanly nature, love of community, curiosity, and kindness.

His funeral service will be live-streamed on Monday, December 28th. Details on his life and service planned are here, along with some stories of his generous nature:
https://belvederefh.com/memorial/eric-p-macphail-0

Housing: from Jason Alward, president of the NDP-PEI; it's good to hear the NDP's voice, but this could be a bit more positive and offer more tangible solutions in addition to clarifying positions. Perhaps this could be the first of a series.

Opposition outrage is perplexing - The Guardian article by Jason Alward

Published on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2020

On Dec. 8, the outrage in the legislature by the official Opposition over the missing $9 million unspent dollars on social housing made for some great theatre and political hay. During that sitting, the Opposition protested the King government for failing to spend $9.4 million of last year’s allocation towards social housing, in exchange for paving roads.

The problem is, neither Greens nor Conservatives believe in true “social housing”. These parties have misconstrued the meaning of those words. Minister Ernie Hudson continues this mischaracterization by thinking social housing is the provision of rent supplements in privately-owned buildings and Green MLA Hannah Bell, it appears, is happy to join in the misleading narrative. Social housing traditionally is aimed at creating housing that is publicly owned and maintained on a non-profit basis and which can weather volatile market fluctuations. This was traditionally funded federally but was abandoned by the Chrétien government in the 1990s. Since then, the only area in which P.E.I. governments have seen fit to develop any public housing units is in the area of seniors’ housing.

Green Leader Peter Bevan-Baker’s line of questioning appears noble, but in fact, the King government, by a small margin, has proposed more true social housing than the Greens. In 2019 King promised 100 public housing units of which some would be for families and nonsenior singles, while the Green party has never independently proposed public investment in non-profit housing for anyone. In fact, publicly owned housing was conspicuously absent from the Greens’ 2019 election platform. MLA Bell also spoke to social housing concerns on Tuesday, but her released Integrated Housing Framework from 2018 has no mention of social or not-for-profit housing. Ms. Bell, it appears, prefers to believe that the market will solve our problems. In a 2018 Vice article she stated that "the government needs to remove as many barriers as possible for developers “and then get the hell out of the way.”

The Green party is not alone in a lack of focus on publicly funded housing. Successive Liberal and Conservative governments have relied on developers to provide what they call “affordable” housing. Recently, this has been done through a suggested loan agreement period. Unfortunately, developers can pay and exit this agreement early and return to the high rental market prices. This pales in comparison to the 38,000 non-profit housing units being built under 60 year agreements in British Columbia.

We only have to look in the Charlottetown core to see the benefits of the government investments of 40-50 years ago. Multiple co-op and public housing units not only still provide essential shelter to low-income earners, but they were built in high-density, accessible areas which create viable livable communities.

But, unfortunately market based projects, not public investments are the focus of this legislature.

Jason Alward is the president of P.E.I.'s NDP

-30-

Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming:
https://www.metopera.org/

Massenet’s Cendrillon, today until 6:30PM
Starring Kathleen Kim, Joyce DiDonato, Alice Coote, Stephanie Blythe, and Laurent Naouri, conducted by Bertrand de Billy. From April 28, 2018.  so sweet, and playful, taking the word "storybook" both figuratively and literally.

Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, tonight 7:30PM until Thursday about 6:30PM
Starring Isabel Leonard, Lawrence Brownlee, Christopher Maltman, Maurizo Muraro, and Paata Burchuladze, conducted by Michele Mariotti. From November 22, 2014.  A wonderfully energetic Barber, even more so than usual!

and the real crux of the matter, forgiveness...

Global Chorus essay for December 23
Tara MacLean

Instead of continuing to hurt and hide from the devastation I saw in the world, I picked up a guitar and sang what I felt. I sang to others. This one act of choosing not to hide saved my life. It released me and paved the way for a life of connection. I went to protests, blockaded the logging trucks that were clear-cutting the ancient rainforests and spent two weeks in jail. I had never felt so free.

This is a crucial time for real connection. It is time to stop hiding. It is time to forgive. When Buffy Sainte-Marie was asked how she forgives those who have done so much harm to her people, she answered that we are a very young species, and in that understanding, she finds deep compassion for us all. This is an essential key to our survival.

It seems that humanity is in the “toddler” phase of its evolution. We have some words, but mostly we hit, bite and destroy. We are distracted all the time, mostly with our own suffering. We are blinded and trapped by anger, self-pity and righteousness. Mine! My view, my pain, my reactions! We crash into things, throw tantrums and create chaos.

What if growing up means learning that the pain in life is a necessary part of the experience of being alive? It exists to forge us into stronger, greater beings. We hurt each other, we hurt the Earth and we make mistakes. This is how we learn. Knowing that, we could even be grateful for the suffering and practise Radical Forgiveness. So forgiveness and compassion really are the same: seeing clearly that we are not separate.

Forgive yourself and everyone else. Let it go. We are all human and fallible. Stop crashing, start connecting. With this action you help to eliminate the seeds of war. This is a revolutionary act because it leads us out of ignorance. With an uncluttered mind, free from anxiety and self-pity, imagine what we could do! We could truly serve one another and the planet, united to face the bigger issues at hand. It is time for a revolution.

Find your words. Sing your song. Save the world.

       — Tara MacLean, singer/songwriter, mother, activist

http://www.taramacleanmusic.com/home
________________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca

Event today:
Sunday, December 20th:

A Quarantunes Christmas Cabaret, 8PM, Facebook Live
from Todd MacLean (and Becca Griffin):
A cozy show with Becca Griffin and Todd MacLean, performed from downtown on Victoria Row at Green Eye Designs, on Facebook Live at the Quarantunes page:

https://www.facebook.com/Quarantunes-Isolation-Concerts-111893603773141/

While there is a little snow to brighten things up even more (LINK ONLY):

10 brilliant Christmas light displays to see on P.E.I. - CBC PEI website post by Cindy MacKay

Published on Friday, December 18th, 2020
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-christmas-light-displays-to-see-this-year-1.5845200

Real Lights (1):
Astronomical, tonight is getting to the peak of the "Great Conjunction" of Jupiter and Saturn, at sunset.
An excerpt from:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/jupiter-and-saturns-great-conjunction-is-the-best-in-800-years-heres-how-to-see-it/

You can see the upcoming great conjunction in detail with binoculars and telescopes, “but the best part about it is we’ll be able to watch it with the naked eye,” (American Museum of Natural History's Jackie) Faherty says. Find a spot where you can watch the sunset with a clear horizon in front of you, free of trees or buildings. In the hour or so after nightfall, first Jupiter will appear in the western sky, and then Saturn, both shining dots distinguishable from the stars by the fact they do not twinkle. “They will likely be visible even with light pollution—Jupiter is pretty bright,” (Rice University astronomer Patrick) Hartigan says.

Although the great conjunction will arrive on December 21, “you should be watching Jupiter and Saturn draw close every night until then,” Faherty recommends. Otherwise, “it’d be like tuning into the finale of a show without seeing all the episodes before it to get you caught up on what’s going on. By watching them get closer and closer, you can get a sense how celestial mechanics works in the nighttime sky.” <snip>

Real Lights (2):
Also, Solstice, and if you want to watch it live-streamed from Stonehenge, go to this Facebook page from the English Heritage page for information: https://www.facebook.com/events/157169579436386/
also, Stonehenge has a Facebook page, of course: https://www.facebook.com/StonehengeEH

EDITORIAL: More than the pandemic - The Guardian Editorial

Published ONLINE on Saturday, December 19th, 2020, in The Guardian's Saltwire website

https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/opinion/local-perspectives/editorial-more-than-the-pandemic-532672/

“Why announce carbon taxes now? New taxes? We’re in a pandemic!”

You can almost hear the tone of the response. No, wait — you can hear it. Here’s Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s reaction: “I can’t understand for the life of me why anyone would want to put a burden on the backs of the hard-working people in this province. This carbon tax is going to be the worst thing you’ll ever see.”

But have a little pragmatism with your outrage.

Yes, we’re facing a global pandemic with a rising toll in Canada. Yes, that pandemic has massive economic implications for countries around the world, Canada included.

And a huge amount of the federal government’s attention and resources are being directed at trying to get the pandemic under control in this country.

But that doesn’t mean everything else just stops.

Climate change is happening, and you can’t simply ignore the issue.

Even the federal Conservatives seem to now understand the need for climate action, even if the current carbon tax method is not to their liking.

“Conservatives know that protecting our environment is critical. We agree with the goal of reaching net zero by 2050. Let’s protect our environment and natural spaces,” Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole tweeted after the Liberals announced their plans to increase the carbon tax by $5 a tonne every year for the next eight years, while also increasing grants to families to offset rising costs caused by the tax.

And it’s not only climate change.

As much as we’d like things to stop, the pandemic doesn’t mean that everything else happening in the world is simply on hiatus.

As oceans advocacy group Oceana pointed out on Tuesday, pandemic or no pandemic, plastic waste is continuing to flow into the world’s oceans and fresh water — with 10 million kilograms of that ocean-clogging plastic coming from Amazon packing material (air pillows, bubble wrap and other plastic packaging).In 2019, Amazon generated 21.3 million kilograms of plastic waste in Canada alone — and the pandemic certainly did nothing to stop or slow that, as online sales and shipping spiked in COVID-affected 2020.

We can try and get a handle on the plastics problem now — a problem being exacerbated by the immense growth in, and disposal of, plastic-based personal protective equipment like masks and gloves — or we can reap the whirlwind that plastic is creating in our ocean environments when it’s too late to do anything about it.

The same is true for climate change.

Yes, the pandemic is the most serious issue facing governments right now.

But it’s not the only issue, and it’s not even the most serious issue facing the world stretching on out into the future.

If we focus on just one battle, we’ll succumb to a larger environmental threat.

-30-

Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming:
https://www.metopera.org/

Verdi’s Nabucco, today until 6:30PM
Starring Liudmyla Monastyrska, Jamie Barton, Russell Thomas, Plácido Domingo, and Dmitry Belosselskiy. From January 7, 2017.

Ending the week with a bang, kind of:
Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, 7:30PM tonight until Monday about 6:30PM
Starring Deborah Voigt, Wendy Bryn Harmer, Waltraud Meier, Jay Hunter Morris, Iain Paterson, Eric Owens, and Hans-Peter König, conducted by Fabio Luisi. From February 11, 2012. 

very good essay

Global Chorus essay for December 20
Maggie Padlewska

Is there hope for the future? I am sure I’m not the first to say that this question is as complex as it sounds simple. I’ve pondered it over the years, only to find my thoughts drifting in directions as varied as the research, articles and books we read, the experiences we encounter, the things we witness and the richness of stories, views and perspectives of the people we meet throughout our journeys. I’m a one-woman-band, frequently travelling solo to meet people the world doesn’t often get to hear about or the communities that are not actively engaged in the global dialogue that is thriving online … and it is often through those people that I learn the most.

Our world is, without a doubt, facing countless and serious crises, from threats against global cultures to irreversible environmental damage. The communities I meet with are familiar with these things, mainly because they are often the ones directly affected by the negative effects of foreign policies, multinational trade deals and the intensifying extraction and depletion of natural resources. Yet many remain silenced, misunderstood and dismissed as the uneducated poor.

This, in my modest opinion, is where the world fails.

Human rights and environmental considerations have become secondary to the ambitions of the wealthy elite and policy-makers. Communities are being displaced from traditional lands to make way for exclusive development projects, the natural landscape is being contaminated, cultures are being threatened by globalization, and traditional wisdom is overlooked by the ideologies of the self-righteous.

We are at a crucial juncture, a moment with enough evidence to establish two clear options. The first, to continue along a destructive path driven by political or corporate greed, or second, to pause and rethink what it truly means to be human and the kind of life and behaviours that would sustain a healthy global community and planet for generations to come.

Is there hope for the future? Yes, IF the world recognizes the devastating consequences of its current trajectory and redirects its behaviours to truly reflect a commitment to a healthy future – not focused on cleaning up the messes that would be created, but on preventing them from happening in the first place by learning from those who have been living that way for centuries.

     — Malgorzata “Maggie” Padlewska, video-journalist, founder of One Year One World

https://www.maggiepadlewska.com/
________________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca

Events:
Farmers' Markets open, 9AM-1PM Summerside and 9AM-2PM Charlottetown.

Ordering food for next week:
Charlottetown Farmers' Market to Go (CFM2GO):
CFM2GO ordering has begun and will close on Monday, December 21st at 5PM
Pick-up will be Wednesday, December 23rd from 3-6PM

https://cfm2go.localfoodmarketplace.com/Index

Heart Beet Organics' Farmacy (152 Great George Street) will be open today, Tuesday and Wednesday, then closed until January 11th.
https://heartbeetorganics.ca/the-farmacy

Cooking the local food:
Island Chef Margaret Prouse, always able to teach and share practical, locally-focused shopping and cooking tips, stars in this video about a tasty and straightforward side dish, Brussels sprouts and cranberries.  5 Minutes

https://youtu.be/qgu35nq2x90

Music for the Holidays:

Handel's Messiah -- A Free Virtual Event, access starting at 3PM today and lasting over the holidays

Sing along at home to excerpts from the 2019 performance of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic and Cappella Festiva, with lyrics on the screen and commentary by Guest Conductor Christine Howlett.

Click to view day of show - https://www.youtube.com/c/BardavonPresents/videos

Premieres December 19 at 2pm EST. This video will be available to watch any time after its premier on our YouTube channel through the new year.

Facebook event link

Metropolitan Opera performances this weekend:
https://www.metopera.org/

Saturday Afternoon at the Opera, 2PM, CBC Music 104.7FM
Special Holiday Performance!
Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel
Conducted by Donald Runnicles; Lisette Oropesa (Gretel), Tara Erraught (Hansel), Dolora Zajick (Gertrude), Gerhard Siegel (Witch), Quinn Kelsey (Peter)  From January 6, 2018

Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming:

Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov
Starring Ekaterina Semenchuk, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Oleg Balashov, Evgeny Nikitin, René Pape, Mikhail Petrenko, and Vladimir Ognovenko, conducted by Valery Gergiev. From October 23, 2010.

Verdi’s Nabucco
Starring Liudmyla Monastyrska, Jamie Barton, Russell Thomas, Plácido Domingo, and Dmitry Belosselskiy. From January 7, 2017.  Pretty much all the elements of great opera -- father-daughter complications, madness, royalty, a love triangle....and amazing costumes and set, and of course, singing.  And has the haunting "Song of the Hebrew Slaves" in Act III.

Tomorrow, Sunday, December 20th:
A Quarantunes Christmas Caberet, 8PM, Facebook Live
from Todd MacLean (and Becca Griffin):
"Cozy up at home as Becca Griffin and I bring you our Christmas show to Facebook Live, performed from downtown on Victoria Row at

Green Eye Designs"

Quarantunes  page at 8PM Sunday - and enjoy the show!!

I have not read this yet, but it's from Project Drawdown, and about the future of Agriculture and Climate Change:

'Our latest publication “Farming Our Way Out of the Climate Crisis-- A Drawdown Primer” details and quantifies the planet-healing potential of land use, agricultural practices, and food systems.'

You can get the e-mail download from this page:
https://drawdown.org/

or here it is directly: https://drawdown.org/downloads?tca=7kcJDw6Pw--JZ852ds8YOWVhgaaH0QXFCqN9xd63VCc
48 pages, with photos and charts.

Global Chorus essay for December 19
David Buckland

It is perhaps unsurprising that it has been the scientists reporting the evidence of global warming who have become the most passionate in calling for society to urgently change its course.

However, this urgency isn’t being communicated successfully enough to provoke the real change needed in our global societies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change. The resistance to cultural change is bafflliing in the face of extreme weather events and other disturbances across our planet. Anthropogenic climate change threatens us all with an uncertain physical, social and economic future, so why are we not engaged in sorting out our future? Perhaps cultural approaches can succeed where the hard facts of science have failed.

The international Cape Farewell project, now in its 11th year, aims to do just that. It embeds artists, writers, architects, musicians and filmmakers with climate scientists as they measure and evaluate planetary changes at the Earth’s known climate change “hotspots.” So far, we have made seven expeditions into the Arctic aboard the 100-year-old Norwegian schooner Noorderlicht (Northern Lights), one expedition to the Andes and the Amazon and one to the Scottish Western Isles. Each of these journeys has enabled the diverse expedition team to examine how anthropogenic activity is affecting our habitat.

When I set up Cape Farewell in 2001, the aim was to create a different language of climate change with which to engage the public. Over 140 artsbased practitioners have taken part in these voyages, openly engaging with more than 45 scientists, creating artworks, exhibitions, books and films that have toured worldwide. This international effort, including people from China to Mexico, has brought distinctly different cultural sensibilities to the story of climate change’s causes and impacts.

The overriding memory of each of the voyagers engaged in these adventures is more akin to having fun than experiencing suffering. Climate change is truly a cultural challenge; it affects all of us and we all need to become part of the solution. But perhaps we should approach it more in the spirit of an expedition that encompasses the optimism of moving forward. As Marshall McLuhan put it, “Spaceship Earth doesn’t carry passengers, only crew.”

     — David Buckland, founder and director of Cape Farewell

A great deal of interesting content here:
www.capefarewell.com

________________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca

Events:

Fridays4Future, 3:30PM, by Cenotaph near Province House, Charlottetown

Consider writing your MLA or MP -- Find your MLA at:
P.E.I. Legislative Assembly website https://www.assembly.pe.ca/

Find your MP:
https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en

-----------------
Inaccuracies -- yesterday I said the Solstice Walk Anywhere was Saturday, and it is MONDAY, December 21st, from 6-7PM.

Related CBC article (LINK ONLY):
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-howlan-road-power-line-1.5825654

best to find a better map of the area to enhance reading Herb's letter:


LETTER TO THE EDITOR: King must divert high voltage lines - The Guardian Letter to the Editor

Published on Thursday, December 17th, 2020, in
https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/opinion/local-perspectives/letter-to-the-editor-king-must-divert-high-voltage-lines-532247/

Wind-powered electricity is a renewable resource that could benefit all Islanders in their homes and businesses by creating jobs and providing an alternative to fossil fuels to do our part in countering global warming. However, acquiring and transmitting wind-generated electric power must respect and receive social license from residents most affected by the development of the resource.  

In 2006, the government of then-Premier Pat Binns allowed the establishment of a high voltage power line to transmit power from the West Cape wind farm along parts of Routes 142, 144, 147 and 143 in western P.E.I. The line ran along the highway through the communities of Springfield West, Haliburton, Forest View and Howlan.

Following compelling appeals from residents, in 2008 the Ghiz government diverted part of the high voltage line away from Howlan, joining a non-inhabited corridor to Summerside, but left most of the line that remains in parts of Springfield West, Haliburton and Forest View. Close to fifty dwellings, housing almost three times as many residents continue to have the high voltage power line along the highway adjacent to their homes.

Many residents in these communities have health concerns, and their property values may be compromised due to the presence of high voltage power lines. Although debate exists in scientific circles as to health risks for those near high power lines, a responsible government should follow the precautionary principle and avoid risk to the people they claim to represent.

The King government must heed the legitimate concerns of rural Islanders and correct the failures of previous governments by ordering complete diversion of the West Cape wind farm high voltage transmission line and allow meaningful consultation for any further development.
Herb Dickieson, O’Leary

Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming:
https://www.metopera.org/

Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini, until 6:30PM tonight
Starring Renata Scotto, Plácido Domingo, and Cornell MacNei. From April 7, 1984.

Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, tonight 7:30PM until Saturday about 6:30PM
Starring Ekaterina Semenchuk, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Oleg Balashov, Evgeny Nikitin, René Pape, Mikhail Petrenko, and Vladimir Ognovenko, conducted by Valery Gergiev. From October 23, 2010.  Was Boris good enough?  Watch and determine for yourself. Rene Pape is certainly brilliant.

Global Chorus essay for December 18
Maude Barlow

With all my heart I believe that hope is a moral imperative. I could not do my work otherwise.

However, if truth be told, there are days when it is hard to hold on to this place of hope. A friend says she is numbed by “apocalypse fatigue.” Not me. Every new study on Arctic melting, species extinction and water depletion invades my soul.

Is there a way past the current crisis? Yes, there is. But it lies on a different path from the dominant economic and development model of our time. Growth, deregulation, privatization, free markets, more stuff travelling farther with fewer barriers – that is the dominant political narrative currently driving most governments, the big-business community and global institutions. It is killing the planet and disenfranchising billions.

An important recent study found that the global trade in food is consuming the bulk of the world’s water heritage and depleting groundwater far faster than it can be replenished. One American environmentalist said that unlimited growth has the same DNA as the cancer cell. It has to turn on its host to survive. Now we are being told that unless we place a price on Nature and bring it into the market economy, it will not survive.

The way forward lies with an alternative narrative. Instead of seeing Nature as a “resource” for our convenience, pleasure and profit, we need to see it as a living ecosystem from which all life springs, and adapt our lives and laws to those of the natural world. That means challenging the growth imperative and moving to more local economies of scale. It means recognizing that Nature has rights too. Conservation, preservation, biological diversity, co-operation, local sustainable food production, fair trade, economic justice, public trust: these are the hallmarks of the path forward.

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales says the goal must be to live well, not to live better than others. Listen to the Earth.

Listen to the ancient peoples. The answers lie there.

     — Maude Barlow, national chair of the Council of Canadians, chair of Washington-based Food and Water Watch, author of Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and The Coming Battle for the Right to Water and Blue Future: Protecting Water for People and the Planet Forever


The treasure that is Maude has recently stepped down from her role as Honourary Chair of the Council of Canadians.

https://canadians.org/maude
________________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca

Announcements:

Fruit Trees from the Legacy Garden at the P.E.I. Farm Centre:

We are making a wholesale order for fruit trees from Southern Ontario and want to share the benefit of a reduced rate with those who are looking to plant fruit trees in the spring on PEI! The varieties that we have selected are known to be disease resistant, cold hardy, and grow well in backyards, orchards, and farmland! These trees will make a great Christmas present this season!

Even if you don’t have space for a tree, there is always space in the Legacy Garden where you can see your tree thrive in our edible forest, or in our Memorial Garden (where trees and bushes, and plants can be planted in memory of a loved one).

The deadline for orders is December 30th, 2020, and the trees are expected arrive in PEI in mid-June. Apple trees will arrive on PEI about 10 inches tall and are $12/tree + HST. Peach trees will arrive 4-5 feet tall and are $30/tree + HST.

You can place your order here: https://forms.gle/W8CGqC1XzKw9RsyCA

This is a fundraiser for the Farm Centre's Legacy Garden, and you can find out more about the garden here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WpORz4A51g&t=4s

----------------
Community Food Questionnaire from the City of Charlottetown

Deadline is December 18th (I think)
"There are only three more days to answer the Charlottetown Food Council’s Community Food Questionnaire! This survey is intended to collect important information about Charlottetown’s food environment and to identify food-related assets in the city. Additionally, the results of this survey will be compared to those of a similar survey, which was launched prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, to gain insight into the way the pandemic has affected the food system in Charlottetown.

All residents are encouraged to participate. The survey will only take a few minutes to complete and all participants will be entered to win a fruit tree from Van Kampen’s!

For more information on the Charlottetown Food Council, visit www.charlottetown.ca/foodcouncil
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An Islander has started a Facebook group to showcase locations of people's spectacular PEI Christmas lights, including a map, which is the first pinned post.  Lots of photos of displays, too.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2204752023184831
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The River Clyde Pageant has highlighted magic in simple things and endured during challenging times.  They have a lovely idea for celebrating the Solstice:

Saturday, December 21st:
River Clyde Solstice Walk, 6-7PM, *Everywhere*

The River Clyde Solstice Walk celebrates the promise of light on the darkest day of the year. On December 21st from 6-7pm, wherever you live, we invite you to step into the darkness with a flame, light, or lantern, and walk with us to invoke the return of the sun.

As we take our lanterns alone into the dark, we will see the lights of friends and neighbours stretching out, before us and behind us into the year’s last long night.

The Winter Solstice reminds us of the cycle of renewal and the potential for change as we emerge from the darkness. In the midst of the pandemic and the climate crisis, we offer this Solstice Walk to illuminate our capacity for transformation, through our attention and our presence, together and apart.

Share your light with us by using the hashtag #riverclydesolsticewalk

The River Clyde Pageant has created a series of video tutorials on lantern building for anyone who wants to build their own lantern using red osier dogwood, willow, wire and old bedsheets. We invite you to construct a lantern using this technique or any other technique and bring your light out into the world.

Video 1: https://youtu.be/JiwPAZXLzz0
Video 2: https://youtu.be/Cmq0g9qQe7I
Video 3: https://youtu.be/3JRRyhNIys4

We encourage everyone to wear a mask and practice social distancing on your walk to keep our communities safe.

This walk is a project of The River Clyde Pageant, a large-scale, community-led, outdoor spectacle in New Glasgow, PEI. To find out more about our work, visit www.riverclydepageant.com

GUEST OPINION: P.E.I. water issue is not urban versus rural - The Guardian Op-ed by Gary Schneider, Ann Wheatley and Don Mazer

Published on Wednesday, December 16th, 2020

https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/opinion/local-perspectives/guest-opinion-pei-water-issue-is-not-urban-versus-rural-531733/

It is disturbing to hear the genuine public concern over high-capacity wells being deliberately misinterpreted as “urban versus rural” and as an attack against farmers. The Environmental Coalition of Prince Edward Island has been working for years to usher in a new era of water protection and conservation, and never once have we opposed farmers. Farmers are important to the economic and social health of the province.

What we have consistently opposed is the form of industrial agriculture that continues to result in fish kills and anoxic events, reduced water levels in streams and depleted levels of organic matter in soils.

Many excellent farmers in the province realize that a healthy environment is critical to their future existence. To paint this issue as farmers versus non-farmers does them a disservice.

Members of the National Farmers Union (NFU) have long advocated for better management practices. Doug Campbell, P.E.I.’s NFU district director, was recently quoted as saying: “Why do we have no organic matter in our soil? The reason for that is because of the way the land is being farmed. Why is that? Because of pressure from industrialized farming.”

We’ve also had conversations with other farmers who are very concerned about the direction of potato farming and the influence of the Irving family, which is where the push for high-capacity wells is coming from. Clearly, not all farmers want or could afford high-capacity wells.  But their voices are seldom heard.

In 2013, the P.E.I. Potato Board and Cavendish Farms asked the P.E.I. government to lift a long-standing moratorium on high-capacity wells in the province. Indirectly, this led to the development of a new Water Act. During the public process to develop the act, there were 57 presentations, along with written submissions from a diverse range of groups and individuals, and from industry. The vast majority of these presentations wanted the moratorium on high-capacity wells to be kept in place. This was also the recommendation in the environmental advisory committee report on the meetings.

Unfortunately, the Water Act passed in 2017 has yet to be proclaimed, and the revised regulations still have not been released for public comment. During this time, there have been a number of new holding ponds developed that would not be permitted under the draft regulations. We need to enact the Water Act, to maintain the high-capacity wells moratorium, and prohibit holding ponds.  

But we also need to find a way out of the unsustainable cycle we’re in. Climate change will likely bring hotter and drier summers. The need for irrigating potatoes will be greatest when water is less and less available, and when the need for water to maintain ecosystem health is the greatest. At the same time that more water is needed for agriculture, we should be taking less.

More high-capacity wells will only enable this increasingly unsustainable cycle. We need to find ways of doing agriculture differently.

Considering water as a common good and a public trust requires all of us to conserve and protect it. Water should not be seen as a resource, simply to be extracted and exploited, but as an essential part of living ecosystems that support all life. It is imperative that respect for protecting fresh water be at the forefront of decision-making when it comes to water extraction. P.E.I. is one of only a small number of places entirely dependent upon groundwater. This makes P.E.I. unique and also vulnerable to any disturbance in the ecosystem.

And clearly, all water use is not equal. Humans need clean drinking water and that should be our first priority. Ecosystem health should always be a priority since it must be preserved in part to provide the life-giving essence mentioned above. Domestic use and emergency use for firefighting are next. Agriculture and industry are generally far down the priority list for access to water.

Islanders are once again at a crossroads. We can be ever more committed to an industrial model of agriculture, with more water usage, larger fields, less and less soil organic matter, shrinking windbreaks, continuing fish kills and anoxic conditions, fewer farmers on larger acreages, and a small number of jobs created per acre.

Or we can look at truly becoming the Garden of the Gulf, with excellent drinking water, food security and tremendous employment opportunities (as our organic growers and innovative small and large farmers have demonstrated throughout the pandemic). All Islanders would live in a healthy environment that continued to improve, and we would become a haven for tourists looking for a beautiful, safe and sustainable place to visit.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to say we are Canada’s Food Island without having dead fish in the water? And, especially in an era of escalating climate change, it is good for all of us to remember that no one, and nothing, lives without clean water.

Gary Schneider, Ann Wheatley and Don Mazer represent the Environmental Coalition of P.E.I.

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Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming:
https://www.metopera.org/ 

Berlioz’s Les Troyens, tonight until 6:30PM
Starring Deborah Voigt, Susan Graham, Karen Cargill, Bryan Hymel, Eric Cutler, Dwayne Croft, and Kwangchoul Youn, conducted by Fabio Luisi. From January 5, 2013. Trojan Horse, the Fall of Troy, the regal refugees take refuge in Carthage and cause tragedy. But the singing!

Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini, tonight 7:30PM until Friday about 6:30PM
Starring Renata Scotto, Plácido Domingo, and Cornell MacNei. From April 7, 1984.  In a version of a story by Dante, Francesca is promised to the horrid eldest brother, but she loves the middle brother, and there's a younger brother who loves her, too.  It ends badly, but the singing!

Global Chorus essay for December 17
Jonathon Button

Within every individual there is a need to give and contribute to the greater of humankind. We all want to make a difference. The main hurdle is that most of us don’t know where to start. Through education, society can further understand what the biggest issues are. Through understanding these problems, individuals can break them down into smaller obstacles which can be attacked.

With Life Out of the Box, we have been on an evolving adventure throughout Third World countries searching for these issues and understanding the source of them. What we have found is that many of those in need simply lack the tools to further develop into the person they want to become, which would lead them to further contributing to society and helping humanity. Without knowledge, it is impossible for the world to understand the problems, which results in a lack of action.

Life Out of the Box is dedicated to inspiring people to get out there, explore the world, learn and then take action towards making a difference. It is easy to think out of the box, but the key is making it happen and actually living your Life Out of the Box to make the world a better place for all. Thoughts and ideas are a necessary step towards accomplishing the goal, but they are nothing without actually taking the steps towards making them a reality.

I have great faith in the future. As the world is becoming more connected through social media, the understanding of the world becomes more clear and enables individuals to recognize the needs that must be addressed in order to ensure our existence. Through this new awareness, we can reflect on our actions and understand how they are currently contributing in a positive or negative way to the globe. Life is great. It should never be taken for granted and together we must contribute towards ensuring that all living species can experience this precious gift.

     — Jonathon Button, co-founder of Life Out of the Box

www.lifeoutofthebox.com
which includes encouraging and uplifting podcasts from Quinn and Jonathon Button, something they have just started recording again
________________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca

Condolences to the family of Muriel Allen, a sparkling and indomitable spirit, who passed away yesterday at 88.  Especially noteworthy in a noteworthy life, of "...teaching at a one room school as a young woman to being a vital member of the P.E.I. Library Service’s Bookmobile team from 1972 to 1993."  Stories that have been explored and should continue to be shared, of super Island women.

Some Act Local and Think Global notes today:

Local Food option:
The Farmacy Vegetable Market, 3-6PM, 152 Great George Street, Charlottetown.  Vegetables and ferments from Heart Beet Organics and others. Order ahead suggested:
https://heartbeetorganics.ca/

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The deadline is today to submit a nomination.

Some retail options:

Love Local PEI
https://lovelocalpei.ca/blog/love-local-20-stocking-stuffers-ideas-for-20-or-under/

This website is sponsored by a lot of local Chambers of Commerce and has news and lots of ideas for supporting local businesses, especially this holiday season.

About the Monsieur Vrac store, with the gumption of opening a reusable non-waste container store in Charlottetown during a pandemic:
https://monsieurvrac.com/en/home/

https://www.facebook.com/monsieurvraccharlottetown/

Climate Justice:
Greenpeace Canada asks:

Now is the time to build a powerful people-powered response that brings us together, provides care for our communities, restores nature and reshapes what is politically possible. Climate justice means acting on the climate crisis in a way that builds equity and respects everyone’s human rights. 
How can we make this happen? Help build political pressure and power by emailing your MP and Cabinet ministers now.
Link for petition

Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming:
https://www.metopera.org/

Wagner’s Lohengrin, until 6:30PM tonight
Starring Eva Marton, Leonie Rysanek, Peter Hofmann, Leif Roar, and John Macurdy. From January 10, 1986.

Berlioz’s Les Troyens, 7:30PM tonight until 6:30PM Thursday
Starring Deborah Voigt, Susan Graham, Karen Cargill, Bryan Hymel, Eric Cutler, Dwayne Croft, and Kwangchoul Youn, conducted by Fabio Luisi. From January 5, 2013.  Cassandra, Dido and Aeneas -- pretty dramatic stuff and amazing stars.

With mythical elements of both Cassandra and Wonder Woman,
today's Global Chorus essay is by Atossa Soltani, founder and now Executive Director of Amazon Watch.

about her:
https://amazonwatch.org/about/staff-and-board

Amazon Watch documents what is really going on in the region. 

from:
https://amazonwatch.org/work

Protecting the Amazon and our climate by supporting Indigenous peoples

Since 1996, Amazon Watch has protected the rainforest and advanced the rights of Indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin. We partner with Indigenous and environmental organizations in campaigns for human rights, corporate accountability, and the preservation of the Amazon's ecological systems.

Our work is focused on three main priorities:
Stop Amazon Destruction | Advance Indigenous Solutions | Support Climate Justic

Here is there most recent news posting/year's wrap-up:

https://amazonwatch.org/news/2020/1210-resisting-another-record-breaking-year-of-deforestation-and-destruction-in-the-brazilian-amazon

Global Chorus essay for December 16
Atossa Soltani

We stand at the crossroads of history, where our collective actions over the next decade will determine the fate of humanity for the next millennia. At present, we are crossing many tipping points and face multiple crises, the most alarming being global climate chaos. I believe we have no choice but to change course to ensure that future generations will inherit a livable world.

Many indigenous peoples hold as their aspiration to be “good ancestors” to future generations. I believe that if we are to survive, this must now become our collective aspiration. To have lasting change, we need to reshape our values and worldviews. Growing numbers of us realize the dire need for rapid systemic change. However, the majority continue living in a business as usual mindset, in what could be called collective denial.

Indigenous peoples represent only 4 per cent of the world’s population, but their territories hold 80 per cent of the Earth’s biodiversity. From these guardians we can learn how to hold all life sacred and live in greater balance with Nature.

The ecosystems of the planet that produce our oxygen, water, rainfall and soils are key to our survival. Safeguarding and restoring the planet’s remaining forests, mangroves, coral reefs and other productive ecosystems is a critical priority. And dismantling global corporate economic domination and bringing back responsive government is a prerequisite. We can bring the world to embrace local traditional food systems, decentralize energy production, cut overall resource consumption, phase out fossil fuels, overhaul our transportation systems and improve the condition of women and the poor to stabilize our population.

We have the knowledge, the understanding, the creativity and the technology to act in time. The people who understand this urgency need to step into leadership and make it their life’s work to transform and recreate our world. There is the analogy of when the U.S. was on the eve of the Second World War and called on its citizenry to join the war effort and the majority did, helping the U.S. significantly retool its economy in under a year. That’s what we need now. All hands on deck!

     — Atossa Soltani, founder and executive director of Amazon Watch

The Green Interview, with dear Silver Donald Cameron and Atossa (about 7 minutes):
https://thegreeninterview.com/interview/soltani-atossa/

from January 2014:

Summary:

Atossa Soltani, founder and director of Amazon Watch, a US-based organization that works to protect the Amazon rainforest and support its indigenous peoples. Media strategist, photographer and filmmaker, she leads campaigns to force international corporations to raise their environmental and social standards.

In this exclusive Green Interview, Atossa Soltani discusses Amazon Watch, the organization she founded in 1996 that works to protect the rainforest and advance the rights of indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin. She also discusses the ongoing legal battles in support of indigenous people who are either resisting oil exploration in their territories or fighting for compensation as a result of pollution. Soltani also discusses her recent involvement with a global movement calling for rights of nature.

Amazon Watch

In 1996, while Atossa Soltani was working as a campaign director for Rainforest Action Network, she confronted Brazilian President Cardoso, who was addressing the United Nations, about deforestation in the Amazon. As Cardoso was leaving she managed to stop him for about 20 seconds and protest his plans to build roads through the Amazon. In this Green Interview, Soltani recalls the pivotal moment after Cardoso got into his limousine, leaving her with an audience of 20-30 journalists doing an “impromptu press conference.” When they asked her who she was she says she “took a deep breath and said Amazon Watch! I just made up the name at the time and the next day it was all over the newspapers: “Amazon Watch Confronts the Brazilian President.”

Resisting Oil Exploration

In Ecuador, Amazon Watch supports a court case to hold the U.S oil company Chevron accountable for the dumping of 18 billion US gallons of toxic waste water into a region of Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest inhabited by more than 30,000 people – purported to be one of the largest oil related contaminations ever. Amazon Watch is also involved in Peru, where it’s a plaintiff in a case against U.S oil company Occidental for its damage to the rainforest and where it also supports the indigenous Achuar people in resisting oil exploration on their lands by Talisman, a Canadian oil company as well as the Argentinian company Pluspetrol. It is also active in struggles against oil companies in Colombia and Brazil.  Amazon Watch also supports a school that trains indigenous leaders how to defend their rights against oil and mining companies.

Rights of Nature

Atossa Soltani is also involved in the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, where in 2014 she was one of 8 “judges” in the world’s first ethics Tribunal on Rights of Nature in Quito, Ecuador, the first country to recognize the rights of nature in its constitution. The Tribunal is planned to be a permanent platform for hearing and judging cases from around the world. Seven specific cases were presented to the Tribunal including the B.P Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, over which Soltani presided.

________________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca

Events:
Local Food options:
Charlottetown Farmers' Market 2GO, order by noon today for Thursday afternoon pickup:
https://cfm2go.localfoodmarketplace.com/

Eat Local PEI order by Wednesday, details here:
https://www.localline.ca/eatlocalpei

Heart Beet Organics, order online today until tomorrow morning for pickup Wednesday aftenroon.
https://heartbeetorganics.ca/the-farmacy

If you want to get the P.E.I. Government's news releases/ subscription service (and see how little CBC and The Guardian do before they publish them ;-) haha
subscribe via the button on this page:
https://www.princeedwardisland.ca/en/service/subscribe-to-government-subscription-service

This newsletter writer has no claims of depth of knowledge on the housing situation, but there still seems to be a Wild West scrabble of projects proposed, and certainly a lack of a cohesive plan on the City of Charlottetown's part.  Here is approval --citing the housing shortage as rationale-- of an apartment building near a bus stop, with a promise for greenspace and some "affordable units", but right between a Maritime Electric substation and Seafood Express trucking centre, and against its own planning and heritage committee's recommendation...

Charlottetown council rejects planning board recommendation, approves apartment project on Sherwood Road - The Guardian article by Dave Stewart

Published on Tuesday, December 15th, 2020
https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/news/local/charlottetown-council-rejects-planning-board-recommendation-approves-apartment-project-on-sherwood-road-531100/

Charlottetown city council tried to put a dent in the housing crisis by approving four separate projects Monday, including one that went against the wishes of its planning board.

At the regular public monthly meeting, council voted 6-1 against a resolution to reject a rezoning request from Arsenault Bros. for the property at 18-2 Sherwood Road, which puts it next to the Seafood Express plant. Council subsequently passed a resolution to approve the project.

Councillors Mitchell Tweel, Alanna Jankov, Greg Rivard, Terry Bernard, Kevin Ramsay and Bob Doiron voted against rejecting the application while Coun. Mike Dufffy, who chairs council’s standing committee on planning and heritage, voted in favour. Coun. Terry MacLeod declared a conflict and abstained from the vote.

The developer was asking council to rezone the land from industrial to commercial in order to construct two apartment buildings that will result in a total of 186 units.

Prior to the meeting, David Arsenault with Arsenault Bros. posted on social media that 10 per cent of the units would be affordable (geared to income), accessible, pet-friendly and would be marketed as long-term rental units. “City planning says nay due to a perceived shortage of industrial land in the city that (should be) preserved for industrial uses,’’ Arsenault said in a social media post that included an overhead photo showing other nearby apartments.

Duffy said the board and the city’s planning staff are concerned with the fact the property is located next to a Maritime Electric substation.

Rivard argued that the land was zoned for many as-of-right uses, meaning a developer could, for example, come along and build a daycare, a far less attractive use for the property. Rivard, the previous chairman of planning, also pointed out that the developer has been very eager to work with the city, that the property is close to a T3 Transit stop.

Jankov said the planning and heritage committee was very torn on the issue. She was impressed with Arsenault’s willingness to work with the city, such as adding more greenspace and a playground.

Following a question from a councillor, Alex Forbes, manager of the planning department, urged council, if it ultimately voted in favour of the project, to require the developer to sign a development agreement. That requires the developer to follow through on the offer of things such as additional greenspace and a playground. In the end, council attached the development agreement to their approval of the project.

Forbes added that Maritime Electric is opposed to the project. He said the utility doesn’t want to have to deal with complaints from residents down the road in regard to its substation. “I think their primary concern is they invested heavily in’’ that property, Forbes said.

Tweel and Doiron spoke highly of the developer, the need for additional housing in the city, the affordable housing portion of the development and Arsenault’s willingness to work with City Hall.

-30-

Congrats to Dante!

P.E.I.'s first Black human rights commissioner hoping to make a difference - CBC News online article by Shane Ross
Published on Monday, December 14th, 2020

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-first-black-commissioner-human-rights-commission-1.5840857

Danté Bazard says he is hoping to bring a new lens to the P.E.I. Human Rights Commission.   Bazard, who has a master's degree in clinical criminology from the U.K. and studied psychology at UPEI, is the human rights commission's first Black commissioner.

He is one of six commissioners, plus the chair. He officially began his duties about a week ago. The commission is an independent agency that is responsible for administering and enforcing the P.E.I. Human Rights Act.

Bazard, who is originally from the Bahamas, said he faced racism when he came to P.E.I. several years ago. He said he has been called the N-word and told he should only date Black women. He has been working on human rights issues ever since.

He is a co-founder of BIPOC USHR and has been part of the Black Cultural Society of P.E.I.  Bazard is hoping his appointment will make a difference. "Now, you'll be able to have that lens when looking at human rights issues on P.E.I. that wasn't there before, and that will also bring together the BIPOC community when it comes to reporting human rights and being able to receive justice."

Commissioners are appointed by members of the P.E.I. Legislature's standing committee on health and social development. Commissioners oversee the operations of the commission and conduct panel hearings when required.

Bazard said he is looking forward to the challenge.  "Being the first Black person in the position, it's definitely a lot of responsibility," he said. "But just even being on the commission itself is a lot of responsibility. Human rights is not an easy issue to even talk about, let alone to do good work. But I am equipped, able and ready, and I am very confident in the current team."

-30-

More about the P.E.I. Human Rights Commission:
https://www.peihumanrights.ca/home

Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming:
https://www.metopera.org/

Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila, today until 6:30PM
Starring Elīna Garanča, Roberto Alagna, Laurent Naouri, Elchin Azizov, and Dmitry Belosselskiy, conducted by Sir Mark Elder. From October 20, 2018.

Wagner’s Lohengrin, tonight 7:30PM until Wednesday about 6:30PM
Starring Eva Marton, Leonie Rysanek, Peter Hofmann, Leif Roar, and John Macurdy. From January 10, 1986.  3 hours 45 minutes

Although one feels the dark clouds of the last couple of years on democracy and transparency....

Global Chorus essay for December 15
David Jewitt

Some historical perspective: up until 500 years ago you, as a citizen, would understand the world through the words of an authority figure. It could be a king or an emperor, or perhaps a religious leader in charge of a rigid system of permissible thoughts, questions and actions. Your authority figure would lack any real understanding of the world, but he (it was almost always a “he”) would point to the writings of the ancients, perhaps to Aristotle, to Confucius or to something in the Bible, as the ultimate basis of his authority. Nobody could see the world clearly under those circumstances.

Since then most authoritarian political and religious systems have cracked, allowing our two great inventions of modern science and practical democracy to blossom. The all-wise leader is replaced by the idea that truth can best be found through insightful observation accompanied by critical reasoning and free thought. The world still has religion, and a few fading dictatorships persist, but there is no serious doubt that science and democracy are transcendent.

So, 500 years ago I would have doubted our chances for the future, but today I am extremely optimistic. For the first time in recorded history, our eyes are open to the world, giving us enormous power both to appreciate its beauty and to identify and address its problems. We have never been more perceptive, more powerful or more capable. We have never been better placed to determine our own future on this planet than we are now.

     ----- David Jewitt, Professor of Astronomy at University of California, Los Angeles

https://www.planetary.org/profiles/david-jewitt
________________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca

Events:
Local Food:
Organic Veggie Delivery, last order before the Holidays,
due tonight for delivery Thursday.
More details at:
https://organicveggiedelivery.com/

Tonight:
"Ask me Forum", with Provincial Green Party MLAs Lynne Lund, Steven Howard, Ole Hammarlund and Karla Bernard, 7PM, Zoom

"Got a question for our Green MLAs? The "Ask Me" forum is your opportunity to pose your questions directly to Green Party deputy leader and Shadow Critic for Environment, Water and Climate Change and for Green Economic Development Lynne Lund; Shadow Critic for Transportation, Infrastructure, and Energy, and for Justice and Public Safety, Steve Howard; Shadow Critic for Education & Lifelong Learning, and for the Status of Women, Karla Bernard; and Shadow Critic for Tourism & Culture Ole Hammarlund.

This 1-hour long forum will take place via Zoom."
Please click THIS LINK to register:

Facebook event link
for more details
-----------------------------------------
Deadline for applications:
Wednesday, December 16th, 2020

Here is the general government page for the PEI Wildlife Conservation Fund, and here is the organization's own website, which the About page has more about the Fund Committee membership.
http://www.peiwcf.ca/

"The Christmas Star of 2020", explained:

Atlantic Skies "A Timeless Gift" - by Glenn K. Roberts

I'm going to jump ahead slightly to the early part of the week of Dec. 21, 2020. As my column gets published in different papers throughout the Maritimes on different days, I'm not exactly sure what day you, my readers, actually see my article. I want to make sure, ahead of time, that you get to see a very special, actually rare, celestial event which will occur on Dec. 21. If you have children/grandchildren, you may want to take them out to see it as well; you'll understand why shortly.

As you may have been noticing, the planets Jupiter and Saturn have been drawing closer to one another in the evening sky since last summer. When two celestial bodies in space appear to be close to one another (although, in fact, they are still millions of kilometers apart), it is referred to as a "conjunction". Approximately every 20 years, Jupiter and Saturn experience what is called a "great conjunction", when they are at their closest to one another in the sky. On Dec. 21st, Jupiter and Saturn will be at their closest great conjunction (0.1 degrees, as seen from Earth) to each other since 1226. There was a great conjunction between the two planets in 1623, but that conjunction occurred when the two planets were very close to the Sun, and the conjunction wasn't observed. This makes the great conjunction on the 21st  the closest one seen in nearly 800 years. The next great conjunction won't be until Mar.15, 2080. Thus, my recommendation of taking your children/grandchildren out with you to see this one. You can then tell them that, when they see the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 2080, they can think of you, and remember sharing this rare celestial event together. Now that is a timeless gift, indeed.

Although the great conjunction itself (0.1 degrees separation) actually occurs at 2:30 p.m. on the 21st, you can still observe the conjunction (there won't be any appreciable difference in separation) in the early evening sky just after sunset. The two planets will appear to the unaided eye as a single "star" low (about 12 degrees) above the southwest horizon (find an unobstructed view of the horizon if you can) by about 5:15 p.m.; binoculars or a small scope will separate the two planets, with Saturn being the fainter one. You will have to be quick though, as both planets will disappear below the horizon shortly before 7 p.m. Don't worry, however, if you miss the near-actual great conjunction on the 21st, Jupiter and Saturn will remain visible (less than the diameter of the Full Moon apart) low above the southwest horizon just after sunset until Dec. 25.

Heading towards superior conjunction (passing behind the Sun as seen from Earth) on Dec. 20, Mercury cannot be observed, but will reappear in the southwest evening sky in January 2021. Venus (mag. -3.95) is likewise shifting closer to the Sun with each passing week, and is now only visible around 5:45 a.m. in the eastern sky before fading from view when dawn breaks around 7:30 a.m.. Mars (mag. -0.70), though slowly fading, is still visible in the early evening sky around 4:55 p.m., reaching a height of 52 degrees in the southern sky before dropping below 8 degrees above the western horizon by 1:40 a.m.. Jupiter (mag. -2.0) and Saturn (mag. +0.64), moving ever closer to one another, are visible in the early evening sky. Jupiter is visible around 4:50 p.m.,16 degrees above the southwest horizon, and Saturn around 5:10 p.m.,15 degrees above the southwest horizon; both planets will have set by 7:15 p.m.. Watch the crescent Moon slide passed the planets Dec. 16 - 17. Don't forget their "great conjunction" on the evening of Dec. 21.

Until next week, clear skies.

Events:

Dec. 14 - New Moon

        15 - Moon at perihelion

        21 - "Great Conjunction" of Jupiter and Saturn (just after sunset)

-30-

Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming:
https://www.metopera.org/

John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles, until 6:30PM tonight
Starring Teresa Stratas, Håkan Hagegård, Gino Quilico, Graham Clark, Marilyn Horne, and Renée Fleming. From January 10, 1992.

Week 40
Theme: Epic Proportions

Supplementary content—including synopses, articles, and more—is available here.

Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila, Monday 7:30PM until Tuesday about 6:30PM
From October 20, 2018.  The same guy who did "Carnival of the Animals"? Yes. "A towering biblical epic, Saint-Saëns’s operatic take on the story of Samson and Delilah has many of the hallmarks of grand opera—show-stopping vocal displays, thrilling choruses, and an engrossing plot set against a sweeping, pseudo-historical backdrop....Tenor Roberto Alagna is the heroic Samson, who ultimately falls victim to the seductive power of Dalila—the captivating mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča. Bass-baritone Laurent Naouri sings the sinister High Priest of Dagon, with conductor Sir Mark Elder on the podium."

good stuff...

Global Chorus essay for December 14
Christy Morgan

The easiest way to make the greatest impact on the environment is through our diet.

Agriculture and factory farms create more greenhouse gases than the transportation industry. Also, our desire for quick, packaged food and produce that is not seasonal to our region creates a heavy drain on our precious resources. Use your dollars more wisely by choosing whole foods over packaged, organic over conventional and local over transported. These choices are more healthful in the long run for you and your family.

Visit your local farmers market to see what’s in season during the year. You may discover some new and exciting vegetables you’ve never tried before! The most important thing we can do for our health and the health of the planet is to eat a diet rich in natural, whole foods. Eat foods in all the colours of the rainbow. Kale, lettuce and celery for green; carrots, yams and oranges for orange; eggplant for purple; cabbage, strawberries and apples for red; pineapple, squash and grains for yellow; grapefruit for pink; beans for brown; cauliflower, daikon and tofu for white. Fruits and vegetables that are beautifully coloured are rich in antioxidant elements that protect us from free radicals and make our health soar.

Start by adding in the good stuff and then crowd out the things that aren’t serving your greater good. A balanced, whole food, plant-based diet can give you the energy you need to make your body, mind and spirit happy as well as nourish the planet!

     — Christy Morgan, vegan chef, educator, author of Blissful Bites: Vegan Meals That Nourish Mind, Body and Planet

https://blissfulandfit.com/
________________

There is no Artisans' Christmas Market at the Charlottetown Farmers' Market today. 
(Perhaps creative thinking and back-up plans could have made it possible to figure out an on-line version -- like a shopping channel-type event -- that could salvage some sales. And there still is another full weekend before Christmas....)
--------------
Tonight (if you are already bored of holiday movies  ;-)

Sunday, December 13th:
Webinar on "Electoral Reform Referendums: A path to informed decision-making?", 8-9:30PM AT, Register info here

Climate Change:
And while many of us appreciate Justin Trudeau's stance for fighting climate change (announced Friday), and realize he is getting backlash, there are still the young people who wisely and sadly challenge us to get our act together:

Greta Thunberg, Saturday, December 12th, 2020:

Today at the UN #ClimateAmbitionSummit our leaders celebrate their shameless loopholes, their empty words, their distant insufficient targets and their theft and destruction of present and future living conditions - calling it "ambition".

There are no climate leaders.

The only ones who can change this are you and me. All of us, together.

#FightFor1Point5

Severn Cullis-Suzuki, who was 12 years old in 1992, at the Rio UN Climate Summit, appealed to the leaders there.  (A part of it is featured in today's Global Chorus essay by Raffi.)

A talented team has made a animation of her speech (to be available on-line soon), the trailer of which is here:

Only A Child (trailer)
https://vimeo.com/410300326


Severn (now 40) is, of course, still working on climate issues:
https://severncullissuzuki.com/

And about that pipeline the Canadian government now owns, and about that police force that appears "to serve and protect"* something other than people...and the familiarity with our own small resistance to the poor judgement and needless destruction of the Plan B highway....

Here is news about a sweet, positive group of people in British Columbia, working to delay the TMX pipeline, and the developments this week.
(and thanks to Marilyn for bring it to my attention).

A 9 minute video -- and they ask that you share it to bring greater awareness.

Cottonwood Treehouse Video

and the news reporting (LINK ONLY): https://www.burnabynow.com/local-news/police-clear-out-burnaby-protest-camp-as-tmx-construction-starts-3169747

Police clear out Burnaby protest camp as TMX construction starts- BurnabyNow  article by Dustin Godfery

Contractors for Trans Mountain showed up Wednesday morning to begin work near the Brunette River

Published on Wednesday, December 9th, 2020

------------------------
Here is a map of the area, which I haven't really searched around as much as I would like,
from The Wilderness Committee.
--------------------
  *"To Serve and Protect" is the motto of the Los Angeles Police Department, often used by other forces.

Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming:
https://www.metopera.org/

Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, today until 6:30PM
Starring Teresa Stratas, Astrid Varnay, Richard Cassilly, and Cornell MacNeil. From November 27, 1979.

John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles, tonight 7:30PM until Monday about 6:30PM
Starring Teresa Stratas, Håkan Hagegård, Gino Quilico, Graham Clark, Marilyn Horne, and Renée Fleming. From January 10, 1992. This infrequently produced opera is actually part of a trio of storytelling regarding The Barber of Seville.

Global Chorus essay for December 13
Raffi Cavoukian

In every age, love is redefined. In our time, this will be in terms of what we do to restore our children’s stolen future. With climate change, the greatest threat on Earth, the global family needs a survival shift in awareness.

Losing my future is not like losing an election or a few points on the stock market
… You grownups say you love us.
But I challenge you, please, make your actions reflect your words.
      — Severn Cullis-Suzuki, age 12 (Rio, 1992)

Every society’s treasure is its young, its promise to a better world. Yet an uncaring, bottom-line commerce that ignores social and planetary costs is wreaking havoc. No spiritual tradition condones this abuse of Creation and her young. The remedy is an integrated vision I call Child Honouring, one that simultaneously respects Earth and Child.

We can’t overlook what’s known about the Child – humanity’s foremost learning system. Being human is not neutral: infants must learn to feel their loving nature or founder. Failure is not an option; it scars lifetimes.

Creating the conditions that honour infants’ formative needs is the most practical way to shape humane and sustainable cultures, ones that grow mature, resourceful, compassionate individuals. That’s why Child Honouring is a universal ethic to enrich life for generations.

Fast forward a Copernican shift in consciousness: from the “childism” prejudice of societies centred on adults to a child-honouring world in which the early-years ecology benefits all. For our survival, Godspeed a new peacemaking economy, a “bionomy” to revive “global chi.”

Each of us can be a change-maker. Shun ideology. Embrace radical inquiry. Empower your inner 8-year-old to free your heart’s most generous impulses. Live along your highest spiritual values. Honour the young.

In the Child, the human face of ecology, we find our refection and infinite potential. The well-tended garden yearns to yield riches.

     — Raffi Cavoukian, CM, OBC, singer, author, ecology advocate, founder of the Centre for Child Honouring

https://raffinews.com/
________________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca

Events:
Farmers' Markets are open, but with reduced capacity, so plan for extra time in line but scooting through as quickly as you can. "Shop, Don't stop!" so others can get in.

Charlottetown -- 9AM-2PM
Summerside -- 9AM-1PM

Summerside Farmers' Market writes:

Our Market is still open every Saturday from 9 AM to 1 PM, with the following restrictions as set out by the department of Health:

All food vendors are now takeout only. Our seating area will be closed to the public so we ask that you take your food and coffee to go.

Also, our market capacity has been cut in half, which means you may run into longer wait times at the door. Not optimal given the colder weather. Please be mindful once inside the market, that others may be waiting outside to get in and cannot do so until you leave. We ask that socializing be done outside ( Bah humbug!)

Once again, We invite you to contact your favourite vendors in advance and make special arrangements to decrease your chances of being left in the cold!

We thank you all for your continued support during these trying times."

Heart Beet Organics Market/order pickup, 9AM-1PM (store and food for take-out open until 6PM)

No Artisan Christmas Market tomorrow.

Some News from FairVoteCanada:

Today, Saturday, December 12th:
You can help proportional representation on social media #MakeYourVoice Heard!

On Saturday, December 12, we are amplifying that impact with a social media day of action, sharing photos of proportional representation supporters across Canada with cards (calling for a National Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform) for Trudeau!  You can follow the action at #MakeYourVoiceHeard and @FairVoteCanada on Twitter and Instagram. We’ll also be sharing photos from our Facebook page.

Tomorrow, Sunday, December 13th:
Webinar on "Electoral Reform Referendums: A path to informed decision-making?", 8-9:30PM AT, Register info here

"This webinar will do a deep dive into some of the best research of the last 20 years, looking at the formidable barriers faced by those fighting for a fair electoral system.
For the second half of the webinar—the question and answers and discussion—we’ll be joined by Professor Emeritus Lawrence LeDuc. Professor Leduc is a leading Canadian expert on referendums, with a special emphasis on electoral reform, who will provide valuable insight based on his decades of work on this topic."

Register here

The Canadian Parliament has recessed for the holiday break, and yesterday Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced (in this well-detailed article in The National Observer): https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/12/11/news/trudeau-new-climate-plan-proposes-carbon-price-hike 

Trudeau goes it alone with new climate plan, proposes carbon price hike - The National Observer article by Carl Meyers

Published on Friday, December 11th, 2020

Four years ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appeared side by side with premiers as he announced a “pan-Canadian” climate plan. On Friday, he unveiled his new “federal” strategy, flanked by members of his cabinet.

The difference was immediately obvious, as Trudeau acknowledged in his remarks how the government still needed to talk turkey with the provinces and territories. “This plan for a healthy environment and a healthy economy was developed for the federal government,” Trudeau said in Ottawa.

“We look forward to working with the provincial governments and all Canadians as we move forward.”

It was a different image than the one on Dec. 9, 2016, when Trudeau rolled out the Pan-Canadian Framework while seated with premiers and talked about “co-operation and collaboration.”

Most of those premiers have now changed, and some provinces are now recalcitrant in the face of Liberal environmental policy, taking the fight over the carbon price all the way to the Supreme Court.

Trudeau, in turn, couldn't help but play defence when asked what would happen if the Supreme Court ruled against the federal government.

“There are some jurisdictions that still don't understand that the only way to build a strong economy for the future is to protect the environment at the same time,” he said.

“There are some places in this country that still want to make pollution free again.”

Carbon price rising to $170 per tonne

Trudeau’s new climate plan proposes growing the carbon price, tightening federal rules and injecting $15 billion worth of initiatives into the economy. His government is hoping that these efforts will result in steeper cuts to Canada’s carbon pollution that go beyond current measures.

A key part of the plan involves accelerating the growth of the carbon price each year. The current federal carbon pricing system is set at $30 per tonne of greenhouse gas equivalent, and is designed to rise by $10 per year to $50 per tonne in 2022.

The new plan proposes that the increase would accelerate in 2023 to $15 more per tonne each year, reaching $170 per tonne in 2030.

This carbon price increase would need to be discussed with provinces and territories, said Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson.

“The pricing proposal is a proposal. We will be reaching out to discuss with provinces and territories going forward,” he said.

“We’ve been very clear as a government that our view is that a price on pollution is the most efficient way to reduce emissions ... all of the provinces and territories are aware of that, and that conversation will continue.”

The Pembina Institute called the “significant” increase in the price a “smart” move.

“This is our most effective and powerful tool to tackle emissions that are contributing to climate change that is already costing Canadians billions of dollars,” said Linda Coady, executive director, and Isabelle Turcotte, federal policy director.

Meanwhile, Conservative environment critic Dan Albas called the proposal a broken promise, and said it was “shameful” the Liberals “failed to properly consult provinces on their plan.”

“The environment is an area of shared jurisdiction and Canada’s Conservatives will respect the jurisdiction of the provinces and territories by scrapping Trudeau’s carbon tax,” he said.

Alberta’s Environment Minister Jason Nixon said Friday afternoon that the province would be reviewing and providing feedback on the federal strategy when draft regulations become available.

But he took an initial shot at the plan for a higher carbon price, calling it “yet another attack on Alberta’s economy and on Alberta’s jurisdiction.”

‘There is no vaccine against a polluted planet’

Trudeau unveiled the plan Friday as new federal forecasts showed a rapid surge in COVID-19 cases, raising alarm bells about Canada’s death toll ticking upwards in the coming weeks.

The prime minister sought to tie the two crises together in his remarks, telling Canadians that science is a not a “buffet” where people can “pick and choose” which scientific conclusions to believe and which to ignore.

“If we trust scientists with our health, as we do, then we must also trust their research and their expertise when it comes to other existential threats — and that includes climate change,” he said. “There is no vaccine against a polluted planet.”

The $15-billion plan is broken up into five elements that involve carbon pricing, slashing energy waste through retrofit programs, boosting zero-emissions vehicles, promoting hydrogen and other alternative fuels as well as carbon capture technology and nature-based solutions.

The government is proposing “adjustments” to the output-based pricing system for large industrial emitters, as well as strengthening the “benchmark” criteria it uses to evaluate the strength of provincial carbon pricing systems that it accepts in place of its own.

As Wilkinson discussed in comments Thursday, it also includes an attempt to align Canada's “climate and industrial policies” by proposing “performance standards, investments and incentives” to ensure Canadian businesses are tuned towards low-carbon products and services.

Climate Action Network Canada executive director Catherine Abreu said the plan showed Canada was “finally joining countries representing 50 per cent of global GDP that know strong economic policy hinges on strong environmental policy.”

“With this plan, people and communities across Canada can see themselves joining the huge clean economy that is taking over global markets,” she said.

Other countries, however, have announced that they are stopping the expansion of fossil fuel investments, Abreu noted, while Canadian governments “continue to double down on fossil fuels.”

The plan acknowledges how greenhouse gas emissions from “Canada’s industrial sector, including oil and gas production,” are 37 per cent of Canada’s total carbon pollution. “Working with large final emitters is essential to Canada’s climate goals,” it says.

Canada’s top 25 highest-emitting facilities represented 118 megatonnes of emissions, reads the plan. Eight of those are coal-fired power plants, which the government is moving to phase out by 2030. The remaining 17 “are a mix of oilsands, steel, refining, and a pipeline.”

Three-quarters of those 17 facilities are in Alberta, the home of the oilpatch.

“Through targeted support to large emitters in the oil and gas sector, cement, iron, and steel sectors, this can enable near-term deployment of technologies to reduce emissions at the ‘megatonne’ scale,” reads the plan.

‘At least 85 million tonnes’ of new pollution cuts

The government said that the new proposed actions, if fully implemented, are projected to result in emissions reductions of “at least 85 million tonnes” beyond the current Pan-Canadian Framework.

That would, in theory, exceed Canada’s current target of 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, instead resulting in about a 32 per cent cut to 2005 levels by that date.

Government officials said this should not be interpreted as Canada’s new official national emissions reduction target. That will ultimately be informed by the coming engagement with premiers, Indigenous leaders and others, they said.

Canada is also already projected to overshoot its current 2030 target by 15 per cent.

“It's good to see policies that can, if implemented quickly and with the greatest stringency possible, take Canada's climate ambitions further than our current insufficient Paris pledge,” said Abreu.

“It is also good to see a significant investment of $15 billion in climate action. However, these numbers pale in comparison to commitments being made by our closest trading partners in the European Union and the United States under a new Biden administration.”

-30-

Lots of Opera Saturday:
Radio:
Saturday Afternoon at the Opera (Metropolitan Opera recording), 1PM, CBC Music 104.7FM
Beethoven’s Fidelio
Performance from April 1, 2017
Sebastian Weigle; Adrianne Pieczonka (Leonore), Hanna-Elisabeth Müller (Marzelline), Klaus Florian Vogt (Florestan), David Portillo (Jaquino), Greer Grimsley (Don Pizarro), Falk Struckmann (Rocco), Günther Groissböck (Don Fernando)

Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming -- one of the newest recordings, a live concert, and one of the oldest recordings, all in a day....
https://www.metopera.org/

The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, until Noon today
Starring Angel Blue, Golda Schultz, Latonia Moore, Denyce Graves, Frederick Ballentine, Eric Owens, Alfred Walker, and Donovan Singletary, conducted by David Robertson. From February 1, 2020.

Afternoon ticketed performance live (and available for a few weeks) of " Legendary bass-baritone Sir Bryn Terfel performs a holiday program live from Brecon Cathedral in his native Wales. Joining Terfel are several special musical guests."  Details here

Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, 7:30PM tonight until Monday about 6:30PM
Starring Teresa Stratas, Astrid Varnay, Richard Cassilly, and Cornell MacNeil. From November 27, 1979.

Global Chorus essay for December 12
Kitty van der Heijden

Sustainable development means balancing the economic, social and environmental pillars of development. If you ask an economist to review progress since the Earth summit in 1992, chances are that she or he will boast about tremendous growth, particularly in the Asian tigers and African lions. Ask that same question to a development practitioner, and he or she will highlight the great strides in reducing hunger, child and maternal mortality. But important MDGs, such as gender equality, lag behind, and inequality is rising between countries and within countries. Now ask that question of an environmentalist. Chances are she or he will look at you bewildered. Progress? PROGRESS? Almost all indicators indicate a worsening trend: loss of biodiversity, deforestation, pollution, climate change, ocean acidification, resources scarcity. In statistical jargon they call such curves a “hockey stick,” with a gradual change at the outset, then fast acceleration upward.

As humankind, we are in that fast lane now. We are speeding towards a cliff of ecological destruction. That hockey stick will hit us hard – all of us. But it will hit the poor and young most of all. We are the first generation that, rather than sacrificing ourselves for our children’s future, are sacrificing our children’s future for ourselves.

The upbeat note is that we are not just part of the problem, we are also part of the solution. We can change. Take climate change. We can end global deforestation. We can beat the glum statistic that 30 per cent of food produced is lost or wasted, squandering resources such as water and land, and needlessly producing GHG emissions. We can achieve major emission reductions if consumers worldwide abide by the WHO advice regarding animal protein intake. We could reduce GHG emissions by 10 per cent if we would simply phase out environmentally perverse subsidies on fossil fuels.

Of course we can do it. It is a matter of choice.

As CEOs and corporate employees, we decide what and how to produce.

As consumers, we decide what products to use.

As shareholders and constituents casting our votes, we decide what policies and politics to refuse.

We are all in a position to lead change. Take charge.

     — Kitty van der Heijden, Special Envoy for Sustainability and Development, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Netherlands

https://www.government.nl/documents/speeches/2020/10/05/speech-by-kitty-van-der-heijden-at-global-education-forum-meeting
________________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca

Event:

Fridays4Future, 3:30PM, by Cenotaph near Province House, Charlottetown

You can tell your MLA about the importance of paying attention to Climate Change -- Find your MLA at:
P.E.I. Legislative Assembly website https://www.assembly.pe.ca/

News from the P.E.I. Farm Centre Legacy Garden:

"The Holiday season is upon us and we have some local garden gifts still available! Our Legacy Garden garlic is on sale, 15% off 1 lb to make it $17, and 25% off 2 lbs which makes it $30! This garlic has been cured and will last all winter long!

Legacy Garden Tea is available as well! We have Herbal Blend and we have only one bag of Mint left! $5 each!

You can order your goodies here: https://forms.gle/qwYB82ik8CgWt47r8

Also, the Legacy Garden Tree Fundraiser is in full swing! Get the gift of a fruit tree for your friends and family that will arrive in the Spring!

You can order your apple and peach trees here: https://forms.gle/yyVrSfpXHvB26Jy76

Farm Centre Legacy Garden Facebook page

thanks to Tony Reddin for bringing this to my attention https://nsadvocate.org/2020/12/10/press-release-westfor-applies-for-injunction-against-mainland-moose-blockades/

Press release: Westfor applies for injunction against mainland moose blockades - Nova Scotia Advocate

Published on Thursday, December 10th, 2020

Two blockades on crown lands to protect mainland moose in the New France area, Digby County, may end abruptly in the days to come. Extinction Rebellion (XR) occupiers received word today from their lawyer that WestFor Management Inc. has applied for an interim injunction intended to force the forest protectors to pack up and leave. That application is set to be heard in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia 9:30 a.m, this morning.

Several people at the blockades have indicated they are willing to get arrested, if necessary, to focus attention on our government’s failure to protect endangered species and enact promised forestry reforms.

The initial encampment began on October 21^st when XR learned that forestry crews were in transit to crown land in the Silver River, Rocky Lake area where Richard Amero had shown CBC’s Phlis MacGregor tracks of the endangered Mainland Moose and described past sightings the previous week.

On November 22nd, a second blockade close to the Caribou River was established to impede loggers’ access to crown land allocations where further cutting has been occurring. Industrial forestry crews are scheduled to cut 1650 acres of mainland moose habitat in the area in the next year.

XR’s specific demand has been to place an immediate moratorium on all proposed and current logging on Crown lands from Fourth Lake south to the Napier River. This moratorium would remain in place until ecologically based landscape level planning for the area has been conducted by independent ecologists and biologists, as recommended by the 2018 Lahey Report. Where this area is known habitat for mainland moose, it should be assessed for Protected Area potential, safeguarding connectivity between the Silver River Wilderness area and the Tobeatic.

Bob Bancroft released a Moose Map on Monday that highlighted all South West Nova Scotia, confirming multiple moose sightings and or signs of their presence in that area.

“We are standing up to protect wildlife and their habitat. When the moose are in trouble, so are we. To address the climate and extinction crises, we need to protect and restore our natural forests. Industrial tree plantations are ecological deserts,” said Nina Newington, one of the encampment organizers.

“Our provincial government had approved the destruction of the very habitat the endangered mainland moose need to recover. Despite a severe scolding from the Nova Scotia Supreme Court in May, the Department of Lands and Forestry continue to shirk its legal obligations under its own Endangered Species Act. If government refuse to do the right thing, then citizens must stand up together. Enough is enough,” she said.

Link to Information Morning’s story: – https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-27-information-morning-ns/clip/15804113-digby-resident-says-province-logging-endangered-mainland-moose

-30-

"In 2020, Nature was not a lost year.  Just the opposite."

The Coronavirus Pandemic and the Invisibility of Nature - Emergence Magazine article by Michael McCarthy

As rampant urbanization increasingly severs humanity from the living world, naturalist Michael McCarthy explores the ways in which the “anthropause,” ushered in by the coronavirus, has—on an unprecedented scale—made nature visible again.

a good long read, from Emergence Magazine, below:
https://emergencemagazine.org/story/the-consolation-of-nature/
(link only)

Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming:
https://www.metopera.org/

Thomas Adès’s The Exterminating Angel, until 6:30PM
Starring Audrey Luna, Amanda Echalaz, Sally Matthews, Sophie Bevan,  Alice Coote, Christine Rice, Iestyn Davies, Joseph Kaiser, Frédéric Antoun, David Portillo, David Adam Moore, Rod Gilfry, Kevin Burdette, Christian Van Horn, and John Tomlinson. conducted by Thomas Adès. From November 18, 2017.

The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, 7:30PM tonight until noon Saturday
Starring Angel Blue, Golda Schultz, Latonia Moore, Denyce Graves, Frederick Ballentine, Eric Owens, Alfred Walker, and Donovan Singletary, conducted by David Robertson. From February 1, 2020.

Global Chorus essay for December 11
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

How can we heal and transform our ravaged ecosystem, our dying world? How can we become free from the soulless monster of materialism and its child, consumerism, and instead create a civilization that values all of creation, one that supports the interdependent web of life of which we are a part? First, there is a need to recognize that beneath this outer ecocide another tragedy is being enacted, as devastating as it is unreported: our forgetfulness of the sacred nature of creation. Our culture regards the Earth as a resource to be exploited, not as something sacred to be revered. And without this central spiritual awareness, which was at the foundation of almost all previous cultures, our world becomes increasingly out of balance.

We need to return to a simple awareness of the sacredness of the Earth and all of life. Then we can reconnect with the real nature of the Earth as a sacred being, what indigenous peoples know as the Mother who sustains us, both physically and spiritually. There are many ways to make this connection – for example, being aware of the sacred nature of the food we eat, or holding the Earth as a living being in our hearts and prayers, feeling our love for the Earth. Through simple means we can bring the sacred back into our daily life, and so help to heal the split between spirit and matter and restore the balance in our world.

Recognizing the Earth as a living, spiritual being with a soul as well as a body, we will find that she can regenerate, come alive in a new way – no longer a resource to be used, but full of wonder and sacred meaning. Listening to her deep wisdom we will find ways to work together that sustain all of life, that care for the soul as well as the soil. This is the future that is waiting for us, full of all the magical possibilities of creation as well as the mystery and joy of the sacred.

    — Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, PhD, Sufi teacher, author of Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth

www.goldensufi.org
https://emergencemagazine.org/
www.spiritualecology.org
________________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca

Shopping for local food this weekend will look a little different, as customer size limits will be reduced, so plan more time.
Charlottetown Farmers Market and the Sunday Artisan Christmas Market are planning to be open. Details tomorrow.

Heart Beet Organics on Great George Street is open Tuesday-Saturday, until 6PM, for local food and vegetables (no indoor dining, though). 
Their expanded market will be open 9AM-1PM Saturday, with pre-ordering suggested for faster pick-up time.   Ordering for Saturday:
https://heartbeetorganics.ca/

----------------------------------------
Want to catch up on some legislative records from last week?
See both of these sites for records and recordings:

P.E.I. Legislative Assembly website https://www.assembly.pe.ca/

P.E.I. Legislative Assembly Facebook page link
https://www.facebook.com/peileg

columns and letters: https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/opinion/regional-perspectives/jim-vibert-covids-ill-wind-may-blow-some-good-for-climate-crisis-529117/https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/opinion/regional-perspectives/jim-vibert-covids-ill-wind-may-blow-some-good-for-climate-crisis-529117/

JIM VIBERT: COVID's ill wind may blow some good for climate crisis - The Guardian article by Jim Vibert

Published on Wednesday, December 9th, 2020

It's an ill wind that blows no good, and COVID-19 most assuredly came on an ill wind.

But the COVID-19 crisis, or more precisely, the resulting lockdowns and widespread disruption of economic and other activities, led to an 8.8 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide in the first half of 2020 and an expected decline of between four and seven per cent on the year.

It took a pandemic to force the kind of GHG reductions the world needs to hold global warming at or below 1.5 degrees Celsius and stave off catastrophic climate change.

Of course, 2020's fleeting, single-year reduction in GHG emissions is meaningless in the grand scheme to contain climate change, unless it is followed by the structural changes needed to replicate that reduction, year-in and year-out, for decades to come.

The annual climate change performance index (CCPI) released this week says that the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting need for economic recovery, have brought the world to a crossroads.

One road leads back to business-as-usual, continued global warming and the worst that climate change has to offer. The other road leads to the low-carbon recovery the world needs if it's going to escape that fate.

Whatever good that blew in on COVID-19'S ill wind isn't found in a temporary, one-year reduction in GHG emissions. Rather, it's in the plans nations are making and rolling out for a green economic recovery.

It's five years this week since 197 countries, Canada included, signed the Paris Agreement and committed to making the GHG emission reductions needed to contain global warming and climate change.

Most of those nations, Canada again included, have missed virtually all of their climate change targets.

But in a survey of 60 nations and the European Union – collectively they produce 90 per cent of the world's GHG emissions – CCPI found reason for optimism.

More than half of those nations dedicated economic recovery spending to green initiatives, and a third have either implemented or are considering fiscal reforms to slash fossil fuel subsidies.

That's the good news. The bad news is that many of those same economic recovery plans also include measures that run contrary to a low-carbon recovery, usually by protecting existing, high-polluting industrial sectors. 

“Policymakers still have the chance to scale up low-carbon interventions, because national recovery plans are not fully laid out,” the CCPI report says. “Future interventions must expand current good practices to situate low carbon investments at the centre of the recovery efforts.”

With that appeal, the report's authors could have been talking directly to Canada.

Canada is a climate change poser. It finishes at or near the bottom of the pack in three of the four categories CCPI uses to rank national efforts to curb climate change.

Canada is doing a lousy job reducing GHG emissions, isn't transitioning to renewable energy sources fast enough, and its overall energy use remains too high.

On the semi-positive side, Canada talks a good game, so it scores in the middle of the pack for its climate policy. September's throne speech and the recent federal economic update both claimed that the nation's economic recovery will be green.

We can only hope that the rhetoric is matched by action, this time.

And, if you subscribe to the old environmental adage to think globally and act locally, there may be a candidate in Nova Scotia's Liberal leadership race who's worth a look.

Iain Rankin released an environmental plan this week that, he says, can make Nova Scotia Canada's first carbon neutral province. His proposals surpass the timid approach to environmental issues that characterized Stephen McNeil's government and which Rankin was a part of.

He wants to get Nova Scotia off coal-fired power by 2030, well ahead of the current plan. He also plans to electrify public transit, invest in solar power, and offer incentives to buy electric vehicles.

In Nova Scotia and around the world this week, people will gather in candlelight to mark the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement and to shine a light on the failure of nations to meet the commitments they made when they signed the deal.

The CCPI survey and report tells us there is still time to pull back from the brink of climate disaster, but the plans to avert that calamity need to be part of the world's COVID-19 economic recovery.

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Something to think about: https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/opinion/regional-perspectives/letter-finding-a-washroom-difficult-528526/

LETTER: Finding a washroom difficult

Published on-line at Saltwire's website:

(edited for length)

I realize that the availability of public washrooms may not be an important issue for someone in their 30s to 60s. For anyone with colitis, irritable bowl syndrome or bladder issues, however, this is a very important issue. And what about child training? They must fit in this category.

With the COVID-19 pandemic all around us, it seems washrooms have been closed in just about every store. I realize all people are not clean but when you need to go you need to go and you can’t tell your body you can’t go because there is nowhere to go.

I was at a local clothing store the other day and I needed to go and go sooner. The clerks told me to go to a nearby fast food restaurant. After struggling there with dire pains, I discovered their bathrooms were closed. Now what?

Please help. Somewhere in (our localities)  must provide bathrooms that are not miles away. If you are desperate, there is no going somewhere else. Think for a moment.

Patricia McKenzie, Sydney, Nova Scotia

Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming:
https://www.metopera.org/

Britten’s Peter Grimes, today until 6:30PM
Starring Patricia Racette, Anthony Dean Griffey, and Anthony Michaels-Moore, conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles. From March 15, 2008.

Thomas Adès’s The Exterminating Angel, 7:30PM Thursday until Friday about 6:30PM
Starring Audrey Luna, Amanda Echalaz, Sally Matthews, Sophie Bevan,  Alice Coote, Christine Rice, Iestyn Davies, Joseph Kaiser, Frédéric Antoun, David Portillo, David Adam Moore, Rod Gilfry, Kevin Burdette, Christian Van Horn, and John Tomlinson. conducted by Thomas Adès. From November 18, 2017.

Global Chorus essay for December 10 
Paula Kahumbu

I wake up at two a.m. and my mind is racing. I don’t have the answer to the question posed to me yesterday: “What are we going to do to stop this?” My caller was referring to the fve rhinos slaughtered over the weekend, part of the ongoing epidemic of rhino and elephant poaching.

Experience teaches us that extraordinary leadership can create a tipping point to turn around public views and drive unlikely actions. In 1989, Kenya burned 12 tons of ivory in what remains the most iconic conservation message of all time. It was a risky, dangerous plan: that ivory was worth millions of dollars. But Richard Leakey and President Daniel Arap Moi did it anyway. Te world celebrated and the consumers of ivory felt the shame. That year, the world banned the international trade in ivory and over the next 20 years, elephant populations recovered. Now the problem is back – only it’s much much worse – and we are really at risk of losing all our elephants and rhinos in a matter of decades.

I believe it will take extraordinary creativity to achieve understanding amongst consumers and poachers so that people comprehend what is at stake if elephants and rhinos go extinct. Most Africans are poor and yet we are proud people. Our continent is recognized the world over for her diversity in people and wildlife, which are housed in astounding beauty. People say that their lifelong dream is to go on safari to Africa. They experience a connection to the land of the origin of humanity. At the rate things are going, we stand to lose it all. Africa’s wildlife belongs to the world and we Africans are beginning to realize our obligation to humanity to help fulfill this human dream of seeing the herds of the Serengeti, the scarps of the Rift Valley, the snow on the equator.

We have the capacity to change – we just need courage to uphold sacred values of fairness, transparency, honesty and accountability. We can do this, and develop our economies by using the tools of this technological age of connectedness.

     — Paula Kahumbu, CEO of WildlifeDirect blogging platform and a voice for conservation leadership in Africa
_______________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca

Search, order and pick up, and read or watch:

The P.E.I. Public Library Service writes:
"All our libraries are now open for curbside pickup only. Please email or phone your local library during regular open hours to schedule a pickup time."

https://www.princeedwardisland.ca/en/information/education-and-lifelong-learning/public-libraries-locations-and-hours?

Some good news climate future reading from the United Kingdom, care of their Guardian:

Ending UK’s climate emissions ‘affordable’, say official advisers - The (U.K.) Guardian article by Damian Carrington

CCC recommendation includes half of cars being electric by 2030, gas boilers phased out and 10,000 wind turbines

Published on Wednesday, December 9th, 2020, in The (U.K.) Guardian  (link has photos and graph)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/09/ending-uk-climate-emissions-affordable-net-zero-climate-change-committee?

The world’s first detailed route map to ending a nation’s use of fossil fuels is both “ambitious and affordable”, according to the UK government’s official advisers, and would see half of the cars on the road being electric by 2030 and 10,000 giant wind turbines in the North Sea.

The Climate Change Committee’s analysis found that the future cost savings from no longer having to buy oil and gas almost offsets the £50bn-a-year investment needed in low-carbon power, transport and home heating across the next three decades.

The eyes of the world are on the UK as it prepares to host a critical UN summit to tackle the climate crisis next November and UK leadership is considered vital for success. The prime minister, Boris Johnson, recently announced a green industrial revolution plan, but the CCC said further action was needed now from the government to set the UK on the path to ending emissions by 2050.

The CCC route map forecast people’s energy bills remaining level, before falling after 2030 as cheap renewable energy expands. Electric cars will also save drivers money but a phase-out of gas boilers will mean some households will require government help to install more expensive low-carbon heating systems, the CCC said.

The plan envisages air travel staying near current levels and meat eating,

which is already falling, being reduced by just 20% by 2030. Changes in how people live “need not entail sacrifices”, the CCC said. It said mixed woodlands covering an area three times the size of Greater London should be planted by 2035, capturing CO2 and providing new green spaces.

The cost of offshore wind power has plummeted in recent years and the CCC sees it as “the backbone of the whole UK energy system”, with all electricity being renewable or nuclear by 2035. The UK will become an electric nation, the CCC said, with double the current amount of power being generated by 2050, but with hydrogen expanding to fuel heavy industry and transport and warm some homes.

The CCC also set out a new carbon budget for the UK for 2035, as required by law. CO2 emissions are to reduced by 78% compared with 1990 levels, equivalent to cutting two-thirds of today’s emissions. The CCC said this advanced carbon cuts by 15 years compared with plans in 2018, reflecting falling green costs.

Getting to net zero emissions is “ambitious, realistic and affordable”, said Lord Deben, chair of the CCC. “The price is manifestly reasonable. It will be the private sector that will do much of the investment but it will be the government that sets the tone.”

“It now has to set out in detail the steps required,” he said. “As we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, this is a chance to jump-start the UK’s economic recovery.” But Deben added the costs of the transition must be distributed fairly across society. The government has accepted all previous carbon budgets proposed by the CCC and has until June 2021 to accept the new one.

The CCC analysis found it is cheaper to transition to electric cars and vans than to continue with petrol and diesel vehicles. “That’s an amazing new insight, because it has major implications for the overall cost of achieving net zero,” said Chris Stark, chief executive of the CCC.

The annual net cost across the 30 years to 2050 is £10bn, or about 0.5% of GDP, the CCC said. This does not include the benefits of new jobs or better health as air pollution and damp, cold homes are reduced. Today, poor housing alone costs the NHS £1.5bn a year. “It’s now clear that – at worst – we’ve got a very small cost overall in order to unlock those very big benefits of tackling climate change,” said Stark.

Alison Doig, at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said: “The report demonstrates that taking bold action makes sense for jobs and prosperity, but also keeps the UK at the forefront of an international zero carbon revolution. The government can show it is serious about delivering the goals of the Paris agreement by taking [the CCC] advice.”

Prof Rob Gross, director of the Centre for Energy Policy and Technology, said the CCC reports were hugely significant. But he said the major expansion of both renewable energy and electric cars would be challenging: “The speed with which we would need to get charging stations sorted out is a real challenge, if we are to avoid alienating motorists.”

Clara Goldsmith, at the Climate Coalition, said: “The government must accept this advice and unleash a decade of ambitious action. There is no downside to embracing this plan. It can transform our society and create hundreds of thousands of green jobs.”

Doug Parr, at Greenpeace UK, said: “The CCC may have set out its paths to net zero but we’ll need much more legwork from the government over this parliament to reach it. While some progress has been made recently there remains a yawning gap between our targets over the next decade and action needed to meet them.”

Stark said the climate crisis was worsening, with global CO2 emissions and temperature still on an upward trend: “We are in a bad place.” But he said 2021 would be a big year for action in the UK, with government strategies due for heat and buildings, food, aviation, hydrogen and trees and peat bogs. “It is the actions to deliver [net zero emissions] that are important now.”

-30-

Related article (LINK ONLY):

"What would a climate-friendly UK mean for you?"

Electric cars, the end of gas boilers, green jobs, more trees and less meat are all part of government advisers’ net zero plan

(well, if you lived there)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/09/what-would-a-climate-friendly-uk-mean-for-you

Some good watching:

Metropolitan Opera video performance streaming:
https://www.metopera.org/

John Adams’ Doctor Atomic, today until 6:30PM
Starring Sasha Cooke, Thomas Glenn, Gerald Finley, Richard Paul Fink, and Eric Owens, conducted by Alan Gilbert. From November 8, 2008.  Canadian Gerald Finley as J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Britten’s Peter Grimes, tonight 7:30PM until Thursday about 6:30PM
Starring Patricia Racette, Anthony Dean Griffey, and Anthony Michaels-Moore, conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles. From March 15, 2008.

Some thoughts from someone who's traveled a lot and see a lot of snow (melting):

Global Chorus essay for December 9
Gretchen Bleiler

Now more than ever, there is a feeling we are living in a world that has spun out of balance. It seems the principles of force and effort are dominant in our society on all levels, and because we are all connected, it is this exact model that is not working and that has taken us to this place of global environmental and social crises. I think we are getting close to the point where we as a collective are so disturbed with what we have created that we say “we won’t take this any longer.” But right now there is already change brewing. And I believe one perfect example of this change is Marianne Williamson’s Sister Giant, which is a movement to start a new conversation, a “politics of the heart”. (see below)

Movements like Sister Giant are what we need to bring the qualities of masculine and feminine back into alignment in our world. There is always a masculine face and a feminine face to every energy and these two faces depend on one another to thrive. But we’ve been living in a world where the goal-oriented, assertive and individualistic qualities of the masculine have dominated the intuitive, non-differentiating, joining qualities of the feminine. So in order for this world to truly prosper individually and collectively we need our feminine energy to step into its full power again with the masculine.

Once we as a people have brought balance back into our society through the balance and union of the masculine and feminine, we will naturally find balance with Nature again as well. Instead of fighting against Nature as we have done for so long now, we will start to learn from and work with her. As Deepak Chopra and David Simon have written in their book Te Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga, “Nature’s intelligence functions with effortless ease. If you look at the ebb and flow of the tides, the blossoming of a flower, or the movement of the stars, you do not see Nature straining.” We can echo Nature’s intelligence to live and create a new world of effortless ease, balance and rhythm.

And that is where it seems we are standing just on the cusp of potential.

     — Gretchen Bleiler, environmental activist, U.S. professional half-pipe snowboarder, Olympic Silver Medallist, four-time X Games Gold Medallist www.gretchenbleiler.com

The Sister Giant website, started by Marianne Williamson, focused on her running for the U.S. presidency earlier this year, but has a wonderful essay about empowerment and environmental aspect, here:
http://sistergiant.com/creating-a-culture-of-peace/
________________

essay from:
Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet
edited by Todd E. MacLean
copyright 2014
http://globalchorus.ca