Weekly list of Toronto environmental and social justice events and issues.
Updated every Monday.
_______________________
Wishing you peace, strength, and good health in these tumultuous times. Please take care of one another. – a
_______________________
_______________________
A letter from the virus. #LISTEN
Stop. Just stop. Be still. Listen.
4 min. video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-SyZiwXKs0
Coronavirus Capitalism — and How to Beat It
Watch Naomi Klein outline the dangers and opportunities of the current state of the world vis-a-vis covid-19 and the climate crisis. 8 min. video.
https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-capitalism/
Coronavirus has caused a bicycling boom in New York City
This is the best time to ride a bike! The streets are empty, the air is clearer, bikes enable social distancing, it’s fun, and it promotes health — a strong immune system requires a healthy and well-exercised body.
https://grist.org/climate/coronavirus-has-caused-a-bicycling-boom-in-new-york-city/
Pandemics: Lessons Looking Back From 2050
by Fritjof Capra and Hazel Henderson.
Imagine, it is the year 2050 and we are looking back to the origin and evolution of the coronavirus pandemic over the last three decades. Extrapolating from recent events, we offer the following scenario for such a view from the future.
https://www.ethicalmarkets.com/pandemics-lessons-looking-back-from-2050/
50 Ways to Stay SANE During the Coronavirus Pandemic
Lots of great links and ideas from Guy Dauncey
https://thepracticalutopian.ca/2020/03/20/50-ways-to-stay-sane-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic/
Here’s a list of grassroots groups that have come together to ensure vulnerable community members have access to food, housing, healthcare, and other necessities. Scroll down to the Toronto section.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LsHkTBMS0YX_4F7OSAt55ppV0xICi50AXdF62vRw4W8/edit
_______________________
_______________________
Demand a COVID-19 Emergency Basic Income in Canada – petition and letter to your MP
https://ubiworks.ca/emergency-ubi/
Petition: Stop the Cuts to Toronto Public Health
https://www.progresstoronto.ca/public-health-cuts-petition
#CancelCANSEC, North America’s biggest weapons show
Despite the growing coronavirus pandemic, the CANSEC 2020 weapons show will take place as scheduled in Ottawa May 27 and 28. CANSEC is billed as “North America’s largest trilateral defence event” and is expected to attract 12,000 government and military officials and weapons industry representatives from 55 countries to Ottawa. Weapons dealers should not risk the health of the people of Ottawa in order to market, buy, and sell weapons of war, endangering the lives of people around the world with violence and conflict. CANSEC must be cancelled – and Canada should ban all future weapons shows. Send a letter here.
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/cancelcansec-north-americas-biggest-weapons-show/
Don’t bail out Big Oil. Support workers and renewable energy jobs instead.
Jason Kenney and his oil lobbyist friends are jumping on this moment to pressure Trudeau to include a big bailout for oil companies in the upcoming federal budget, further locking us into a fossil fuel economy. Our government must stop using Canadian tax dollars to prop up the fossil fuel industry. Instead, they should invest that money in renewables, and create opportunities for workers that are here to stay. Sign the petition to make sure they get the message.
https://act.stand.earth/page/17696/petition/1
PM Trudeau: Save Lives Not Pipelines
Halt all funding to Trans Mountain Pipeline in the midst of a global health crisis.
https://act.leadnow.ca/pm-trudeau-save-lives-not-pipelines/
Rapid and dramatic increase in shelter and drop-in space needed to slow COVID-19 spread and curb deadly consequences for Toronto’s homeless
https://ocap.ca/covid-19-homeless-response/
Sign the petition to phase out Ontario’s gas plants
_______________________
_______________________
What is the link between climate change and covid-19?
Habitat destruction, deforestation, and warming temperatures can all cause more diseases to “spill over” from animals into humans.
https://grist.org/climate/a-common-germ-pool-the-frightening-environmental-origins-of-covid-19/
What’s the link between air pollution and covid-19?
Breathing unclean air is linked to high blood pressure, diabetes, and respiratory disease, conditions that doctors are starting to associate with higher death rates for COVID-19, so the downturn in economic activity has cleared the air and will improve people’s ability to fight off infection.
https://grist.org/justice/one-more-way-the-world-wasnt-prepared-for-coronavirus-air-pollution/
We invade tropical forests and other wild landscapes, which harbor so many species of animals and plants — and within those creatures, so many unknown viruses. We cut the trees; we kill the animals or cage them and send them to markets. We disrupt ecosystems, and we shake viruses loose from their natural hosts. When that happens, they need a new host. Often, we are it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/opinion/coronavirus-china.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytopinion
Video message from Jane Goodall on Covid-19
Jane Goodall connects the Corinavirus with our depredation of the environment and our encroachment into wildlife habitat.
‘Tip of the iceberg’: is our destruction of nature responsible for Covid-19?
As habitat and biodiversity loss increase globally, the coronavirus outbreak may be just the beginning of mass pandemics
Green Jobs Are the Answer to the Coronavirus Recession
The climate case for making the government the employer of last resort
https://newrepublic.com/article/156962/green-jobs-answer-coronavirus-recession
_______________________
_______________________
The Age of Hybrid Warfare
Wed. March 25, 8 – 9 p.m.
This webinar is co-hosted by World BEYOND War in partnership with Jovanni Reyes, member coordinator of About Face: Veterans Against the War.
https://actionnetwork.org/events/free-webinar-the-age-of-hybrid-warfare
_______________________
_______________________
Indigenous Sovereignty, Ecosocialism and Social Change
Friday, March 27, 7 – 9 pm
Webinar. Spring Reading Group. Join us to discuss some articles and their relation to our political action. All welcome.
https://www.facebook.com/events/910047419450832/
_______________________
_______________________
War Abolition 201: Building the Alternative Global Security System
April 13 to May 24
Online Course
With what do we replace the war system (aka the military-industrial-corporate-governmental complex)? What truly makes us secure? What are the moral, social, political, philosophical and pragmatic foundations of an alternative global security system – a system in which peace is pursued by peaceful means? What actions and strategies might we pursue in building this system? War Abolition 201 explores these questions and more with the goal of engaging students in learning that leads to action.
_______________________
_______________________
For the best Canadian climate and energy news, read and subscribe to the Energy Mix newsletter
_______________________
_______________________
Submissions, subscribes, unsubscribes, and comments: mailto:angela@cleanairalliance.org