It is with that belief that I speak to you today. We are in a climate crisis. This crisis is an unfortunately logical conclusion of centuries of colonization of Indigenous lands, and the oppression and abuse of the world’s Indigenous peoples – here in Nova Scotia the Mi’kmaq Nation. This colonization of land and people enabled the accumulation of wealth by a few, as a result of taking the wealth of many. In the past few decades corporations has been able to amass so much wealth that they have paid for access to innumberable government decision making processes and public forums, including those that are meant to address the climate crisis. This is the root of the climate crisis, and we cannot forget that as we make greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. This is a crisis of inequality, wealth accumulation, and political power that is now manifesting as climate change.
Tag Archives: StopAltonGas
The Macdonald Bridge “Blanket Girl” speaks: I’m 17 years old, and people are threatening to kill me
People can see a meme if they want, or they can see that a young girl is able to speak up for what she believes in. They can appreciate the fact that I’m so passionate when so many people aren’t. That I’m able to stand with my people and for my people. I’m proud of all of those things.
I want all girls and young women to know that you can speak out for what you believe in. I want people to know that sometimes when you’re fighting you don’t do everything perfectly, but you can still stand up. I want young people being bullied to know that even when you go through something like I’m going through now, you can go and hide and let the hate get to you, or you can keep holding your head up high.
I’m a young woman who fights for my community, for the water, and for your future.
And I’m not going to stop.
brine the company intends to release into the Shubenacadie River is
acutely toxic to life.
On February 25, 2019 Environment and Climate Change Canada issued a
Notice of Intent, which confirms that the brine Alton Gas plans to
release into the river is a deleterious substance according to the
Fisheries Act and prohibited by Section 36(3). The project as currently
planned is against the law. Both the Province of Nova Scotia and Alton
Gas have maintained that this project is safe for the environment when
it clearly is not.
For the last 6 years, there has been a steady opposition to Alton Gas
from the public. The community is fighting tooth and nail to protect
Treaty Rights, fish and fish habitat, the Inner Bay of Fundy Atlantic
Salmon, and the Shubenacadie River itself. The Alton Gas project poses a
threat to all of these things.
From her home in New York, she next spoke to the grassroots Mi’kmaw grandmothers who have been trying to protect the water of the #Shubenacadie River from the Alton Gas project.
Calgary-based AltaGas plans to hollow out massive salt caverns about a kilometre underground for storing natural gas near the community of Stewiake, about 70 kilometres northeast of Halifax. To do that, the company intends to remove the salt by dissolving it with water from the Shubenacadie River and then dumping the brine back into the 72-kilometre-long tidal river, which empties into the the Bay of Fundy.
The Mi’kmaw water protectors and their allies want the project stopped because of the risk the brine, a deleterious substance, poses to fish in the river, something acknowledged by federal scientists in documents obtained by water protectors Dale Poulette and Rachael Greenland-Smith under a freedom of information request.
It was after she spoke with the grandmothers that Page realized Alton Gas looked like another case of environmental racism in the making.
‘I Want Them to Have Justice’: Inside the Fight to Save the Shubenacadie River | The Tyee
If the Shubenacadie River is damaged, it will be both an environmental disaster and a travesty of treaty rights.
The company’s plan is to store billions of cubic feet of natural gas during periods of low demand, and then deliver it to a gas pipeline system during when demand is high. But the project drags a scorpion’s tail behind it. Where will all that briny water go?
Back into the river, which is home to striped bass, American eel, the endangered Atlantic salmon and other species.