President’s Blog

SC’s Spring Newsletter

by | President's Blog, Sustainable Cobourg

The birds are back! The first day of Spring has come and gone and Easter has just passed. Time seems to be flying by. 

The unprecedented climate events of yesterday’s, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, fires, droughts, horrific winds, power outages for millions, are no longer alarming realities. These historic climate events should be a call to action! There is a climate emergency happening and we are in it!

But what can we do? 

Take a breath. Know that the wheels of change move slowly. We are making progress. 

No more plastic shopping bags. No more plastic straws. Plastic is virtually being outlawed. We know that’s a good thing, a positive thing for the environment, and it helps mitigate climate change. 

“Plastic is one of the most persistent pollutants on Earth. It’s made to last-and it does, often 400 years or more. And at every step in its lifecycle, even long after it has been discarded, plastic creates greenhouse gas emissions that are contributing to the warming world.” 

https://www.wwf.org.au/news/blogs

It is made from fossil fuels! About 4% to 8% of all oil production is for manufacturing plastics and many/most are single use. Can you imagine how many are discarded? 

So there! We’re doing something to ‘Invest In Our Earth’. And that is this year’s theme for Earth Week. 

We’ve got events throughout the week starting with the Mayor’s Clean-Up challenge on Sunday April 16th. Come to Victoria Hall at 11:30 for the kickoff and then why not join our Youth Ambassador, Tovan Lew, at Peace Park at 12:30. 

Check out all the great events on our calendar www.sustainablecobourg.ca/events/

Or check out “Experience Cobourg” on the Town of Cobourg website. 

Remember, WE ARE THE CHANGE!

Cheers,

Gigi

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Did You Know?

Adopting sustainable practices, whether large or small, can have significant impacts in the long run. If every office worker in the United Kingdom used one less staple a day by using a reusable paper clip, 120 tonnes of steel would be saved in one year.

So far in 2022, Depave Paradise has depaved 15 asphalt pavements! Since 2012 this group has completed 80 projects across 32 Canadian cities covering 76,384 square metres of unused paved surfaces into beautiful community green spaces with native grasses, flowers and trees. What an amazing sustainable action to capture carbon, a Greenhouse gas, and create a welcoming ecological ‘paradise’ for our monarchs and bees and of course, for us. Well done. This is a project of Green Communities Canada.

In 1993, the Convention on Biological Diversity put the precautionary principle to work.

In 1987, the Brundtland Report consolidated decades of work on sustainable development.

The First World Climate Conference happened in 1979 and opened up the science of climate change.

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." - Anne Frank