Originally published on Twitter
I am firmly opposed to Putin’s heinous and illegal actions in Ukraine, and his oppression of the Russian people within Russia. I have held and articulated these views publicly for years.
In early 2014, when I was still in my early 20s, I made foolish comments about Putin and Ukraine. I stopped holding those views a long time ago.
Continue reading Aaron Gunn Responds: About PutinEnvironmentalists have become acutely concerned about the physical state of our planet, but a related concern should be the psychological state that we occupy as human beings living in a milieu of digital information. This is an issue that has recently entered prominence because of a number of factors: the propaganda justifying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the possible meddling of China and Russia in American and Canadian elections, and the pervasive effects of social media on the attitudes and behaviour of people who are exposed to and influenced by it. We can’t solve any problem, environmental or otherwise, if we are not connected to reality.
Continue reading The Quadra Project – Social Media P 4 of 4No one on Quadra Island is likely to have known Yurii Kerpatenko. He never lived here and he never visited here. Had he been alive on November 15th, 2022, he probably wouldn’t have noticed that his longer life was adding a mere half a second to the arrival of the 8th billion person to Earth’s human population. Yurii Kerpatenko would not have cared because of other pressing concerns.
These concerns were more than symbolic, and they relate to us on our little island in the wholeness of things because we are able to live in a society of law and order, to go about our daily affairs without fear, to trust that one day will be as normal as another, and to freely express our opinions without state censorship or physical oppression.
Continue reading The Quadra Project: In Memoriam, Yurii Kerpatenko (1976 – 2022)Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, said in his introductory comments at the COP 27 meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November 2022, “Humanity has a choice: either co-operate or perish.”
This is simply because we are one humanity, living on one planet. Whether we recognize it or not, the time for differences is over. All the imagined parts that we thought were separate, are interconnected. Whatever happens in one place has an effect everywhere.
Continue reading The Quadra Project: Humanity’s Choice
By Natasha Bulowski, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
After a sluggish first week, activists took to the streets of New York City to push delegates negotiating a United Nations high seas treaty to act with urgency.
The “high seas” — waters that aren’t managed by a nation — account for roughly two-thirds of the world’s oceans. The vast majority are unprotected. A UN high seas treaty would be the first legally binding conservation framework for these waters, and would enable protection from overfishing, industry, resource extraction — like deep sea mining — and other activities. The treaty is key if the world is to protect 30 per cent of oceans by 2030, something more than 100 countries, including Canada, have called for.
Continue reading Activists call on UN delegates to move fast on high seas treaty
