Environmental Law

Illegal logging during Sochi Olympics road construction.

Sochi Olympics Going For Gold, But Not Green

When Russia bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, they committed to green building standards and a “zero waste” policy that promised not to add to landfills. The $51-billion Sochi Olympics – the most expensive in history – will truly have costly consequences to the environment. The area of […]

Chief Arlen Dumas, Mathias Colomb Cree Nation at a Hudbay Minerals protest.

Hudbay Minerals: Confronting a Corporate Criminal

The scene was absurd: four activists, each with a bundle of 75 black and gold helium-filled balloons, riding an escalator. As we reached the top, we clipped our banner to the bundles and let go, watching our work rise slowly toward the hundred-foot ceiling of the lobby of a downtown […]

Pipeline oil spill.

Indirect Impacts of Pipelines Should Be Included in Assessments

If oil and gas pipeline proponents can talk about indirect economic benefits stemming from new pipeline infrastructure, opponents should be able to consider the environmental impacts of those indirect actions when arguing against them, according to the Pembina Institute’s federal policy director.

Crimes against ecology A\J AlternativesJournal.ca

More Reasons to Arrest Harper: Feds Shutter World-Class Libraries

In A\J’s Heroes issue Laura McDonald put Prime Minister Harper on trial for ecocide. Scientists and other commentators are also accusing Harper of ‘libricide’ for the wholesale massacre of numerous world-class federal libraries. The activity has been characterized as a frenzy of knowledge destruction without regard for record keeping or […]

Stephen Harper on trial, in Alternatives Journal A\J. By Ted Heeley.

Crimes Against Ecology

In 2011, the CEOs of oil companies operating in the tar sands were found guilty of ecocide in a mock trial staged by the Eradicating Ecocide Global Initiative. The trial was part of British lawyer Polly Higgins’ campaign to have ecocide recognized as an international crime by the United Nations. […]

Over 100 people were arrested at an anti-tar sands action in Ottawa Sept 26

Rethinking Resistance

AS THE PUSH FOR TAR SANDS PIPELINES ESCALATES and the legal channels for fighting them become exhausted, some environmentalists are reconsidering the value of civil disobedience, which Sierra Club Canada (SCC) executive director John Bennett describes as “breaking an unjust law or breaking a law to draw attention to an […]