Fwd: Fwd: TODAY Beyond Gas Advocacy Campaign and April 18th invitations - Mark Jacobson, Beyond Gas Ontario's Energy Future

[carolchrissy carolchrissy]

Good evening friends,

Action Alert: This is a campaign you can take part in. The webinar on Tuesday will help you get there.

Sending out this reminder of Tuesday evening's webinar: This is part of a campaign endorsed by Climate Fast, Ontario Clean Air Alliance, Environmental Defence, Citizens Climate Lobby, David Suzuki foundation and many many more environmental:organizations. What's it all about? For one thing, the plan to power up our Ontario electricity grid. Doug Ford's plan is to ramp up gas powered electricity generation. This would make our fossil fuel emissions skyrocket in Ontario when we are already living through a Climate Crisis.

There has to be a better way.

I hope to see you there.

For the Earth. For our children and grandchildren and fellow creatures.

Carol

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From: lyn.ad...@gmail.com
To: Cno...@goodmedia.com; brianp...@gmail.com; carolc...@sympatico.ca; t...@leadnow.ca; lyn...@uoguelph.ca; ryar...@yahoo.ca; ro...@kudlac.ca; rose....@alumni.utoronto.ca; joycehall...@gmail.com; rita....@icloud.com; ks_d...@hotmail.com
Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2023 12:10 PM
Subject: Fwd: TODAY Beyond Gas Advocacy Campaign and April 18th invitations - Mark Jacobson, Beyond Gas Ontario's Energy Future

Can you lend a hand today? Help us get the word out about April 18! and about our Beyond Gas campaign - email or call me if you have time to make some calls today. Lyn 416-731-6605

Register https://www.eventbrite.com/e/beyond-gas-ontarios-energy-future-tickets-592182743527

Dear friends in the climate movement

ClimateFast along with many other member groups in the Ontario Climate Emergency Campaign, along with the Ontario Clean Air Alliance and Ontario Clean Air Partnership are hosting a webinar featuring Mark Jacobson on Tuesday April 18th, at 7 pm ET.

Mark is the Stanford University professor who has spent several decades developing plans for 100% renewable energy and has recently written a book called No Miracles Needed how today's technology can save our climate and clean our air. His presentation will be followed by two speakers putting the renewable energy future in an Ontario context, Gaby Kalapos from the Clean Air Partnership, and Jack Gibbons of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance.

BEYOND GAS ADVOCACY CAMPAIGN

This event is our main kickoff event for the Beyond Gas Advocacy Campaign in which we are asking people from all over the province to step up, learn about the harm being done to our health - and to our electric grid - by expansion of gas plants across the province - and then to meet with their representatives sometime in May. Our target timeframe for meetings is May 8 - 26 although they could be sooner - or later - depending on when the political representatives make time available.

All three levels of government play a role, and a very significant one, in Ontario's energy future. The province is playing a dominant role and a destructive one toward renewable energy, having put a moratorium on offshore wind, and having shut down 758 (approx) renewable energy projects when they came into power in 2018. The province makes power grid decisions based on reports from the Independent Electricity Systems Operator (IESO). Right now those reports are biased against renewables and in favour of methane gas and new nuclear power. There is currently a public consultation open till May 14 on their plan called 'Decarbonizing the Grid' which seems Orwelllian to me as instead they are REcarbonizing a grid that had been decarbonized when the coal plants were phased out around 2005.

TEECC LOOKS AT IESO

The TCAN member group Toronto East End Climate Collective is researching the IESO report and planning to submit comments. Let me know if you want to be connected to this work (its a thick read these reports, so helping each other get through means there will be more likelihood of being able to formulate a response). We have to recognize though that their report is being put together in the context of the provincial gov'ts current priorities. What shocks me is that the IESO is not under any instruction to plan with the province's climate target in mind. That inadequate target is considered irrelevant to our energy planning.

Yet we do not hear an uproar about this from the other politicians, at any level, in this province at this time. We want to kickstart the pushback that this anti-climate planning deserves. We need to take back the future of energy in this province. If we want renewable to be a significant part of it we are going to have to fight for it.

Some of you know that I am just back home now from 8 days in hospital where I was very seriously ill with gallbladder caused pancreatitis. I received the most excellent care from Mt. Sinai's doctors and nurses - and I will not have to pay a penny for this lifesaving healthcare - because activists of the day fought for publicly funded health care and fought until it was established. Tommy Douglas had the dream in Saskatchewan and started that program fought by the powers that be - and still succeeded.

If those who came ahead of us could achieve this huge success story, then we can surely achieve the huge success-story that our children need from us: a renewable energy future - and a livable planet.

We need to reach our Net Zero by 2040 target here in the City of Toronto. And we won't if the province continues to build gas plants to recarbonize the grid.

So please join the campaign - and if you can also send out information to your relatives and friends in the far-flung areas of the province - and also in the GTA - our campaign will be that much more successful.

There are two action steps - first, promoting and attending the Beyond Gas forum on April 18th, second, planning to meet with politicians for a clean energy future during April and May - politicians at all levels, municipal, provincial, and federal. (or any one of those: if you are able to help organize one meeting with one politician that will be a huge contribution to the campaign.)

Here is a draft outreach letter that you can copy to your email program:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A9J7QfcaSyitNxkgxj53t40opZ370r_MAAHh5i8SAPM/edit

This is a last minute request to promote an event in 2 days, please help out if you can! We want to get invitations to all these politicians, together with a request to have a meeting in May, or just send the April 18th flyer on your own. We want the politicians to know that their constituents care about Ontario's energy future, if they don't get that message we will never achieve the revolutionary turnaround in energy planning that we need.

So here's how to get involved

1) register for the April 18 webinar: Beyond Gas: Ontario's Energy Future.

2) promote the April 18th webinar to family and friends (I will send you a separate email that is just the promo for the event, that should be easy to forward). You can also promote via social media. Here are some posts you can share on Twitter and Facebook.

3) learn about the advocacy campaign involving setting up meetings with MPPs, councillors, and MPs. Some of you may have attended our April 5th Beyond Gas Advocacy workshop with Cheryl McNamara and Angela Bischoff.

You can find a recording and slides from the April 5th workshop here, Recording. Angela’s slides – Cheryl’s slides

4) Sign up! Please use this survey link to give feedback on April 5th (if you take time to listen) or just scroll to the end of the survey and enter your contact details and your riding so we can be in touch about how to stay connected while we get these meetings set up over the next two months. please fill in your contact details at the end of this survey link.

BOTTOM LINE and how we can be most effective - generate as many letters and phone calls as possible over the next week or two - especially this week, Earth Week - to let politicians know our concern.

We are asking that you please send a short letter to any or all of your local politician/s – your City Councillor, MPP and/or MP this weekend – expressing your concern about the Ontario Government’s massive gas power ramp-up and:

1. Request a meeting with them during the month of May (we will provide support here). They need to hear from their constituents (you can be sure they’re hearing from the oil/gas lobby). Let them know you will follow up with a phone call if you do not hear from them.

2. Invite them to our April 18^th Webinar on Ontario’s Clean Energy Future. The link is here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/beyond-gas-ontarios-energy-future-tickets-592182743527. Feel free to also call along with forwarding the invite. You can get the office phone number at the directories online (and since the talk is next week, a phone call to draw attention to the email you send will help get the invite more attention).

All info is on the Ontario Climate Emergency Campaign website at this link: https://www.ontarioclimateemergency.ca/#beyondgas.

You can find a sample outreach letter by opening a link on that page.

In addition to notifying politicians, please remember to register for the webinar and let family and friends anywhere in the province know about it too. We are going to need all hands on deck to stop this madness. Please share the event with your friends.

Some other dates to keep in mind:

On Fri. April 21^st 11 to noon we will have a repeat of our lobbying workshop for those who could not make it on April 5^th. Please email Lyn at ocec....@gmail.com to be sent the link.

On Wed. May 3, 7 - 8 p.m we will reconvene to see how the meeting set-ups have gone. We can practice a role play, or at least witness one. We will also provide you with an action toolkit with specific asks to support you going into these May meetings. We are grateful to Cheryl McNamara of Citizens Climate Lobby and all of the organizers from ClimateFast, OCAA and other groups for creating this hands-on opportunity to learn how to be an effective citizens' lobby.

We know that we will make a real difference to the energy future for Ontario, because of YOU and all the people we can invite to help grow this campaign together.

Please scroll down for my personal note, that is firing me up for this incredibly exciting campaign.

Helpful Information:

Website link: https://www.ontarioclimateemergency.ca/media-events

Here's how to find your representative's contact info:

Members of Provincial Parliament

https://www.ola.org/en/members/current

Members of Parliament

https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en/search

Councillors

Toronto City Council

https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/council/members-of-council/

for your location if not in Toronto - please use google to find the info

Articles:

For more on Mark Jacobson’s exceptional work, see this link for his latest book, and this article in the Guardian.

Good article: Methane Leads ‘Alarming’ Rise in Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Got questions?

Email us: Lyn Adamson – ocec....@gmail.com

or Angela Bischoff – ang...@cleanairalliance.org

Thanks for playing your part for a renewable future!

Lyn Adamson

Co-chair OCEC

Call or text 416-731-6605

PS When I came home from the hospital my son, now 36, came to see me and brought me beautiful flowers - and a card that made me cry. Jon talked about how he is thankful that I work hard to stop climate change and he hopes I recover so that I can 'do what I love - making the world a better place for all of us and of course the next generation'. What struck me is that he fully expects we can succeed at this - not just try - but succeed. For the sake of all of those young now, people in other parts of the world, and the creatures who are all too quickly losing their tiny piece of habitat and stable climate that they need - we need to rise up. That card lit a fire under me that has me sending out this campaign info far and wide. The alarm bell has been ringing and its time for us to collectively put the fire out. If this opportunity to act on behalf of those we love, and their future world, moves you too - please sign up and join in - and help get the word out.