What are Fridays for Future? Fridays for Future began in 2018 as a youth movement led by climate activist Greta Thunberg.  In an  effort to protest the inaction of government officials on climate change,  15 year old Greta protested  outside the Swedish Parliament for several weeks.  Greta soon gained international attention by  sacrificing her education on Fridays in order to promote climate change awareness.  Since 2018 her  movement has inspired millions of youth around the world.  Her message has been amplified over social  media through platforms like Twitter and Instagram using hashtags like #FridaysForFuture ,  #SchoolStrike4Climate and #ClimateStrike. While originating in Sweden, this movement manifests itself  among the younger generation across borders who are united through a common fear about the future  living conditions on earth. While ineligible to vote, students have disrupted the function of educat...

  September 20, election day, is right around the corner. I often find it overwhelming to educate myself  about the platforms of the different parties so I decided to help y’all out. I have sifted through these  platforms to provide you with a quick reference guide about where each party stands on the topics of  emissions, jobs, transportation and housing. To learn more please visit each party’s website. The PPC and the CHP were not included in the above chart because neither party has a comprehensive  climate plan. The People’s Party of Canada claims that “There is however no scientific consensus on the  theory that CO2 produced by human activity is causing dangerous global warming today or will in the  future.” https://www.peoplespartyofcanada.ca/platform   The Christian Heritage Party believes that “CO2  is a natural beneficial gas, not a pollutant; CO2 as the cause of climate change is an unproven theory.”   https://www.chp.ca/abou...

  Altona’s community garden keeps getting better and better!  Since its inception, the garden has  expanded several times and now a butterfly garden has been added as part of the David Suzuki  Butterflyway project, coordinated by Marilyn Houser Hamm. ACAN members were happy to dig in and plant 140 perennial native plants and grasses from  Prairie Originals.  These plants were carefully selected as they will attract butterflies and other   pollinators to the garden.    Did you know that pollinators are essential to our well-being?  They are responsible for bringing  us one out of every three bites of food and they also sustain our ecosystems and natural resources  by helping plants reproduce.  Pollinator populations have declined worldwide by approximately  45 percent in the past 40 years or so.  Some of the factors that contribute to the decline are  extreme weather, loss of natural spaces in our commun...

  The Monarch season begins sometime in June, as a generation of Monarchs arrive in Manitoba from the  Southern states.  They have flown 3000 km and arrive here with tattered wings from the rigors of flying  50 kilometers a day.  Even so, they are determined to survive.  They quickly get to work by laying tiny  white eggs on the leaves of milkweed, the only food source a Monarch caterpillar will eat.   At this time I venture out into the prairie ditches of Manitoba, testing my back and hamstring flexibility by  pouring over milkweed to find the tiniest treasures.  Hope in the form of a tiny Monarch egg.   While I am  bent over with my face in the “weeds”, I am overcome with scent of wild roses drifting in the air.  The air  itself is calm, and I feel the warmth slowly dissipate as the sun sinks in the western sky.  I can feel my  excitement as I find more eggs,  1, 2 and before I know it, 30 eggs i...