In 3 weeks, Andrew Harvey and Sheilagh O'Leary in our house! (hopefully)

For me, Green Drinks has always been about creating a forward-thinking community in St. John's.  So apropos of that, I invited Andrew Harvey and Sheilagh O'Leary to our meet-up on November 27th (at 7 pm at Bitters).  Both have responded to me in the affirmative, and I'm thrilled. (See their RSVP's for the facebook event.)

Having said all that, Green Drinks has taught me that an RSVP is quite far from a guarantee.  These are two busy people, so I wouldn't want my writing about their reply to put any undue pressure on them. But I hope next Green Drinks is an opportunity for members to connect with forward-thinking people active in local politics.  (And of course, anyone involved in politics is always welcome.)

In other political news, the provincial government has put on holding any applications for fracking rights.  That's great news!  For now.

Meeting this November

Here’s the latest heads-up.  Green Drinks meets again in a month, November 27th 7 p.m. at Bitters.  At August’s meeting, we had a good time, including meeting a grad student whose research took her to the western-most Aleutian Island—quite remarkable.

Nevertheless, more probably would have shown had the meeting not been immediately prior to the Labour Day weekend.  Live and learn.

Quite a bit has been happening on the fracking front, and I regret that I haven’t shared it.  The truth is I don’t check the Green Drinks email often enough and missed a number of worthwhile posts from NL-FAN.  But here are two of the more relevant ones:

The same Canadian Press article about Jessica's visit was picked today  by: the Huffington Post, Ottawa Citizen, Calgary Herald and CTV News  site. The issue has gone national!

 

[R]ecently an article was published in the telegram "written" by John Crosbie. After some great investigative work by one of our members it is clear to see that a lot of the information is straight from Black Spruce Exploration's Fall Update.

It is situations precisely like this why we are asking for an independent review of the situation.

I’ve asked the NL-FAN director to join our facebook group (as opposed to our page, which doesn’t really facilitate discussion) and post directly to it.

See you tomorrow!

Tomorrow's Green Drinks is looking a lot like last May's, sparse RSVP's but hopefully surprisingly nice turnout.  I'm going to try to talk to the leader of the NL Fracking Awareness Network and share what he knows.  See you tomorrow!

Why we meet . . . in a week.

When Green Drinks first started, I was so thrilled by all the on-line support it got--over 50 facebook likes among others.  Yet we've never had 50 people at Green Drinks.  I certainly understand we live in a busy world with multiple things competing for our attention.  But the reason we meet in person instead of just chatting on-line (and we know the Green Drinks sites are burning with hot discussions) is because there is something inherently natural about sitting across from someone and engaging them.

The great Noam Chomsky explains it here:



Eh, that wasn't the greatest interview, but it makes the point!  (He's made it better elsewhere, but I couldn't find it.)

Next Wednesday, see you at Bitters!

(And that's more than 140 characters, Professor Chomsky!)

Two Weeks to Go!

I got to spend last week at the US's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in their new building.

The building was incredible, and not just for aesthetics, but because it demonstrated a government's capacity to do something constructive if so inclined.  Does that have much to do with Green Drinks?  Only that NOAA's concerned with the environment, too.

In two weeks, we're at Bitters!  See you then!