Tzeporah Berman

For almost twenty years, Tzeporah Berman has been an influential activist and leader, instrumental in shaping the tactics and concerns of modern environmentalism, as a founder of ForestEthics and PowerUp Canada. In the early nineties she faced the startling reality of our shared calamity when she joined the protests to save the endangered rainforests of Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island. Her memoir, This Crazy Time (Knopf Canada 2011) describes her journey and evolution as an environmental activist. The Royal BC Museum has included Berman in a permanent exhibition as one of the 150 people who have changed British Columbia’s history.

Tzeporah Berman's website

Walking across the tar sands

Jun 212013

Features

Greenpeace leader supports First Nations' walk for healing.

by Tzeporah Berman

I was arrested on the front lines of Clayoquot Sound, I have marched in climate protests in Ottawa, Washington, Copenhagen and Durban, South Africa. I have sat in the board rooms of major corporations arguing the merits of taking action to protect the planet. But now I find myself on the precipice of what feels like a new experience.

On July 5 and 6 I will be walking a 14-kilometer road through the tar sands, supporting the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations, Keepers of the Athabasca, and the people who live in the region as they take time to heal from the devastation caused by reckless tar sands development.

Unionists and environmentalists find common cause

May 092013

Features

No one wins a race to the bottom, not workers and not the Earth.

by Tzeporah Berman and Steven Guilbeault

There was a time when you wouldn’t walk into the local union hall wearing your organic cotton “Save the Whales” t-shirt, and also when you probably wouldn’t take part in the local Earth Day parade wearing a hard hat and well-worn safety boots. But fashions change and so do perceptions. Union members and environmentalists have discovered they have much more in common than anyone once thought.

Tar sands are “green” and other Harperite myths

Mar 082013

Features

Minister tells Americans that tar sands are "environmentally responsible choice."

by Tzeporah Berman

Many Canadians must have wondered if George Orwell was alive and well this week as they read that the Alberta oil sands were being pitched to US officials as “green” by Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver.

“Canada is the environmentally responsible choice for the US to meet its energy needs in oil for years to come,” the minister told an audience in Chicago – a message he repeated over and over in his US tour, part of a calculated mission to associate Alberta bitumen with ecological benefits.

Washington presses Canada to address climate change

Mar 072013

Features

Canada must heed US and European signals that climate change matters more than tar sands.

by Tzeporah Berman

US President Barack Obama, through his ambassador to Canada, has every right to ask our federal government to do more to fight climate change. The United States is on track to meet its climate targets. On February 17, in Washington, more than 30,000 people took part in the largest climate rally in US history. Obama has committed more than US$90 billion for clean energy. He recently made fighting climate change a major priority for his second term.

What’s happening in Canada? After US Ambassador David Jacobson delivered the president’s message, the federal government issued a press statement headed, “Harper government continues to make concrete progress in environmental sustainability.” Nothing could be further from the truth.