• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Repsol Abandons Plan to Ship Canadian LNG to Europe March 17, 2023
Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska March 14, 2023
U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse March 14, 2023
$30.9B Price Tag Makes Trans Mountain Pipeline a ‘Catastrophic Boondoggle’ March 14, 2023
UN Buys Tanker, But Funding Gap Could Scuttle Plan to Salvage Oil from ‘Floating Time Bomb’ March 9, 2023
Next
Prev

Mothers, Grandmothers in Siberian Coal Region Beg Trudeau for Environmental Refugee Status

June 11, 2019
Reading time: 2 minutes

Новости Киселевска/Youtube

Новости Киселевска/Youtube

28
SHARES
 

Mothers and grandmothers desperate to get their loved ones away from the physically and psychologically toxic effects of trying to live at the epicentre of Siberia’s dismally-regulated coal mining and processing industry have made a heartfelt appeal, direct to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau via YouTube, to be admitted to Canada as environmental refugees.

In the recently-posted video, reports the CBC, “dozens of women in Kiselyovsk, a city of 90,000 in Siberia, take turns reading emotional statements, explaining how coal dust from nearby mines and factories has blanketed their homes and made their lives unbearable.”

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
Subscribe

In a region that produces 60% of Russia’s coal, black chemical dust falls so thick that it makes it dangerous to work or play outdoors.

Officials tried to explain away a particularly bad period in February by claiming “that screens and other cleaning devices in nearby factories and emission stacks had somehow unexpectedly failed all at once,” CBC writes. The women of Kiselyovsk counter that “pollution is constant and forces them to keep their children inside for days at a time.”

The community also faces the problem of discarded coal spontaneously catching fire—another regular event that further pollutes the air with smoke and toxic fumes.

Evidently anxious to make a good impression, the speakers in the video describe themselves as hard workers who would “make a big contribution to Canada’s economy, if given the chance,” CBC writes.

“We can become useful to Canada, because in Russia we have simply been forgotten and we feel here as superfluous, useless people,” one woman declares. The group says local residents “want Trudeau’s help because Canada’s refugee system recognizes ‘discrimination on social grounds,’ which they say applies to them.”

But the women “are likely mistaken on that point,” writes the CBC, describing Canada’s refugee rules as “largely silent on questions of environmental impacts,” with criteria that focus more on flight from conflict or political persecution.

The women in the video also refer to a formal letter they sent to the Canadian Embassy in Moscow. It describes coal mining executives and Russian government officials as “more interested in protecting each other than those who are suffering health issues.”

The odds of these earnest appeals delivering any of Kiselyovsk’s residents out of their misery are very long, however. Immigration policy experts approached by CBC said there is “nothing in Canadian law that allows admittance of refugees because of pollution, especially if there are other places would-be refugees can live in their home countries,” the national broadcaster notes.



in Canada, Coal, Environmental Justice, Health & Safety, Sub-National Governments

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Environmental Defence Canada/flickr
Shale & Fracking

Repsol Abandons Plan to Ship Canadian LNG to Europe

March 18, 2023
248
U.S. Bureau of Land Management/flickr
Oil & Gas

Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska

March 14, 2023
130
David Dodge, Green Energy Futures/flickr
Community Climate Finance

U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse

March 14, 2023
464

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

David Dodge, Green Energy Futures/flickr

U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse

March 14, 2023
464
Environmental Defence Canada/flickr

Repsol Abandons Plan to Ship Canadian LNG to Europe

March 18, 2023
248
Joshua Doubek/Wikipedia

No New Jobs Came from Alberta’s $4B ‘Job Creation’ Tax Cut for Big Oil

October 6, 2022
852
Rebecca Bollwitt/flickr

Fossils Stay ‘Oily’, Gibsons Sues Big Oil, U.S. Clean Energy Booms, EU Pushes Fossil Phaseout, and Fukushima Disaster was ‘No Accident’

March 14, 2023
211
Behrat/Wikimedia Commons

Hawaii Firm Turns Home Water Heaters into Grid Batteries

March 14, 2023
468
NTSB

Ohio Train Derailment, Toxic Chemical Spill Renews Fears Over Canada-U.S. Rail Safety

March 8, 2023
1.4k

Recent Posts

U.S. Bureau of Land Management/flickr

Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska

March 14, 2023
130
EcoAnalytics

Canadians Want Strong Emissions Cap Regulations, Not More Missed Targets

March 14, 2023
140
U.S. National Transportation Safety Board/flickr

$30.9B Price Tag Makes Trans Mountain Pipeline a ‘Catastrophic Boondoggle’

March 14, 2023
254
Raysonho/wikimedia commons

Purolator Pledges $1B to Electrify Last-Mile Delivery

March 14, 2023
90
United Nations

UN Buys Tanker, But Funding Gap Could Scuttle Plan to Salvage Oil from ‘Floating Time Bomb’

March 10, 2023
97
Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

Biden Cuts Fossil Subsidies, But Oil and Gas Still Lines Up for Billions

March 10, 2023
192
Next Post
peter_pdp/Instagram

Alberta Wildfire Specialist Links Fort Mac Megafire, B.C.’s 2017 Fire Season to Climate Change

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}