LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW HERE:
Nelson At Its Best is running a large scale public discussion about our city’s ‘public spaces’. We talk with George Chandler about why they want to learn and about the survey you can take part in. We’re again going to be about old growth and BC forests… with the new forestry mandate letter from Premier David Eby. He says BC forests “are exhausted.” We have local forest ecologist Rachel Holt on to talk about whether there’s big change coming in forestry management.
It looks like this year, trains and buses are looking to be a big deal on The EcoCentric, so to keep that theme rolling we’re playing Ian and Sylvia music from the Festival Express rockumentary” about the 1970 train party from Toronto to Calgary.
LINKS:
Nelson At Its Best website where you can find videos and take part in the survey on public spaces in the city.
Premier David Eby’s Mandate Letter to new Forestry Minister Bruce Ralston.
Excellent critique of BC Forestry Policy from David Broadland
EVENTS:
Friday January 20, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Zoom Webinar
Locals attend Egypt’s COP27 and Montreal’s COP15
Join the Climate Hub’s first webinar of the season!
Why do international summits about climate change and biodiversity matter? And what do they have to do with the Kootenays?
Join the Climate Hub webinar featuring two community members who recently attended international UN Summits. They will share their personal experiences and what they learned from the international community in the hope that their stories will help inspire us to continue working locally to address the interconnected climate and biodiversity crises.
Dr. Marian Berry, a local neurologist, attended the COP27 Climate Summit in Egypt in November with her child Gideon, who is an engineering student and climate activist at UBC. Dona Grace-Campbell, a Kaslo resident who works in northern First Nations communities and is National Director of Stop Ecocide Canada, attended the COP15 Biodiversity Conference in Montreal in December.
Saturday February 25, 2023
Mass Mobilization for Old Growth Forests, BC Legislature Victoria.
Our coalition is bringing a broad-based mass mobilization to the BC Legislature on February 25, 2023 that reflects the majority of public will in BC for progressive solutions to the crisis in the woods. Based on the Union of BC Indian Chiefs Resolution 2022-32, and supported by independent reporting, the scientific data on old growth, and the urgency of the climate crisis, we demand that the BC NDP government:
Immediately halt logging in at-risk old growth forests and additional areas suggested by First Nations
Provide fulsome and immediate financial support for First Nations to implement logging deferrals and resilience planning on their unceded territories, including Indigenous conservation strategies and compensation for any lost revenues and employment as a result of deferrals
Fulfill its election promise to implement all 14 recommendations of the OGSR panel by September 2023, within the three-year timeline which government promised, including biodiversity legislation for all sectors, and provide regular progress reports
Organized by: Sierra Club of BC, Stand.earth, Wilderness Committee, and Elders for Ancient Trees
For a great listing of BC environment events, get the newsletter from:
West Coast Climate Action Network (WeCan!)
ENVIRONMENT NEWS BITS FOR JANUARY 10 2023
Washington, DC, will introduce free bus rides starting in the summer.
Under the plan, bus rides, which usually cost $2, will be free to residents and visitors within city limits starting July 1st. In addition, 12 downtown routes will have 24-hour service. DC city council member Charles Allen said the move makes the city a leader in public transit.
About 68% of D.C. residents who take the bus have household incomes below $50,000, and riders are disproportionately Black and Latino compared with Metrorail passengers, according to the council’s budget analysis.
In D.C., where bus fares amount to a modest 7% of total transit operating revenues, the transit agency may be able to more easily absorb losses from zero fares, said Art Guzzetti, the American Public Transportation Association’s vice president of mobility initiatives and public policy. He noted savings for city taxpayers from speeding up boarding, which could allow for more routes and stops, as well as reducing traffic congestion and eliminating the need for transit enforcement against fare evaders.
https://jalopnik.com/washington-dc-to-offer-fare-free-buses-in-2023-1849888038
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On January 1, leaders of the Extinction Rebellion movement in the UK made a stunning announcment: We Quit. they said.
Actually they are taking a break from deliberate civil disobedience and blockades. They did note despite the blaring alarm on the climate and ecological emergency ringing loud and clear, very little has changed. Emissions continue to rise and our planet is dying at an accelerated rate.
Instead they are “taking a different approach than before. In a time when speaking out and taking action are criminalised, building collective power, strengthening in number and thriving through bridge-building is a radical act. XR is committed to including everyone in this work and leaving no one behind, because everyone has a role to play. This year, we prioritise attendance over arrest and relationships over roadblocks, as we stand together and become impossible to ignore.”
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There is an undulating array of 12,000 solar panels 100 miles southwest of Lisbon floating on the reservoir of Portugal’s Alqueva dam.
With a span of four soccer fields and a peak capacity of five megawatts, the Alqueva Floating Solar Power Plant, built by Portugal’s main public utility EDP, is the largest floating solar farm in Europe, generating enough electricity to meet the needs of more than 30 percent of the region’s population
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Canadian environmental groups have levelled another greenwashing complaint — this time at the largest certification scheme for sustainable forestry in North America.
The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) certifies 115 million hectares of forest within Canada’s borders for companies.
In a complaint filed to Competition Bureau Canada, environmental groups allege the SFI’s claims of sustainability are “false and misleading” because it has “no rules requiring that logging meet prescribed sustainability criteria nor any on-the-ground assessment to confirm sustainability.”
“The misrepresentations made by the SFI have contributed and continue to contribute to unsustainable logging globally and in Canada on an immense scale,” according to the complaint filed Dec. 1 by Ecojustice.
The environmental law charity filed the complaint on behalf of eight environmental organizations including Greenpeace Canada, Wildlands League, David Suzuki Foundation and Ecology Action Centre. The bureau has yet to decide whether to open an inquiry.
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back in October, as well, when he announced at a news conference: “We cannot continue to expand fossil fuel infrastructure and hit our climate goals.”
During a recent interview with The Globe and Mail, Mr. Eby was more cautious, and would not elaborate on which new fossil fuel projects he would reject.
“We all know that we need to drive down and eliminate carbon pollution and emissions that are related to climate change in our economies,” he said, “and part of that is recognizing that fossil fuel infrastructure and expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure is not consistent with – endless expansion is not consistent with – us hitting those goals.”
The province’s quest to create a major LNG sector is already foundering. Eight years ago, there were 20 LNG proposals on the books, and today only one is under construction. Meanwhile the Canadian LNG Alliance, the industry’s lobby group, faces an uncertain future after its leader resigned. Its membership has shrunk to four. Mr. Eby may not have to say anything at all.
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As Vancouver Island is set to lose critical bus routes, parliamentarians and advocates are calling for all levels of government to appropriately fund intercity transit.
The Tofino Bus and Vancouver Island Connector — which connect communities and First Nations across the island — are set to be suspended until May due to low passenger numbers and revenue loss brought on by the COVID pandemic, according to Wilson’s Transportation, which privately operates both services.
The bus routes will become seasonal and run from May until October going forward, according to CEO John Wilson.
This means residents of Tofino and Port Alberni, among other communities, will have to rely on cabs or hitchhiking to travel the island for most of the year, leading some to call for a public option.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/intercity-bus-public-service-bc-1.6705381
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The number of fossil fuel-burning cars in Canada — and the climate pollution pouring out their collective tailpipes — keeps going up regardless of climate targets, pollution policies or all-electric alternatives, reports Barry Saxifrage in the National Observer. He illustrates the steady growth of internal combustion engines and notes it is “locking in hundreds of millions of tonnes of climate pollution — and locking out Canadian climate progress.”
Saxifrage distills data into great charts in this example he shows the steady growth in tailpipe emissions. That’s the CO2 emitted by burning gasoline and diesel in the vehicles. These emissions have increased by 25 million tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) per year since 1990.
But he adds on the “upstream” emissions from producing all that gasoline. This more complete climate impact accounting hit a record high of 108 MtCO2 in 2019. There are 170 countries in the world whose total emissions are lower than that.
Saxifrage also points out that Norway’s massive electric car initiative has emissions back to 1990 levels and falling fast. The United Kingdom got emissions back to 1990 levels more than a decade ago, and Saxifrage comments Canada can do this too.
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“Canada’s fossil gas industry has a giant marketing campaign claiming that gas “works 24/7 to ensure affordable, clean, and reliable energy for families and businesses.”
But many Canadian physicians, are increasingly concerned about the climate-warming dangers of methane and the health risks of burning natural gas in home appliances such as stove tops and water heaters.The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) is fighting the industry’s climate claims with an ambitious bid to establish “greenwashing” as unacceptable – and maybe, eventually, illegal.
In November, the federal Competition Bureau announced it will investigate a complaint filed in September by six doctors, nurses and public health advocates who accused the Canadian Gas Association (CGA) of misleading consumers by aggressively promoting its products as “clean” and “affordable.” The complaint asked the bureau to force the CGA and its member companies (which include Enbridge, Epcor and TC Energy) to stop advertising natural gas as clean and affordable, issue a retraction and pay a $10-million fine.
CAPE is gearing up for a battle, says campaign director Leah Temper. “We’re trying to de-normalize the fossil fuel industry, so there will certainly be a lot of pushback.”
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