DOWNLOAD OR LISTEN TO THE FULL MARCH 4 SHOW HERE:
Sounds and voices from the Last Stand West Kootenay Save Old Growth rally held Saturday, March Fourth. Clips for rally talks by Lance Ledger, Judith Fearing from Doctors and Nurses for Planetary Health Kootenay Boundary and Gary Diers from Argenta and the WilletWildernessForever.ca campaign
Wednesday March 8 is International Women’s Day, and fairness and equality doesn’t come up in the environment news often, but the Pembina Institute says the just transition needs to level up in women’s incomes and opportunities in Canada. In Alberta, women make 41% less than men. Kendall Anderson from the Pembina Institute tells us about it.
The BC government has asked for public input to a Clean Transportation Action Plan. The BC Climate Emergency Campaign has put up an open letter and over 50 organizations have endorsed it. Transportation policy expert Eric Doherty from Victoria comes on to tell us what they are looking for. And how we can get involved.
LINKS
Last Stand West Kootenay for Old Growth forests.
Pembina Institute on just transition for women workers too. Pembina.org
BC Climate Emergency Campaign. Open letter on Clean Transportation Action Plan
Your input on Clean Transportation Action Plan.
Nelson Action Group for Better Public Transportation. https://nelsonpublictransitaction.ca/
EVENTS
Tuesday, March 7 4 pm. Winning a Youth Climate Corps. Zoom Webinar
BC Climate Emergency Unit Join Anjali Appadurai, Naomi Klein, Seth Klein, Juan Vargas Alba, and other guests as we outline our plans for winning a national Youth Climate Corps as well as climate corps in British Columbia and Alberta.
The event will feature a premier of a new climate song by folk/roots band, The Fugitives. Plus, we’ll be debuting an exciting campaign video.
The panel discussion will touch on the history of such initiatives and efforts to campaign for climate corps across the country.
There will be an opportunity to network and meet other campaigners and organizers in your area to discuss exciting strategies for winning a Climate Corps.
https://www.climateemergencyunit.ca/events
Women Taking Climate Action. Tues. March 7, 8 pm ET
What do we love so much… that we’ll take action for climate justice together? Join us to consider why it’s so important for women to be leaders on climate action and what women are already doing to lead on climate justice. With Lyn Adamson and Jane Adams.
Register by Email: womenandclimate2023@gmail.com and we will send you the zoom link.
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Friday, Mar 17, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Webinar
The West Kootenay Climate Hub has another in its series of webinars coming up Noon Friday March 17
This one is on Webinar: Pollination Pathways and Bird Friendly Cities with the Kootenay Native Plant Society. The Society is promoting its Pollination Pathway Climate Adaptation Initiative that is working to enhance plant-pollinator communities. We’ll also hear from a local resident who is hoping that Nelson will become a certified Bird Friendly City to ensure our community is a safe haven for birds rather than a source of threats.
FEB 20 AT 12 AM – MAR 13
Autonomous Sinixt Online Silent Auction Fundraiser
The silent auction is continuing on line to fundraise for the Autonomous Sinixt. All proceeds from this auction will be donated to smum’iem (for the women) to support new and ongoing Sinixt resurgence projects throughout the tmxʷulaʔxʷ (territory). These initiatives include the production of Sinixt cultural and educational materials, such as plant protocols, language revitalization, children’s books, and more!
The auction has lots of items up for grabs. Everything from a vintage buckskin jacket to a one night stay at the Hume Hotel with breakfast, a 2 night stay at Mount Brennan Lodge.
https://www.charityauctionstoday.com/auctions/autonomous-sinixt-silent-auction-2023-36180
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Sources for environmental events include WestKootenayClimateHub.ca and westcoastclimateaction.ca
ENVIRONMENT NEWS
Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation said Imperial never said anything about the spills, despite meeting with him numerous times over the last nine months.
Chief Adam says he should have been informed about a massive release of toxic oilsands tailings on land near where his band harvests food.
He learned about it after the province’s energy regulator issued an environmental protection order on Feb. 6.
“During that nine-month period, ACFN had many meetings with them, including a sit-down, face-to-face between myself and the vice-president in November,” Adam told reporters last week.
”Each meeting was an opportunity where they could have come clean, but they chose to hide the fact from us over and over again.”
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For the first time, United Nations members have agreed on a unified treaty to protect biodiversity in the high seas — nearly half the planet’s surface . The treaty emerged after the final two weeks of talks in New York.
The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea came into force in 1994, before marine biodiversity was a well-established concept.
An updated framework to protect marine life in the regions outside national boundary waters, known as the high seas, had been in discussions for more than 20 years, but previous efforts to reach an agreement had repeatedly stalled. The unified agreement treaty was reached late Saturday.
“We only really have two major global commons — the atmosphere and the oceans,” said Georgetown University marine biologist Rebecca Helm. While the oceans may draw less attention, “protecting this half of Earth’s surface is absolutely critical to the health of our planet.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/united-nations-high-seas-biodiversity-accord-1.6768770
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The First Nations Leadership Council (FNLC) in BC says they are deeply disturbed by recently released information on Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s (DFO) scientific review and decision-making processes. They say the information shows DFO scientific reports are purposely altered to prioritize the interests of industry and continuation of the status quo over and above the sustainability and protection of marine life and respect for First Nations inherent title and rights.
The FNLC is calling for an independent investigation and changes to restore the credibility of DFO to carry out reviews. They say DFO decision-making has to be consistent with its mandate of sustainably managing marine resources, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and explicit direction from Prime Minister Trudeau.
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Federal environment Minister Steven Guilbeault is recommending an emergency order to protect the last three Spotted Owls known to exist in the wild in Canada.
If Minister Guilbeault’s recommendation is accepted by the federal cabinet, the emergency order would be the third ever to be approved under the Species at Risk Act.
There used to be around a thousand Spotted Owls in the old-growth forests of southwestern B.C., but industrial logging forced them into ever smaller pockets of land. Now, only one wild and two captive-bred Spotted Owls live in and around Spuzzum Valley, within Spô’zêm First Nation territory.
Given the provincial government’s track record when it comes to protecting Spotted Owls, we knew we had to do something. That’s why last fall, on behalf of Wilderness Committee, Ecojustice filed a petition demanding the federal government step in to protect the endangered birds’ habitat from logging.
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When a freight train filled with volatile chemicals derailed in rural Ohio last month, it set off a chain of reactions: the evacuation of a town of nearly 5,000 people; a massive black plume of smoke from a controlled burn; the death of fish in local waterways; and the necessity of monitoring the local air for pollutants.
Online magazine Grist reports that although disasters get headlines, researchers and chemical spill experts told it’s a situation that plays out far too often across the country.
The train that derailed around 9 p.m. on February 3 was carrying chemicals used in a variety of industries, from plastics to agriculture, each with a specific degree of hazard.
The rail industry is responsible for a large share of the movement of highly volatile chemicals and explosives across the country. But for years, it has been plagued by harsh working conditions and a lack of rigorous safety standards and transparency.
https://grist.org/accountability/train-derailments-business-usual-railroad-industry/
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Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions rose 2.8% in 2021, and fossil fuels accounted for more than half of the total, according to an “early estimate” released today by the Canadian Climate Institute (CCI).
The Institute’s analysis shows the country’s total greenhouse gas output increased by 19 million tonnes, to a total of 691 megatonnes. That happened in a year when the economy was just beginning to restart after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Trudeau government has committed to reduce emissions 40% by 2030, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is calling for a 45% reduction this decade to keep a 1.5°C limit on average global warming within reach.
CCI President Rick Smith said “It’s promising to see Canada starting to make tangible progress in reducing carbon pollution, especially coming out of the pandemic,” But “time is short, and our goals are ambitious…. Long-term success now rests on how quickly the government’s chosen policies are actually implemented.”
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The International Energy Agency is highlighting the inequalities of carbon emissions across income groups. IEA staffers Laura Cozzi, Olivia Chen, and Hyeji Kim report that if the top 10% of emitters globally maintain their current emissions levels, they alone will exceed the remaining carbon budget in the Paris-based agency’s main net-zero emissions scenario by 2046.
“In other words, substantial and rapid action by the richest 10% is essential to decarbonize fast enough to keep 1.5°C warming in sight.”
In 2021, the top 10% of emitters worldwide were responsible for nearly half of the world’s energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, while the bottom 10% contributed only 0.2%.
The top 10% of emitters span all continents, but “85% of them live in advanced economies— including Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, [South] Korea, New Zealand, United States, and United Kingdom—and also in China,” the IEA authors say.
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A British Columbia logging company that wants to avoid cutting at-risk old growth was told by the Crown corporation that manages B.C.’s public forests to cut the trees down or pay to leave them standing.
Logging began in the two cut blocks north of Revelstoke in spring 2021, but Downie Timber halted the operations a few months later, when protesters from Old Growth Revylution blocked access to the sites.
That’s according to Kerry Rouck, chief forester for Downie’s owner, Gorman Bros. Lumber Ltd. Rouck said logging in the areas has remained on pause since the province launched the ongoing old-growth deferral process that fall.
BC Timber Sales, the provincial corporation responsible for auctioning the harvesting rights for about 20 per cent of B.C.’s annual allowable cut told Downie it must fulfil its logging contract — or pay full stumpage fees for the trees left standing,
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With less than two weeks to go before the deadline for the federal government to make an announcement about whether to save the Vancouver Island Railway, the issue has been frequently in the news and the Times Colonist newspaper reports that the decision has yet to be made!
At issue is a court challenge by the Snaw-Naw-As First Nation who are taking on the Attorney General for Canada and Island Corridor Foundation over the issue of restoring and reviving the railway right of way.
Transport Action Canada says if the federal government declines to take the necessary steps to settle the corridor dispute for ongoing railway use, they expect that the significant expense of deconstructing the railway and environmental remediation will fall largely upon the provincial taxpayer.
https://files.constantcontact.com/12f99a73601/81ee42b3-6904-4da6-a798-8b7019af365d.pdf?rdr=true
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Times are great for big oil was the message at one of the world’s largest fossil fuel conferences, that has brought more than 7,500 people to Houston, Texas. Delegates include world leaders and industry personnel from more than 80 countries.
Oil and natural gas producers continue to rake in extraordinary profits, even though prices have cooled slightly in recent months.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has elevated the issues of energy reliability and affordability, some industry leaders say, while cooling the focus on climate change.
“The issue of how we best move toward a low-carbon energy system is one that is getting reframed,” said Chevron chief executive Mike Wirth to attendees.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/bakx-ceraweek-oil-climate-change-1.6770287
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