LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD THE JUNE 25 SHOW:
Co-host Solita Work joins Keith Wiley to talk to folks about choosing to do without a car, or with a lot less car time in their lives. Brett Burgie in Calgary tells us how she ended up car-free years ago. In Nelson Tim Barber does most of his getting around on an electric bike. Uphill Nelson resident Paul Saso uses a non-power bicycle and walking for most of his in town travel. Everyone got to the car-free life in different ways.
COMING EVENTS
Tuesday, June 25, 6:30-8 pm
Critical Ecosystems vs Critical Minerals?
In person at UBC or online.
From UBC Centre for Climate Justice: Tensions have emerged in how to tackle the urgency of solutions affecting climate, biodiversity and Indigenous sovereignty. A panel will explore the tensions in relation to critical minerals extraction, an industry that is both essential to electric vehicles and solarization, and disruptive to biodiversity. With Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, Justina Ray, Cristina Dorador, Mary Maje, and Linda McDonald. To follow the live stream, register here
Register for online here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUvdeyurj8uE9BN3pDuf68C-BmEKfOxu8a0#/registration
Attend in person at UBC Vancouver – Great Hall AMS Nest.
Wednesday, June 26 6:30 pm
Taghum Hall
Science Pub
The West Kootenay Watershed Collaborative for a Science Pub featuring guest speaker Robert Gray AFE Certified Wildland Fire Ecologist and the president of R.W. Gray Consulting LTD.
How can we make our landscapes more resilient to fire, drought and insects.
Tickets for the event are just $10. To reserve yours in advance you can E-transfer to wkwccontribute@gmail.com or you can pay at the door.
Saturday, July 20th
Kaslo Bay
Kootenay Resilience Festival Energy Expo
The Kootenay Resilience Festival: Great music + enlightening talks & delicious food = critical action! A movement that uses creativity and connection to inspire collective learning, powerful relationships, innovative solutions, and ultimately, positive action.
On July 20, the second event of a four-part series, the Energy Expo will focus on renewable energy and decentralized systems. It will showcase solutions that will allow Kaslo and bioregional communities to go “off-grid”, including micro hydro, geothermal, hydrogen, solar and wind generation. Great music & beach dancing in Kaslo Bay Park! Come for the weekend and enjoy the lake, village and so much more.
https://kootenaymountainculture.com/kootenay-resilience…/
Tuesday, July 30, 12-1 pm
Women Transforming Cities (WTC) and The Climate Reality Project (Online)
Women Transforming Cities (WTC) and The Climate Reality Project are partnering to host a free webinar to discuss what local governments across Canada are doing to build climate resilience, how to evaluate their impact, and how to hold them accountable to continuing the momentum in your community. Register here.
Tuesday 1st October 2024
Seniors Climate Action Day
From Seniors for Climate: We are a new Canada-wide, senior-led climate project, and we invite you to join us for a national day of action on the climate emergency. Can you organize your fellow seniors to take local action? There are numerous possibilities—public meetings, gatherings in a park or green space, demonstrations, marches, press conferences, workshops, petitions, and meetings with elected officials. October 1-8, 2024. Read more at https://seniorsforclimate.org/
ENVIRONMENT NEWS BITS
Bill C-226, sponsored by Green Leader Elizabeth May, became law Thursday evening, nearly four years after similar legislation was first proposed in Parliament. The law will require the federal government to develop a national strategy on environmental racism within two years.
“There is no doubt that Canada has had a problem with environmental racism for decades, and taking action is now required,” May told a news conference earlier this week.
The national strategy must include “an examination of the link between race, socio-economic status and environmental risk” and steps that can be taken to address environmental racism.
McMaster University Prof. Ingrid Waldron, author of There’s Something in The Water, co-produced the film by the same name. Her research into environmental racism inspired the creation of Bill C-226. (Steve Lawrence/CBC)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/environmental-racism-c-226-1.7235319
The six big tar sands corporations have a project called Pathways Alliance, whose advertisingh about Canadian energy you almost certainly have seen. Now Pathways Allicance has dumped all messaging from its website and social media feeds. They says its because of uncertainty over a new anti-greenwashing rule poised to become federal law.
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), long known as the country’s “apex oil and gas lobby”, has also scaled back its website, The Canadian Press reports.
The omnibus Bill C-59, which passed third reading in the Senate Wednesday and will soon become law, contains a truth-in-advertising amendment that would require corporations across all industries to provide evidence to support their environmental claims, CP writes.
“This is basically a very modest provision in the Competition Act. It simply requires companies to tell the truth and to have an evidence base to back up their claims,” said Leah Temper, program director at the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), one of several groups that have been pushing hard to challenge fossil industry greenwashing.
Advocates celebrated Monday after a Boulder, Colorado judge rejected attempts by ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy subsidiaries to dismiss a landmark lawsuit that seeks damages for the harms the fossil fuel companies have inflicted on the climate and local communities.
The lawsuit, brought in 2018 by the city and county of Boulder, argues that mounting climate costs “should be shared by the Suncor and Exxon defendants because they knowingly and substantially contributed to the climate crisis while concealing and misrepresenting the dangers associated with their intended use.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/colorado-climate-lawsuit
Extreme heat is affecting billions of people and killing thousands, as fossil fuel consumption and its planet-warming emissions soar.
In recent weeks, more than 1,000 temperature records were shattered worldwide, reports the Washington Post. Scientists say the scorching heat proves once again that human-caused global warming “has so raised the baseline of normal temperatures that once-unthinkable catastrophes have become commonplace.”
In Saudi Arabia, 1.8 million Muslims, many of them elderly, endured 51°C days while attempting Hajj, a pilgrimage from one’s home to the holy city of Mecca. More than 1,300 worshippers died during Hajj rites this year, with unprecedented heatwaves believed to be a major factor behind the toll, reports BBC News.
The Middle East, where economies like Saudi Arabia rely heavily on fossil fuel exploitation, is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. And despite renewables growth, demand for the product is soaring, reports The Guardian. The Energy Institute found that 2023 marked record fossil fuel consumption globally, driving more than 40 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in energy emissions for the first time.
Amid Calgary’s bustling diesel-burning fleet, a lone Blue Bird electric school bus is showcasing the cost and equity benefits of electrifying transport for young students.
With the help of federal subsidies, an electric school bus (ESB) can cost 21% less than its diesel burning counterpart over a 13-year period, found [pdf] Pollution Probe, which deployed the single test vehicle to make a business case for electrifying entire school bus fleets based on up-front costs and operational energy consumption.
Four in five people want their countries to ramp up efforts in the fight against climate change, according to a United Nations survey billed as the largest yet on the issue.
The UN Development Programme (UNDP) published the poll on Thursday, finding that a majority of people in 62 of the 77 countries surveyed said they supported a quick transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy.
These included the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, with 80 percent in China and 54 percent in the United States supporting the move, though respondents in Russia were notably less keen, with only 16 percent approving.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/20/four-in-five-people-want-more-climate-action-un-poll-finds
Hawaii officials have announced a “groundbreaking” legal settlement with a group of young climate activists. The deal forces the state’s department of transportation to move more aggressively towards a zero-emission transportation system.
“You have a constitutional right to fight for life-sustaining climate policy and you have mobilized our people in this case,” Josh Green, the Hawaii governor, told the 13 young plantiffs in the case, saying he hoped the settlement would inspire similar action across the country.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/20/hawaii-youth-climate-activists-win
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