The Forest Summit Convergence brought together activists from around BC to talk about the crisis in BCs forests and strategize on how to save forests and all that they provide. Jennifer Houghton from Grand Forks was a major organizer and her opening remarks begin this week’s show. We also hear from Erik Piikkila from the Cowichan Valley and renowned horse logging promoter Douglas Gook from near Quesnel.
Green Party activist Andy Shadrack talks about helping elect a Green MP in Fredericton and about the election results in Atlantic Canada, and in Nelson.
Listen HERE:
More Recordings of Forest Summit Convergence speakers, coming as soon as they are available.
Environment News (and LINKS) for October 29, 2019
Dozens of young people occupied the House of Commons yesterday. They were calling on all of the newly elected Members of Parliament to work across party lines and govern for a Green New Deal.
Organized by the youth group Our Time, they brought 338 mandate letters– one for each MP. The letters are a call to action from the young generation. They said they would not move until the majority of elected members of Parliament accepted the letters and pledged to make a Green New Deal their top priority when Parliament resumes.
They were detained as they sat on floor and unfurled yellow banners reading Green New Deal, Our Time to Lead, Good Work for All and more.
27 protestors were escorted from the building, given tickets and a 30 day ban from the House of Commons.
“We want [MPs] to rise above politics as usual and we want them to enact a green new deal because we have 10 years and they’re going to take four of them,” Simran Dhunna, a graduate student at the University of Toronto, said. “We don’t want those four years to be wasted.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/youth-protest-house-of-commons-1.5337921
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Drexel University sociologist Robert Brulle researches the financial structure of the climate deniers, to see who is funding and pushing the broad campaign.
According to Brulle’s research, the 91 think tanks and advocacy organizations and trade associations that make up the American climate denial sector work with nearly $1 billion a year, money used to lobby or sway public opinion on climate change and other issues.
“The anti-climate effort has been largely underwritten by conservative billionaires,” says the Guardian, “often working through secretive funding networks.”
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The Supreme Court of Canada said it will hear the case involving Sinixt First Nation, Rodney Cawston, the Chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville, said in a media release last week.
The court has granted leave to appeal in the Rick Desautel hunting case, in which three lower courts have held that Desautel, and by extension all sn̓ ʕay̓ckstx (Sinixt/Arrow Lakes) people, including sn̓ ʕay̓ckstx or Arrow Lakes members of the CCT, have the right to hunt in their traditional territory in Canada.
Cawston said: “We are confident that the Supreme Court will, like the lower courts, confirm the truth of our history and identity, and that the burden of the false declaration of “extinction”, which our people carried for far too long, will be lifted.”
The Supreme Court is expected to hear the appeal in the spring of 2020 in Ottawa, with a decision to follow some months later.
https://thenelsondaily.com/news/supreme-court-canada-hear-hunting-rights-case-rick-desautel
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Fires erupted in Los Angeles before dawn Monday near the Getty Center and threatened thousands of homes and forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said the fire had grown to 200 hectares and reported five burned homes but numbers were expected to go higher.
Across California, nearly 200,000 people remain under evacuation order from threat of wildfire.
Meanwhile, more than 2.4 million people who lost electricity over the weekend were awaiting restoration as hurricane-force winds whipped through the state, fuelling a wildfire in Sonoma County as smaller spot fires cropped up.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/california-wildfires-spread-power-outages-1.5337673
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With production costs falling and green power policies spreading, wind energy could soon be ready to meet the world’s demand for electricity 18 times over, the International Energy Agency (IEA) concluded in an analysis released last week.
The Independent newspaper says: “What’s more, the winds of change are blowing at high speeds. Global offshore wind capacity could increase 15-fold and attract around US$1 trillion (£800 billion) of cumulative investment by as soon as 2040,”
“The IEA says this boom is being driven by the declining costs in installations, supportive government policies, and ‘remarkable technological progress’ with components such as larger turbines and floating foundations.”
https://theenergymix.com/2019/10/27/wind-power-could-meet-global-electricity-needs-18-times-over/
The International Energy Agency (IEA) also found that solar, wind and hydropower projects are rolling out at their fastest rate in four years.
Its latest report predicts that by 2024 a new dawn for cheap solar power could see the world’s solar capacity grow by 600GW, almost double the installed total electricity capacity of Japan.
Overall, renewable electricity is expected to grow by 1,200GW in the next five years, the equivalent of the total electricity capacity of the US.
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India has cancelled plans to build nearly 14 gigawatts of coal-fired power stations – about the same as the total amount in the UK – with the price for solar electricity “free falling” to levels once thought impossible.
In January last year, Finnish company Fortum agreed to generate electricity in Rajasthan with a record low tariff, or guaranteed price, of 4.34 rupees per kilowatt-hour.
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For the first time in decades, spawning sockeye salmon will return to Okanagan Lake.
A fish ladder, left inoperable after the Penticton dam was built in the 1950s, has been restored by the Okanagan Nation Alliance and Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
Reintroducing salmon to the ecosystem is controversial in some quarters. Some conservation experts suggest the results may be different than expected.
First Nations and conservation groups along with the provincial and federal governments have built spawning beds along the river using the right gravel to mimic natural spawning grounds.
Sockeye salmon to return to Okanagan Lake for first time in over 50 years
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Canada’s electric car sales are booming with 40,500 confirmed or estimated plug-in electric car sales during the first nine months of 2019 (up 22% over the same period last year).
2019 should exceed the full 2018 year sales, which was a record, by October or November.
The Tesla Model 3 is in the lead with an estimated one-third of the sales in the plug-in segment. The Toyota Prius Prime, the Chev Bolt and the Nissan Leaf are the other top selling electrics.
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Last weekend land defender Kanahus Manuel was arrested in what she and her lawyer say was an excessive use of force by the RCMP. On youtube Kanahus reports the Tiny House Warriors were objecting to an illegal highway development when the RCMP arrived. She said she was thrown down by an officer, which broke her wrist and injured her arm and back. She was later taken to hospital by 7 RCMP officers.
The Tiny House Warriors action took place along the TransMountain pipeline route on unceded Sepemwec Terrritory near Blue River.
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Last Friday about 15,000 climate strikers marched in downtown Vancouver for the city’s first weekly climate strike since the federal election. #FridaysforFuture founder Greta Thunberg marched with the Sustainabiliteens organizers of the strike and with several young people from Nelson’s Fridays for Future, including Alyssa Taburiaux, Danni Lynch, and Jamie Hunter.
It was a five-hour march and rally that went three kilometres through downtown to the Vancouver Art Gallery plaza where they heard speeches from dozens of local activists and Indigenous land defenders.
“Climate leaders do not build or invest in pipelines that not only stand to have devastating environmental repercussions but undermine Indigenous title and rights. Trudeau has taken a contrary path,” said Kukpi7 Judy Wilson, secretary-treasurer of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs.
“They are selling our future for their comfort and profit,” Greta Thunberg said at the rally. “They have the nerve to look us in the eyes and tell us they are they doing enough. Whatever they are doing, they are doing it wrong.”
“The pressure has to keep building,” added environmental icon David Suzuki. “We need to see action in Ottawa. If the government continues to support a pipeline, they’re not hearing the message.”
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Fifteen Canadian youth are filing a lawsuit against the federal government, accusing Ottawa of violating their rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by contributing to the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for the climate crisis.
The case is based on the young plaintiffs’ right to life, liberty, and security of person under Section 7 of the Charter, as well as their equality rights under Section 15, on the basis that they’ll be more severely affected by the climate crisis than any other age group.
The youth will be filing their suit with support from the David Suzuki Foundation and Oregon-based Our Children’s Trust. “The lawsuit calls on Canada to cease its activities that violate the youth plaintiffs’ rights and to prepare and implement a Climate Recovery Plan that reduces Canada’s GHG emissions in a manner consistent with the best available science,”
TODAY: 15 Canadian Youth File Suit Against Ottawa’s Slow Response to Climate Crisis
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