Shauna Fidler from the West Kootenay Permaculture Coop says they are moving fast on food security support in the Slocan Valley during this pandemic. We have Professor William Rees, a population ecologist from UBC, talking about how humans are overshooting the planet’s capacity to support and sustain us. In his view the corona virus crisis may be just the first major crisis we face as planetary systems begin to crumble under our load.
Naomi Klein was part of a webinar this week that talked about life after Bernie… Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race for US presient last week and Naomi Klein and others were on a webinar talking about where that leaves the Green New Deal and other justice movements at a critical time of crisis. We grabbed a short wonderful clip of the always insightful Naomi Klein. Change is coming inevitably, it could be bad change, or it could be for the better.
Listen here:
ENVIRONMENT NEWS from April 14, 2020
Teck Resources Ltd. faces allegations of putting thousands of British Columbia miners at risk of contracting COVID-19 and spreading the virus into the nearby communities by keeping open its massive coal operations.
Community members complained that Teck’s mines “likely enabled the spread of COVID-19 amongst its employees and contractors, their families, and the community at large.”
The Narwhal on-line magazine said the company wasn’t taking adequate precautions. Teck initially announced it was temporarily cutting production by 50 per cent at both its coal mines in B.C. and copper operations in Alberta to reduce the risk of virus spread.
But Teck now says it is complying with all Interior Health Authority recommendations.
“There have been no covid-19 cases at our mine sites to date, and just this week the Interior Health Authority reviewed Teck’s protocols and conducted an on-site audit,” said Robin Sheremeta, Teck’s senior vice president, coal, and Stephen Hunt, director, United Steelworkers, District 3.
The federal government has made promises, but has yet to come up with dollars in a clear plan for bailing out the Canadian oil and gas industry.
The oil patch is devastated by cratered prices as low as $5 a barrel. There are billions of dollars of lost government revenue and about $7 billion of cuts to capital spending in the sector.
Finance minister, Bill Morneau, has promised money to help clean up orphan wells. “We’ve heard companies loud and clear, and you know what they are looking at right now is liquidity,” said Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan said they “
are focusing on are workers and the companies they work for.”
Few details back up the government announcements to date.
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Decades of science denial of climate change has led to ongoing denial of the seriousness of the Coronavirus Pandemic. The fossil fuel industry spent hundreds of millions of dollars undermining climate science, and now that doubt habit is tainting understanding of the pandemic.
American science denialism, used for years against climate change can be traced back to the early 1950s during the fight over smog in Los Angeles.
When a Cal-Tech biochemist said nitrogen oxide emissions and uncombusted hydrocarbons from automobiles and refineries were the cause of the thick smog that often blanketed the city, the American Petroleum Institute counter-attacked by highlighting the alleged uncertainty of his science.
The was the beginnihng of the fossil fuel industry’s assault 40 years later on climate science.
Decades of climate denial now appear to have paved the way for denial of Covid-19 by many on the right, according to experts on climate politics.
President Trump, who denies climate change, has brushed off Covid-19’s seriousness until recently by relying on many of the same arguments he uses to dismiss global warming, such as ignoring government scientists or blaming China.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08042020/science-denial-coronavirus-covid-climate-change
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A large collection of health, faith, environmental, labour and social justice groups, representing one million three hundred thousand Canadians sent a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau and his cabinet March 23 asking that in the federal bailout to the oil and gas industry no more money be given to companies, only to workers.
“The fossil fuel industry is counting on Canadians being too occupied coping with an ongoing health crisis to register that our country is considering a massive transfer of public funds to support the very industry most likely to cause the next health crisis,” says Dr. Courtney Howard, Board President of Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE).
“This is a crucial tipping point, and climate change must factor into all of our decision making,” she added. “The policies we pass now must benefit all Canadians and set us up for a post-COVID future we can step into with confidence.”
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Catastrophe could strike this decade for some species, as key temperature thresholds are crossed says a new study published in the Journal Nature. Instead of the anticipated gradual decline of species, there are likely to be a series of sudden collapses.
Ocean ecosystems will be first hit, as the seas have already warmed to an unprecedented extent, and problems such as lack of oxygen and an increase in acid worsen.
By the 2040s, a similarly abrupt collapse is likely to spread to the land, causing devastation among key species in Indonesia, the Amazon, India, northern Australia and sub-Saharan Africa and the Congo rainforest.
“It’s not a slippery slope, but a series of cliff edges, hitting different places at different times,” said Alex Pigot of University College London, lead author of the study.
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Government contractors have been working since early this year to clear the huge Fraser River rockslide north of Lillooet which continues to bar passage to migrating Fraser salmon. The work must also be completed before the spring freshet comes, which means that Fisheries and Oceans Canada had mandated the work to be done by the end of March.
When COVID-19 became an issue, the new question became whether a workforce would continue to work at the site at all. If the rock cannot be blasted and cleared adequately, experts fear endangered stocks like early Stuart sockeye, brutally depressed for years, could disappear altogether.
The pandemic has not yet halted efforts, The Tyee has learned. But on March 25, a week before river work was supposed to be wrapped up, FOC confirmed that the natural fish passage will not be restored in time for the 2020 Fraser salmon migration.
For the more than 20 First Nations living above Big Bar, the disaster exacerbated an already desperate situation. In recent years, all six species of Fraser salmon have been clobbered by pollution, habitat destruction, poor marine survival, the close proximity of salmon farms, overfishing, climate change impacts and much more.
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What’s the Canadian economy going to look like after the pandemic…. there are indications that the federal gtovernment is looking at making some big changes. Moira Kelly, a spokeswoman for Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said recnetl: “Canada can build a stronger and more resilient economy by investing in a cleaner and healthier future for everyone,”
Women and Gender Equality Minister Maryam Monsef said in a recent interview that there are three prongs to the government’s response, starting with direct aid to people, then supporting businesses so they can continue through and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
She also said
“At the same time we are laying another track so that when it’s time to begin the quote unquote cleanup and the economic and community recovery, that my team has done its work in preparing a blueprint for what steps we take next,” she said.
Some ministers, whose portfolios are less directly connected to the pandemic response, are looking more closely at the longer-term picture. That includes ministers like Wilkinson and Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna.
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German cities are redrawing road markings to create “pop-up” cycle lanes for the duration of the Covid-19 lockdown, as cyclists demand more space to physically distance on their commutes to work.
Local authorities in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin trialled a temporary widening of two cycle lanes on 27 March, arguing it would help cyclists keep the required 1.5-metre distance apart while car traffic was down owing to Germany’s coronavirus restrictions.
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Desperate North American oil producers may be facing a credit and investment crisis as a result of the price crash and market instability. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) says the Canadian oil patch has lost $6 to $8 billion in investment in the last three weeks.
With oil prices down 60% in three months, banks are restricting lending to small and mid-sized companies, and the industry pushing for what the Globe Mail says is an “expected multi-billion-dollar federal aid package, which may give banks added security to keep lending to the industry in one of its darkest times.”
Canadian companies have cut production by more than a million barrels per day as they watch their cash flow run low.
Price Crash, Pandemic Put Fossils in Peril as Investors Get Nervous
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Canada “fully supports” an appeal from the United Nations for an immediate global ceasefire so the world can fight the coronavirus pandemic together.
On March 23, UN Secretary General António Guterres called for peace, saying it was “time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives.”
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne and International Development Minister Karina Gould issued a statement, backing the UN leader’s concerns.
“We know that these populations are already disproportionately affected by armed conflict, that they are more vulnerable to economic and food insecurity and that they are at even greater risk now because of this pandemic. This is why a global ceasefire is so important.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/canada-un-call-global-ceasefire-1.5529214?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar
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