Nelson City Councillor Rik Logtenberg talks about how Nelson is handling the distancing period and about the City’s response to the crisis. Prime Minister Trudeau announced a federal relief plan for the oil industry, Marc Lee, senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) BC goes over the details with us. In these difficult times, it’s important to keep in touch with our painful feelings and our hope. Nelsonite Malin Christensson does workshops, and now webinars, on reconnecting with ourselves and nature. We talk to her about finding grief, hope and resilience.
Listen to the full show here:
Environment News and Links, April 21, 2020
Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions increased by 15 million tonnes between 2017 and 2018, driven by vehicle emissions, oil and gas extraction, and manufacturing, and essentially erasing 13 years of small reductions dating back to 2005.
The 2018 total, contained in the latest national inventory report filed with the United Nations last week, comes in at 729 megatonnes of carbon dioxide or equivalent, compared to 730 Mt in 2005.
“The 2005 figure is important because Canada’s current commitment is to cut emissions to 70% of what they were in 2005 by 2030,” The Canadian Press reports. “Last fall, Canada’s accounting for meeting that 2005 target showed existing policies left the country 77 million tonnes shy of its 2030 goal. This latest report puts the goal even further away.”
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Canada could become the oil producing country hit hardest by the collapse in the oil market, says author Andrew Nikiforuk on TheTyee.ca.
Nikiforuk’s analysis points out that prior to the pandemic, the world used about 100 million barrels a day, filling the atmosphere with destabilizing carbon. Today it is somewhere between 65 million and 80 million barrels.
In fact, the price of Western Canadian Select or diluted bitumen remains below five dollars a barrel — cheaper than hand sanitizer. That’s a drop of more than 80 per cent compared to the month before.
Heavy oil of the sort Canada produces requires extensive upgrading transportation. It has far higher costs than most oil, about $45 a barrel. Russia and Saudi Arabia can produce oil for less than $10 a barrel
Canada is however, the world’s fourth largest oil exporter. Alberta promoted growing production and pushed for new pipelines to carry the increased flow. Now, as global demand fall, it can’t even fill existing pipelines, Nikiforuk says.
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The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) requested the federal government make multiple reductions in environmental policies, including the carbon tax in a 13 page- letter toJustin Trudeau’s cabinet.
The letter, from 27 March, laid out plans for delays, suspensions and changes in the industry relating to pollution monitoring, impact of sites on migratory birds, climate change and indigenous rights, among other topics.
In announcing the relief plan for the oil industry, Trudeau said: “Just because we’re in one crisis right now doesn’t mean we can forget about the other one — the climate crisis that we are also facing as a world and as a country.”
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A U.S. oil industry association has made a public attack on two climate campaign organizations in Canada, Stand.earth and Sustainabiliteens.
The Independent Petroleum Association of America reacted after the two organizations delivered 56,000 petition signatures to the federal Liberal, New Democratic, and Green parties. The rally and petition demanded that government stimulus dollars during the coronavirus crisis fund retraining for oil and gas workers and development of renewable energy sources, not bailouts for fossil companies.
The American Petroleum goup said that “While an urgent public health crisis and international market conditions create havoc on Canadians’ well-being and economic prosperity, some special interest groups see an opportunity to inflict further harm on those workers.”
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The flood risk is considered high in some areas of the province where the snowpack is well above normal according to Jonathan Boyd, a hydrologist with B.C.’s River Forecast Centre.
Based on the centre’s most recent Snow Survey and Water Supply Bulletin, Prince George, Kamloops and Grand Forks are all areas to watch.
While Boyd said the snowpack around Grand Forks isn’t as high as it was in April 2018 when the deluge hit, snow levels are just one factor in a flood. How it melts depends on the weather.
What happened in 2018 at Grand Forks was exactly the worst-case scenario, where April was cold and continued snow accumulation and May came with hot weather.
And, then the rain came. High-level clear-cut logging, increased wildfires and a pine beetle epidemic have also been identified as culprits in the 2018 flood.
https://thenarwhal.ca/amid-coronavirus-pandemic-some-b-c-communities-brace-for-flooding-as-well/
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The UN Environment Program recently released its Emissions Gap Report 2019.
The opening line is: “We are on the brink of missing the opportunity to limit global warming to 1.5°C.”
The UN report supplies some hard numbers.
Based on today’s commitments, emissions are on track to reach 56 Gt CO2e by 2030, over twice what they should be.
Today we still have the chance to limit global temperatures to 1.5°C. While there will still be climate impacts at 1.5°C, this is the level scientists say is associated with less devastating impacts than higher levels of global warming. Every fraction of additional warming beyond 1.5°C will result in increasingly severe and expensive impacts.
Scientists agree that to get on track to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, emissions must drop rapidly to 25 gigatons by 2030.
This figure is our global solution. Collectively, if commitments, policies and action can deliver a 7.6% emissions reduction every year between 2020 and 2030, we CAN limit global warming to 1.5°C.
“Governments cannot afford to wait. People and families cannot afford to wait. Economies must shift to a decarbonization pathway now.”
https://www.unenvironment.org/interactive/emissions-gap-report/2019/index.php
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Traffic accidents and crash-related injuries and deaths were reduced by half during the first three weeks of California’s shelter-in-place order, which began March 20. The reductions save the state an estimated $40 million per day — about $1 billion over the time period — according to an updated special report released this week from the Road Ecology Center at the University of California, Davis.
http://www.ucdavis.edu/news/california-covid-19-traffic-report-finds-silver-lining/
Reports are reaching us that construction of the Transmountain pipeline has been stepped up in the area around Hope, BC. Recently,
Neskonlith Secwepemc Chief Judy Wilson has written to Prime Minister Trudeau and B.C. Premier John Horgan calling them out for using the current pandemic to continue construction of the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project. Wilson reminded them the Secwepemc Title Holders have not consented to the project. Chief Wilson also reminds them that they are ignoring an internationally binding Treaty, ratified by Canada, the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racism and Discrimination (CERD). The UN Committee responsible for overseeing the adherence to the CERD Treaty, in December 2019, issued an Early Warning Urgent Action Procedure calling on Canada to stop construction of the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project until Secwepemc Free, Prior, Informed Consent is obtained.
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Ukrainian firefighters contained wildfires that had been raging for more than a week through Chernobyl’s exclusion zone – an area contaminated with radiation from the nuclear power plant accident in 1986.
The fire raged some 19 miles into the zone and was stopped just 600 feet from the Chernobyl plant itself, the BBC reported.
Local officials claimed that radiation levels were not increased by the fire and smoke.
According to several studies and data, previous wildfires in Chernobyl that were much smaller (the largest, in 2015, covered 3,700 acres). One study compared the 2015 fires as equivalent to a Level 3 nuclear event, “which corresponds to a serious incident, in which non-lethal deterministic effects are expected from radiation.”
On April 15, Ukraine’s state Scientific Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety published data of the movement of “potentially contaminated air masses” toward Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, but said they were not hazardous.
https://www.polygraph.info/a/chernobyl-fires-radiation-fact-check/30557879.html
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