Listen to or download the March 16, 2021 here:
Tzeporah Berman is one of BC’s most prominent environmentalists and she is part of a new campaign that sounds great: the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. The idea is simple, we have to wind down production of fossil fuels, something that Canada particularly has a great problem doing. I spoke with her for today’s show, and she does a great job explaining how we need to get serious about getting off fossil fuels.
The Kootenays seem to be constantly facing tremendous commercial pressure to develop new tourist destination projects that take advantage of the wonderful wild forests, lakes and mountains we live among. The Zincton proposal to bring thousands of visitors to a large area in the mountains just east of New Denver is one of the latest examples. Many years ago, Dr. Mark Stoddart researched ski resorts and their value in getting people into nature, and the downside. Now he is at Memorial University in Newfoundland and has a new book out, again he’s looking at the tension between development and conservation of nature. We got him on the phone from the far coast to tell us about it.
We have a guest editorial from Eddie Petryshen from Wildsight.ca on Provincial delays on saving old growth forests.
EVENTS
Climate Strike Fridays for Future West Kootenay
March 19 Friday at 12 PM PDT – 2 PM PDT
Join us for the next major global climate strike! We will be striking in small groups all over downtown Nelson. Meet us at Noon at City Hall to be directed to a strike location. All locations are within three blocks of City Hall. Please wear a mask and observe social distancing. Look forward to seeing you! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to send us a message!
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Letter Writing-Blitz: Take Action for BC’s Old Growth Forests
Friday, Mar 19 @ 12:00 pm – 12:45 pm
Join thousands of people across BC taking action to protect our last remaining old growth forests on March 19th! Old growth forests are disappearing, less than 3% of remaining BC forests contain big, old trees. These trees are essential to our health and to the health of all of the remaining forests in BC. We need the government to act before these rare trees are gone forever. Our future generations are depending on us! You can meaningfully take action even though we’re still dealing with COVID. Writing a personal letter to your BC government shows your leaders what matters most to you.
Register here:
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Online Forum Energy, Jobs and Transition
Thursday, March 18, noon – 1 pm EST
Examining Canada’s Just Transition. Our discussion will focus on how a gradual transition off fossil fuels will impact workers and communities in Canada, and how smart planning can help us rise to the challenge. Join Catherine Abreu of Climate Action Network, Jim Stanford of the Centre for Future Work and Melina Laboucan-Massimo of Sacred Earth Solar to learn more about how the energy transition can be fair for all.
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Just Transition Act Town Hall
Thur. March 18, 6 p.m. EST
350.org is holding a grassroots town hall to get some answers from our federal leaders about Canada’s promised Just Transition Act. Over 12,000 people across Canada have called on Trudeau to deliver a Just Transition Act with no response. That’s why we’ve invited Trudeau’s Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson to answer the public’s questions about Canada’s just transition. Wilkinson still hasn’t answered the invitation but Green Party Parliamentary Leader Elizabeth May and NDP Environment Critic Laurel Collins have confirmed they will be there.
https://350.org/canada/jt-townhall/
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Jesse Schpakowski, a professional landscape & nature photographer, videographer, and drone pilot based out of the West Kootenay region of British Columbia and it is my hope that these videos will leave you feeling refreshed, inspired, and empowered to live a life full of adventure. (Youtube)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmbWMWj19HDuy4_UOstAS_Q/videos
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The EcoCentric’s Environment News for March 16, 2021
Nelson City Council has banned hydro power intensive computer data businesses including bitcoin mining. Council says “industrial scale computing” doesn’t make sense in the City’s power grid.
Industrial scale computing was defined as “use of premises for the purpose of housing computer systems that collect, maintain, store, and/or process data for profit, exceeding an electricity consumption of nine megawatt-hours per month.” That’s about 10 times what an average household uses.
According to the federal government, data centres consume about one per cent of the total electricity used in Canada every year.
Nearly a dozen Québec municipalities have placed a moratorium on new crypto-mining operations, because of electricity consumption, noise from cooling fans, all for very few jobs.
The Nelson Star reports a 250-megawatt bitcoin mining operation (which would require the equivalent of 16 of Nelson Hydro’s Bonnington Falls generation facilities to power) would create about 100 jobs.
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Marilyn James, Matriarch of the Autonomous Sinixt welcomed a provincial announced putting a stop to “mud bogging” at the Columbia and Kootenay confluence in Castlegar. James said location at Brilliant is a hertitage site. “As an ancient village and burial area, it is important to the Sinixt, but its significance extends beyond that.”
“For us, the kpiƛ̓ls story is a contemporary sore that speaks directly to our being driven off our təmxʷúlaʔxʷ (traditional territory) and being declared extinct in Canada.”
Kpiƛ̓ls has already been the site of some reconciliation work between the Sinixt and the Doukhobors. The two communities came together to discuss their history – which involved the Doukhobors pushing the Christian family off the land – and placed a memorial stone to the Christian family there in 2007.
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You can’t make this kind of stuff up. Alberta’s energy war room says the animated Netflix film Bigfoot is ‘full of lies’ about the oil industry. Both the CBC and The Beaverton have covered this incredible story. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s multi-million dollar “war room” was set up apparently to attack the critics of fossil fuels. It’s officially called The Canadian Energy Centre, and has already been shooting at its feet this year releasing reports from oil friendly academics who have been climate deniers. Two reports claim something like the climate crisis is a hoax, perpetrated by all kinds of people, including American fossil fuel companies who don’t want competition from the tar sands.
The satirical news site, The Beaverton suggests the “war room” commission its own Netflix feature.
““Peter the Pipeline starts trying to save his small town by delivering his special mixture of hope and bitumen.” And the only way he can save everyone in his province is by believing in himself.”
Ok, well, The Beaverton did make that part up.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/canadian-energy-centre-bigfoot-1.5948163
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Dozens of Canadian municipalities and provinces have joined a growing global movement against plastic pollution. They have introduced bans on single use products and crafted new waste management legislation to try to control the problem.
The federal government has announced plans for a national waste strategy that would list plastics as toxic under Schedule 1 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA). And the government is moving slowly toward a ban on some single-use plastics.
The federal plan calls for a new “circular economy” that includes massively scaling up existing recycling facilities and untested recycling technologies to allow the continued use of disposable plastic products.
Canadians dispose of about 3.3 million tonnes of plastic each year, according to a 2019 study commissioned by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). Half of all that plastic is packaging. Three-quarters currently goes to landfills, a small amount is incinerated and about one per cent ends up directly in the environment.
Only nine per cent — or 305,000 tonnes — is recycled, the 2019 study found.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/03/09/canada-drowning-plastic-waste-recycling-wont-save-us
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Ottawa is putting some C$40 million to fund the development of geothermal power by the Fort Nelson First Nation in north-east BC.
The money will be spent on developing the geothermal at the Clarke Lake gas which is running dry after nearly 60 years of production.
The first full-size geothermal well will be drilled early this year and commercial operation is expected by late 2024. The project is expected to generate up to 15 megawatts of green energy, enough to power up to 14,000 households and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25,000 tonnes.
The project is entirely owned by the Fort Nelson First Nation, with involvement from the Saulteau First Nation. Fort Nelson Chief Sharleen Gale said the project will use the skills local workers already have, redirecting them from fossil fuels to geothermal.
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Leading climate analysts say the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is on track to lose credibility with developing countries with the appointment of ex-Australian finance minister Mathias Cormann as its new secretary general.
The Conservative Boris Johnson government in the UK backed Cormann’s bid for the OECD position, The Guardian reports.
The Guardian says “Cormann opposed climate action on many occasions while a government minister between 2013 and 2020,” the UK-based paper writes. “He voted down motions to declare a climate emergency, called net zero targets ‘extremist’, ‘reckless’, and ‘irresponsible’, spoke in favour of the coal industry and against wind energy, and was criticized for telling young climate strikers to ‘stick to school’”.
A major claim to fame while Cormann was a government minister in Australia “was to quash plans for carbon pricing,” The Guardian adds.
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The Dogwood initiatve in BC is exposing fossil fuel companies greenwashing of natural gas domestic use in homes in a webinar coming up this week. Kai Nagata from Dogwood and Mother Jones reporter Rebecca Leber are holding a live, lunch-hour webinar this Wednesday, March 17 at 12:00 noon Pacific Time, to learn all about the gas industry’s covert campaign to keep homes and public buildings hooked up to gas pipelines.
Leber has uncovered corporate astroturf campaigns in U.S. cities, where gas-company reps posed as concerned local residents to fight local efforts to electrify. She’s exposed Instagram influencers who are paid to post pictures and videos of themselves cooking with gas.
Kai Nagata says there are signs fossil fuel companies are getting ready to fight back against plans to decarbonize and move away from natural gas use in Vancouver and other BC municipalities.
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IN 2016, PROFESSIONAL ENGINEER Allan Galambos and his wife moved to Victoria to enjoy retirement. But in their new back yard they found a large ash pile. They decided to gather it for disposal and test a sample. It was a good thing they did. The testing revealed an extremely high level of arsenic—344 parts per million (ppm), nearly 14 times the allowable level for livestock grazing in BC—and high levels of chromium and copper. One tablespoon of the ash would have killed a person; 5 tablespoons a cow.
The ash came from burning chromated copper arsenate (CCA) treated garden posts. The water-soluble inorganic pesticide is used to make posts more rot resistant. It repels both fungi and bugs. CCA treated wood has a distinctive green stain and pressure treatment marks. It was removed from use in playground construction, in the early 2000s. Over 4 million CCA treated posts are still produced each year in BC.
Longest running Enviro News show on the Radio! 