Once again youth around the planet have held a global climate strike, and Fridays for Future West Kootenays young folks camped out at Nelson City Hall for over 24 hours to call for realistic action. We have some clips from the actions over the Friday and Saturday of events. Including some music from Earl Hamilton.
Overview of the upsurge in civil disobedience protest in BC.
Have you seen the bear wandering in your neighbourhood? Many of us have, but Rosie Wijenberg from Wildsafe BC tells us it hasn’t been an especially bad year for bear interactions.
Pembina Institute director of federal policy, Isabelle Turcotte, talks about post-election climate action and the poor Canadian record on climate and emissions. That chat is coming up in the second half of the show.
LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE:
LINKS
FRIDAYS FOR FUTURE WEST KOOTENAYS, also on FACEBOOK.
https://www.fridaysforfuturewestkootenays.org/
PEMBINA REPORT ON FEDERAL AND PROVINCIAL CLIMATE PLANS
https://www.pembina.org/pub/all-hands-on-deck
ENVIRONMENT NEWS FOR SEPT 28 2021
“The June heat wave that killed hundreds of people in B.C. was the most deadly weather event in Canadian history by a factor of about three, a scientific director from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control says.
The only other weather catastrophe that came close was the 2010 heat wave in Montreal, said Sarah Henderson, who is in the centre’s environmental health services division. She was presenting a new set of analytical statistics at a meeting of B.C.’s municipal politicians about the deaths currently being attributed to the heat wave. During that week in June, almost 600 more deaths occurred than would be normal for the period.
And she and Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry warned that this kind of “one in 1,000 year” disaster is likely to happen again soon because of climate change.”
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Scientists studying glaciers in the West Kootenay say local ice fields lost millions of tonnes of mass this summer, reinforcing fears about their long-term survival.
Climate scientists say the relationship is clear: the end result of adding more thermal energy to the atmosphere is melting snow and ice.
“It’s scary, but it’s not unexpected,” said Dr. Brian Menounos, an internationally renowned glaciologist at the University of Northern BC. “Climate scientists have been talking about this for several decades.
Preliminary analysis from aerial flyovers this summer shows a huge loss for the Kokanee Glacier. The icefield’s surface lowered around 2.7 metres from 2020 levels.
Menounos says “This year for that particular glacier was especially bad,”
Several factors contributed to the massive ice loss. The months-long drought in the region reduced snowpack levels. That thinner snowpack was then melted off the top of the glaciers by the extreme heat dome in June, leaving the main glacier ice exposed for the rest of the summer.
“What that did is quickly melt away that blanket of snow and exposed the ice to a much longer season of melt,” he says. Wildfire soot blanketing the icefields also promoted melting. “Then on top of that, you change how reflective those surfaces are by the tremendous wildfires we had this summer in BC.”
Melting was happening even at the tops of the highest peaks in B.C., says Menounos.
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In late June, the island republic of Nauru informed the International Seabed Authority (ISA) based in Kingston, Jamaica of its plan to start mining the seabed in two years’ time. Nauru has reached a deal with a subsidiary of a Canadian firm, The Metals Company.
Scientists say the risks of deep ocean bed mining are enormous. Oversight is almost impossible. Regulators admit humanity knows more about deep space than the deep ocean. The technology is unproven. Scientists are not even sure what lives in those profound ecosystems. State governments have yet to agree on a rulebook on how deep oceans can be exploited. No national ballot has ever included a vote on excavating the seabed
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Carbon emissions are on track to rise by 16% by 2030, according to the UN. That increase flies in the face of promises to cut emissions by half, which is what is needed to keep global heating under the internationally agreed limit of 1.5C.
Greta Thunberg speaking recently in Italy was savage in condemning this wrong direction.
“Build back better. Blah, blah, blah. Green economy. Blah blah blah. Net zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah,” she said in a speech to the Youth4Climate summit in Milan last week. “This is all we hear from our so-called leaders. Words that sound great but so far have not led to action. Our hopes and ambitions drown in their empty promises.”
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The UN, the UK hosts and other major figures involved in the talks have privately admitted that the original aim of the Cop26 summit will be missed, as the pledges on greenhouse gas emissions cuts from major economies will fall short of the halving of global emissions this decade needed to limit global heating to 1.5C.
Senior observers of the two-week summit due to take place in Glasgow this November with 30,000 attenders, said campaigners and some countries would be disappointed that the hoped-for outcome will fall short.
However, the UN, UK and US insisted that the broader goal of the conference – that of “keeping 1.5C alive” – was still in sight, and that world leaders meeting in Glasgow could still set a pathway for the future that would avoid the worst ravages of climate chaos.
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The City of Vancouver passed a motion Wednesday to oppose the expansion of Fortis BC’s Tilbury LNG facility in Delta. The LNG project is supposed to increase both local supply and export to foreign markets. It would lead to a boost in upstream emissions.
The City of Vancouver passed a motion lst week to oppose the expansion of the major liquid natural gas (LNG) plant on the shores of the Fraser River. The project that would lead to a release of greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to the city’s entire yearly output.
Vancouver Coun. Christine Boyle, says the Tilbury LNG proposal in Delta undermines Vancouver’s work on the climate emergency.
“I think we need to take a leadership role here and oppose this (greenhouse-gas) emitting, dangerous project,” Coun. Jean Swanson told council Wednesday.
The $3-billion Tilbury LNG Phase Two Expansion Project would lead to a 10-fold increase in its capacity to produce LNG.
FortisBC, which runs the Delta facility, says it needs to expand LNG capacity to feed an international market, supply gas to the shipping industry — including BC Ferries — and offer a backup to Metro Vancouver residents during cold snaps in the event of a gas line disruption as seen in 2019.
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The Biden administration is setting out to cut the United States’ emissions ofhydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) by 85% in the next 15 years.
The regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), finalized last Thursday, is the Biden administration’s first new climate rule. It moves decisively against a super-pollutant found in home refrigerators and air conditioners, and “often found to be leaking from U.S. supermarket freezers,” the Washington Post reports.
“When emitted, the chemicals can warm the planet at a rate hundreds to thousands of times higher than carbon dioxide,” the Post says. The regulation implements a law adopted by the U.S. Congress last year in a rare moment of bipartisan support.
The EPA plan begins with a cap that allows companies to make or import HFCs for the next two years. After that, their use will be scaled back through 2036.
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In mid-August, BC Ferries’ latest hybrid-electric vessel arrived in Victoria after sailing from Romania where it was built by Damen Shipyards Group. It’s the fourth of six Island Class vessels — capable of carrying up to 300 passengers and 50 vehicles — that will be operating along Gulf Island routes off the B.C. coast by the end of 2022.
Mark Collins, BC Ferries president and CEO says “These battery hybrid-electric ferries mark a major milestone in our plan to progressively lower emissions across our fleet and be a leader in transitioning to a lower-carbon future.”
Compared to the vessels they’re replacing, the new ferries deliver a 20 per cent improvement in fuel economy. But that’s just a starting point. BC Ferries is also currently seeking federal funding to support a $150-million plan to convert these six vessels to full battery-electric capacity, including terminal renovations to install plug-in charging stations dockside.
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