The Autonomous Sinxi’t and Last Stand West Kootenays joined together last week when they learned that old growth cutblocks were being logged up Enterprise Creek, on the border of Kokanee Provincial Park. They rallied on the logging road, and yesterday we learned the feller bunchers were being pulled out. We’ll hear details from KL Kivi and from Fairy Creek veteran, Fox.
The City of Nelson has put together many climate strategies, plans and consultations, to find out how all this turningt into action I talked to City Staff person the Climate and Energy Advisor, Cecilia Jaques. That’s coming in the second part of the show.
Eddie Petryshyn from Kimberley tracks the real crisis in BC’s forest corporations and communities.
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ENVIRONMENT NEWS AND EVENTS
The global energy transition could create 170,000 jobs in Alberta and contribute $61 billion to the province’s GDP by 2050, according to a study released last week.
The report was commissioned by Calgary Economic Development and Global Edmonton. It suggests the global pursuit of climate goals and net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 could be a major boon for the province that still ranks traditional oil and gas as its No. 1 industry.
But the report also warns that if Alberta continues on a “business as usual path,” it will be on track to a materially lower 20,000 new jobs and just $4 billion in GDP from clean technology sources by 2050.
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A grandma has embarked on a 2,200 mile trip across England by just using her free bus pass to get around.
Penny Ibbott, who is 75, set off on a six-week bus journey around the country from the centre of the south coast.
She used her free pensioner’s pass for the entire journey.
Penny would spend at least eight hours travelling on different buses to reach her next bed and breakfast.
Her route took her to Berwick-upon-Tweed at the top of England, where she travelled along the Scottish border, down the west coast to Lands End, before returning home.
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Work on the Trans Mountain Expansion project has experienced a significant setback due to the floods and landslides, West Coast Environmental Law reports.
Flood water covered and wreaked havoc on pipeline construction and stockpile sites for the 200 kilometers between Abbotsford and Merritt.
There is no estimate yet for the additional costs and delays for the TMX project, which of course is now owned by the federal government,
West Coast Environmental Law says the additional costs should force a reconsideration of the economic benefits of the pipeline itself.
According to Trans Mountain’s 2021 Q3 report, $9.9 billion has been spent to complete 37% of the pipeline as of September 30, 2021. Just based on these numbers it is clear that the $12.6 billion construction estimate from February 2020 will be exceeded by a significant amount.
The damage caused by the floods and landslides will likely add tens of millions if not billions of dollars to the cost, and cause delays of one year or more.
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Canada missed out on nearly $9.2 billion in foregone revenue between 2015 and 2019 thanks to income tax breaks, subsidies, to oil, gas, and coal mining companies, according to a Parliamentary Budget Office analysis.
By far the biggest-ticket item in report was more than $6.1 billion over five years that fossil fuel companies took away as tax breaks for Canadian development expenses, a long-standing federal program that reimburses up to 30% of a fossil’s expenses to buy new oil, gas, or coal fields and bring them into production.
The annual tax subsidies—which ranged from $1.3 to nearly $2.4. billion over the five-year span—reflect eligible expenses that have levelled off in recent years, the PBO report shows [pdf]: the totals started out around $15 billion per year toward the beginning the century, then spiked as high as $35 to 40 billion between 2005 and 2014, before beginning to moderate in 2015 as the impact of falling oil prices began to hit.
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Oil and gas workers around the world are seriously considering other options. New research shows more than half of them saying they want work in renewable energy and 43% across all forms of energy saying they plan to leave their jobs in the next five years. The survey was produced by Oilandgasjobsearch.com.
The survey result show that oil and gas companies face an imminent huge work force shortage
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Rainfall amounts were almost twice the average while snowfall amounts were about half the average in the West Kootenay in November. We also saw warmer temperatures at 1.1 C above average. This is exactly what climate change predictions were for local weather, more rain and less snow in the shoulder season, with dramatic impacts on the forest ecosystems.
The measurements come from the weather station at the West Kootenay Regional Airport.
Southeast Fire Centre weather forecaster Jesse Ellis says the area’s weather was influenced by a succession of Pacific frontal systems including storms that were the remnants from atmospheric river events that dropped the majority of their moisture over the south coast of B.C.
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The Nelson Star reports that recent provincial government announcements on old growth protection are not stopping any logging immediately. Logging has not stopped in the 2.6 million hectares of old growth that the experts, including Nelson’s Rachel Holt, say need it.
“They haven’t deferred anything,” Holt says. “[They are] not deferring unless [a First Nation] sticks their hand up and says they want to defer. So that’s the urgency, because those blocks are being logged, anywhere there is a cut block.”
The other members of the technical panel were forest policy analyst Lisa Matthaus, ecologist Karen Price, landscape analyst Dave Daust, and forester Garry Merkel.
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There’s a really fun event that puts you right in touch with the natural water of Kootenay Lake coming up January 1st. It’s Nelson’s Polar Bear Swim and it’s a fundraiser for Kootenay Coop Radio and Friends of Kootenay Lake.
Plungers get donation pledges… hit the lake and help these two great causes. And a whole crowd of well-wishers, and the timid join them to cheer them on.
Join us at Rotary Lakeside Park Beach on Saturday January 1st or plunge in any body of cold water at your preferred time and day. Use #nelsonpolarbearswim and share your plunge on Social Media.
You can sign up and find out how to do it all, except you’ll have figure the plunge part out on your own, on the website: NelsonPolarBear.com.
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