LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD APRIL 26 SHOW HERE:
Naia Shine from Argenta is on the logging protest on the Salisbury Forest Service Road against clearcutting on the Argenta-Johnsons Landing Face. Starting this week Last Stand West Kootenay is on site protecting the forest.
Nanaimo’s Howard Breen who is hunger striking to Save Old Growth was sent to hospital on Sunday in fear of kidney or heart failure, but is back out and continuing his action to force action from Forestry minister Katrine Conroy.
Joe Foy is longtime activist with the Wilderness Committee and he posted a video of the forest on the Argenta slope. He says it’s all part of the province’s failure to deal with the forestry issues.
Killing for profit… BC Timber Supply is planning wide-ranging glyphosate spraying to kill broad leaf plants so profitable conifers grow faster, and more profitably. Ross Reid from NerdyAboutNature.com has a fast-paced rant about it.
LINKS:
Last Stand West Kootenay… get in touch with the protest on the Argenta-Johnson’s Landing logging
Joe Foy’s Wilderness Committee video about Argenta forest.
NerdyAboutNature.com. Ross Reid’s videos and podcast links.
Email or call about saving Old Growth and Argenta forest
Politician Contacts for Save Old Growth messages
MLA Brittny Anderson
Brittny.Anderson.MLA@leg.bc.ca
250-354-5944
Josie Osborne MLA
Minister of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship and Minister Responsible for Fisheries
LWRS.Minister@gov.bc.ca
Josie.osborne@leg.bc.ca
778.405.3094
Katrine Conroy MLA Minister of Forests
Phone: (250) 387-6240 FLNR.Minister@gov.bc.ca
Environment News
One person was arrested during Monday morning’s rush hour in the latest blockade of the Iron Workers Memorial Bridge by a group protesting logging in B.C.’s old growth forests.
Vancouver police say a 37-year-old woman was charged with mischief and blocking the roadway.
The group Save Old Growth has staged 11 “direct action” blockades in the City of Vancouver in April. Since January, it has also blockaded highways in Victoria, Nanaimo and Revelstoke. The group says 85 people have been arrested so far and that they have no plans to stop the disruptions.
“We’re done being afraid. We won’t stop until the government passes legislation to end all old growth logging,” said spokesperson Julia Torgerson.
“This is not a big demand, we’ve only got 2.7 per cent of the productive old growth left. Killing the last of these ancient trees is a death sentence for millions of Canadians due to ecological breakdown.”
_________________________________
On April 22nd in Seattle, US President Joe Biden signed Earth Day Executive Order to Protect Old-growth Forests. The order directs the Department of Interior and the Department of Agriculture to create an inventory of mature and old-growth forests on federal lands. It requires the agencies to use the inventory to craft policies that protect old-growth forests from a number of threats, including wildfires and other risks exacerbated by climate change. But the announcement disappointed many environmentalists with its vague wording. The activists are calling for an outright ban on logging on federal lands.
Biden talked about the order at an Earth Day address at Seward Park in Seattle. Several hundred people gathered outside the park, including protesters with the environmental nonprofit Food and Water Watch and Build Back Fossil Free, a coalition that has been pushing Biden to declare a climate emergency and end fossil fuel development. They displayed a 15-foot banner that read “C’mon man, the IPCC says it’s now or never: put an end to fossil fuels!”
Randi Spivak, the public lands director with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a press release. “For the sake of our climate and nature, it’s time to stop logging these carbon-storing champions on federal forests now.”
________________________________________
Trail City Council unanimously voted to transition the community to 100% renewable energy no later than 2050 on Monday, April 25th.
Also in a unanimous decision Golden Town Council voted on February 15, to join the transition to 100% renewable energy across all energy use sectors in their community.
Altogether 13 communities in the West Kootenay have now signed on to The EcoSociety’s 100% Renewable campaign. Castlegar, Creston, Fruitvale, Golden, Kaslo, Nelson, New Denver, Rossland, Silverton, Slocan, Warfield, Regional District of Central Kootenay have all voted to join in.
https://www.ecosociety.ca/news/
___________________________________________
World military spending set a new record topping $2 trillion for first time reports the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
The US, China, India, UK and Russia were the top five defence spenders.
“In 2021 military spending rose for the seventh consecutive time to reach $2.1 trillion. That is the highest figure we have ever had,” Diego Lopes da Silva, senior researcher at SIPRI, told AFP news agency.
Despite the economic fallout of the global COVID pandemic, countries around the world increased their arsenals.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/25/military-spending-reaches-record-levels-report
___________________________________________
A climate activist has died 24 hours after setting himself on fire on the steps of the Supreme Court on Earth Day.
Colorado photojournalist Wynn Alan Bruce, 50, suffered critical injuries in the incident at 6.30pm Friday on a plaza in front of the court. He was airlifted to hospital, where he died Saturday.
Capitol Police, Supreme Court police, and DC police all responded to the incident.
“A medical helicopter just landed near the Capitol for a medical emergency. This is not a public safety issue,” Capitol Police tweeted.
Mr Bruce ran a portrait photo studio in Boulder, and his social media account was filled with posts about the environment and Buddhism.
His Buddhist mentor Dr. K. Kritee said, “This act is not suicide. This is a deeply fearless act of compassion to bring attention to climate crisis. We are piecing together info but he had been planning it for atleast one year. #wynnbruce I am so moved.
___________________________________________
Greta Thunberg’s Earth Day message came out in a tweet:
School strike week 192. This is not a “happy earth day”. It never has been. #EarthDay has turned into an opportunity for people in power to post their “love” for the planet, while at the same time destroying it at maximum speed. #PeopleNotProfit#FridaysForFuture #ClimateStrike pic.twitter.com/2Lv7sLEKyZ
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) April 22, 2022
___________________________________________
French President Emmanuel Macron easily won re-election over the far-right’s Marine Le Pen this week. In the final campaign days Macron vowed to make his next prime minister “directly responsible for ecological planning,” with plans to ramp up electric vehicles, fight for a European carbon tax, plant 140 million trees, close 50 open-air landfills by 2025, and ensure that CEO bonuses are based on their companies’ environmental record. In addition to pledging a ten-fold increase in solar and a two-fold increase in onshore wind, Macron also promised to build 50 offshore wind farms by 2030, and as many as 14 new nuclear reactors.
___________________________________________
The largest private land conservation project in Canadian history is being planned in northern Ontario.
The Nature Conservancy of Canada has negotiated the purchase of 1,450 square kilometres of the boreal forest near Hearst, Ontario, from pulp and paper giant Domtar, The Canadian Press reports.
Now named the Boreal Wildlands, the region is twice as big as the entire city of Toronto, and will be protected from industrial development including logging and mining.
“In the face of biodiversity loss and climate change, nature offers us very real solutions,” Nature Conservancy President Catherine Grenier told an online news conference during Earth Day Friday.
The Boreal Wildlands is home to 100 lakes, 1,300 kilometres of rivers and streams, and is a critical habitat for many of Canada’s most iconic species including black bears, wolves, moose, and the endangered woodland caribou. It is also a massive natural carbon sink, storing the equivalent of the lifetime emissions from three million vehicles.
_____________________________
Australia-based Montem Resources has announced it intends to explore a renewable energy project instead of a coal mine on its Tent Mountain site located in southwestern Alberta, leaving some to question the company’s intent.
The proposed development is located in the Crowsnest Pass of Alberta’s Rocky Mountains near the B.C. border.
The proposed project would include an offsite wind farm that would pump water to an upper reservoir on Tent Mountain with the hydro-electric power that is generated used to create green hydrogen in the lower reservoir. Any excess power would be sold to the electricity grid.
The company is still pursuing approval for the mining project at Tent Mountain while it explores the feasibility of the renewable project, a move environmentalists say casts doubt on its re-brand as a green player.
_____________________________
New interactive maps from a British Columbia-based tech company could help further the understanding of connections between last year’s wildfires and the devastating floods that followed in November.
British Columbia’s 2021 wildfires were the third-worst in terms of area burned, but saw several massive fires burning in close proximity to populated areas along with virtual complete destruction of the community of Lytton.
The flooding and landslides, which followed a series of powerful atmospheric rivers, caused major damage to multiple key highways, destroyed numerous homes and forced evacuations in Merritt, Abbotsford and several other communities.
_____________________________
A decision just a decade ago to invest heavily in the Alberta tar sands/oil sands has turned out to be a big liability for the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC)—and now the company is looking to sell off its Long Lake and Hangingstone operations before being hit by sanctions related to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
It was a big deal 10 years ago when then-prime minister Stephen Harper allowed CNOOC to acquire struggling Alberta fossil producer Nexen Inc. for a cool C$15.1 billion. But “today, China no longer covets the oil sands as it seeks to reduce risks associated with doing business in countries where it has been embroiled in diplomatic and trade battles,” the Globe and Mail recalls. “It shows in particular how Canada’s strategic energy resources have, in Beijing’s view, gone from premium assets to liabilities in just 10 years.”
Longest running Enviro News show on the Radio! 