DOWNLOAD OR LISTEN TO OCTOBER 17, 2023 SHOW HERE:
On the construction site of a new energy efficient home being built in Nelson, energy expert, Tom Giltenan explains some of what’s involved in a cozy low energy house.
The province recently announced a new Grizzly Bear Stewardship Framework, and the Valhalla Wilderness Society and over 50 other organizations have expressed concern that it is opening a back door to allow sport hunting of grizzlies in the province again. Amber Peters from Valhalla Wilderness Society explains.
Canadian governments are planning billions more in public subsidies to the fossil fuel sector. Something like $12 billion in subsidies is budgeted for carbon capture and storage. The plan is being criticized by experts across the country. Laura Cameron with the International Institute of Sustainable Development, has an excellent critique recently on the NationalObserver.com. She explains more about the problems with CCS, Carbon Capture and Storage.
LINKS MENTIONED:
The Community Energy Association events and information on getting efficient. https://www.communityenergy.ca/?dlm_download_category=buildings
Valhalla Wilderness Society concerns about proposed grizzly plan. Read the open letter. VWS.org
“Canadians shouldn’t foot the bill for Big Oil’s costly carbon capture” on NationalObserver.com.
COMING ECO EVENTS:
Yesterday, Monday, Oct 16 was day one of two autumn GoByBike Weeks! in BC. You can register online, log your rides, replace vehicle trips with biking and be automatically entered into the draw for great prizeds.
Registration at GoByBikeBC.ca is FREE! Tell your family, friends, and colleagues!
Any and every ride logged will enter you into the draw for one of many great prizes, including a Pedego Electric Bike, Axiom Gear, Visa Gift Cards, and more! The more rides you log, the more chances of winning!
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Fiday October 27, there’s the final Friday of the month CRITICAL MASS MOVIE & RIDE
The event kicks off with a movie at 4:30 Friday, Oct 27 at Nelson Civic Theatre
The film is called. You Never Bike Alone – a 2007 documentary film exploring Vancouver’s vibrant bike culture and its development as a viable form of transport. Tickets are just $5.
After the movie there is a Critical Mass Bicycle Ride on Nelson’s city streets. It’s Halloween weekend so come in costume. Bike lights mandatory.
https://westkootenaycycling.ca/
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The Regional District of the Central Kootenay’s Climate Action Open Houses run in communities all around the district until the end of October.
The RDCK has also launched an online way you can send in your views at engage.rdck.ca.
This is a great chance to get our Region really proactive on reducing the climate crisis, and adapting to the extreme conditions we now have.
ENVIRONMENT NEWS BITS
The West Coast Climate Action Network has written an open letter to BC Premier David Eby, calling for real constructive action on the climate crisis. We-Can says “given how rapidly the climate crisis is growing, and knowing that it is the prime cause of the increased volume and intensity of the fires, we implore you to accelerate B.C.’s climate action plans to reach true zero by 2040, rather than net zero by 2050.”
The We-Can letter continues: “This summer is making many people feel fear, with its dramatic increase in forest fires, its extreme temperatures, the increased intensity of flooding around the world, and the dramatic warming of the ocean. And this is just the beginning of the climate crisis.”
We-Can has ten simple prescriptions:
- Speak with more climate urgency.
- Teach climate science and solutions to all civil servants, and in schools.
- End the use of fossil gas in all new buildings.
- Stop subsidizing and supporting LNG.
- Create more compact, walkable, bikeable, transit-friendly communities.
- Guarantee training for a good job for everyone who works directly with coal, oil, gas, or logging.
- Protect B.C.’s forests as a carbon sink.
- Phase out the production of fossil fuels.
- Talk openly about the climate impacts of meat and dairy, and the solutions.
- Build a circular economy with zero waste.
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A federal government decision to reverse course on issuing an emergency order for the northern spotted owl in southwest British Columbia has angered the Spuzzum First Nation, which asked for the protection of the endangered species.
Chief James Hobart said members of his community are “furious” after the decision was outlined in a letter issued this week by the Canadian Wildlife Service, a branch of the Department of Environment.
The letter said the government will not bring in an emergency order to prevent logging in two watersheds within Spuzzum territory in the Fraser Canyon, around 130 kilometres northeast of Vancouver.
The logging was an activity that Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault had said posed “an imminent threat” to the survival of the northern spotted owl.
Guilbeault said earlier this year in another letter from the Canadian Wildlife Service that he was recommending the emergency order to cabinet to protect the species.
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Canada’s oil production is set to jump by about 10 per cent over the next year and become one of the largest sources of increased supply around the world.
The country produces about 4.8 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude and that figure could climb by about 500,000 bpd to about 5.3 million bpd by the end of 2024, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights. That would mark an all-time high for Canadian production.
Alberta’s oilsands is expected to drive much of the growth, although increases are anticipated throughout Western Canada and at offshore facilities near Newfoundland and Labrador.
“Half a million is a lot,” said Kevin Birn, S&P’s chief analyst for Canadian oil markets. “It’s bigger than a lot of countries produce in the world.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/bakx-oil-production-s-p-record-1.6993102
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An analysis released last week shows off-shore wind turbines could provide enough power for all of Atlantic Canada. The Ottawa-based think-tank Public Policy Forum published the report entitled.Catching the Wind: How Atlantic Canada Can Become an Energy Superpower
It highlights the relatively shallow waters off the coast of Nova Scotia’s Sable Island as a prime location for offshore wind development.
The Sable Island Bank alone could accommodate at least 1,000 offshore turbines, each with a capacity of 15 megawatts. That adds up to around 70,000 gigawatt hours, “enough to supply 6.5 million average Canadian homes, or almost twice the total electricity currently consumed in Atlantic Canada annually.”
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Rich Kruger, the CEO of giant tar sands miner, Suncor Energy tried to defend his company’s move away from renewable energy, in a hearing Monday, Oct 16 before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources.
Kruger, is a relatively new arrival at Suncor. He had spent 31 years at ExxonMobil and as CEO of its Canadian subsidiary, Imperial Oil. During a call with industry analysts in August he described a “revised direction and tone” focussing on the tar sands.
Kruger’s committee appearance began just half an hour after two environment groups warned that the expansion plan for Suncor’s Fort Hills oil sands mine in northern Alberta will produce an estimated 732 million cubic metres of new tailings waste over the project’s lifetime, enough to fill 60 square kilometres of new tailings ponds.
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