LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD DECEMBER 19 2023 SHOW HERE:
Solita Work from the West Kootenay Cycling Coalition co-hosts another transportation focused show. Tom Newell is the Regional District of the Central Kootenay for Area F, which is the North Shore from Crescent Beach to Bonnington. Transportation and climate can pose challenging priorities for regional governments like the RDCK as Tom explains.
Selkirk College student Sam Boucher joins us to talk about getting around without a car in the West Kootenay and how we can make it easier with more options.
Kim Nelson is on the Board of Velo Canada Bikes a national organization that promotes cycling and cycle transport. She tells us about some of the intricacies of federal funding for building cycling routes and facilities.
LINKS MENTIONED
Velo Canada Bikes on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CanadaBikes/
Regional District of the Central Kootenay… Climate plan. https://www.rdck.ca/EN/main/services/sustainability-environmental-initiatives/climate-action/rdck-climate-actions.html
West Kootenay Cyclling Coalition. https://westkootenaycycling.ca/
EVENTS
Wednesday December 20, 12pm-1pm
Okanagan Valley Electric Regional Passenger Rail, Online
From Okanagan Transit Alliance: If you’re curious about the whole train idea, or have questions, this is a great venue to find out more. Register here
Monday, January 1 Noon
Polar Bear Swim Lakeside Park
This year again, Kootenay Co-op Radio is organizing the Nelson Polar Bear Swim at Lakeside Park in Nelson on Monday, January 1st at noon. The event is a fundraiser for KCR and Friends of Kootenay Lake Stewardship Society.
Join hundreds of people ringing in the New Year by diving into the cold water of our beloved Kootenay Lake. Too cold for you? Come and encourage the brave plungers! Costume, accessories, fun dressing up highly recommended!
If you want to support Coop Radio and the brave polar plungers you can pledge through the station’s website KootenayCoopRadio.com and on zeffy.com
Friday, January 19 2024 NOON
West Koootenay Climate Hub Webinar
Zoom — registration required
The West Kootenay Climate Hub noon hour webinars are starting up January 19th hosting Craig DeLong, from Kootenay Outdoor and Environmental Learning Society.
His presentation will be focused on adaptation and mitigation strategies for smaller communities. Learn how we can better protect our communities from the increasing threat of wildfire. He’ll also be suggesting how individuals and communities can decrease greenhouse gas emissions by focusing on changing how we drive and initiatives to reduce supply chain contributions.
Find out more and register for the event on WestKootenayClimateHub.ca.
Wednesday January 10, 12pm –
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework Briefing Online
The BC government has released its Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework (BEHF). It is meant to guide a public consultation process that should lead to a law protecting BC’s biodiversity and ecosystems. We want to make sure the framework is as strong as possible. Organizing for Change (OFC) is offering a technical briefing to groups wanting to make a submission by the January 15th deadline. Register here
ENVIRONMENT NEWS BITS
The decision text from Cop28 in Dubai has been greeted as “historic”, for being the first ever call by nations for a “transition away” from fossil fuels. But others say it is “weak and ineffectual” and containing a “litany of loopholes” for the fossil fuel industry.
The failure of Cop28 to call for a phase-out of fossil fuels is “devastating” and “dangerous” given the urgent need for action to tackle the climate crisis, scientists have said.
One called it a “tragedy for the planet and our future” while another said it was the “dream outcome” for the fossil fuel industry.
The UN climate summit ended with a compromise deal that called for a “transition away” from fossil fuels. The stronger term “phase-out” had been backed by 130 of the 198 countries negotiating in Dubai but was blocked by petrostates including Saudi Arabia.
Bill McKibben from 350.org says the weak statement can still be used by activists to highlight the need for a real phase out of fossil fuels. He says the agreement is the single most obvious thing one could possibly say about climate change, akin to “in an effort to reduce my headache, I am transitioning away from hitting myself in the forehead with a hammer.”
The federal government faced fierce external pressure to abandon or weaken its plan to cap oil and gas sector emissions from provincial governments and industry lobby groups in the lead-up to its announcement this month.
NDP environment and climate change critic Laurel Collins called the Liberals’ framework to cap emissions from oil and gas production “unbelievably disappointing.”
“It’s so disheartening. They have clearly listened to oil and gas executives and lobbyists who have been pushing for loopholes and the watering down of what could be an incredibly important policy to meet our climate commitments,” Collins said in an interview with Canada’s National Observer.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May called the framework “a major victory for Canada’s oil and gas lobbyists.”
She said: ”This cap, which was clearly designed not to hinder the growth of Canadian fossil fuel production and will only come into effect in 2026, is a violation of our Paris commitment and a theft of our children’s future,” she said in a statement.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/12/13/news/oily-campaign-sink-federal-emissions-cap
The company building the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is warning the project’s completion could be delayed by two years if the Canada Energy Regulator does not allow a previously rejected request for a pipeline variance.
The newest challenges are related to hard rock conditions. In October, the Crown corporation asked the regulator to allow it to use a different diameter, wall thickness, and coating for a 2.3-kilometre stretch of pipeline to make construction easier, but the regulator denied that request earlier this month.
Now, Trans Mountain says it has reason to believe that proceeding with the current construction plan through complex hard rock conditions could compromise a borehole and result in the failure of drilling equipment.
It is once again requesting that it be allowed to alter the type of pipe used, saying the risks of continuing are “more serious and acute than previously understood.”
In an email Friday, Canada Energy Regulator spokeswoman Ruth Anne Beck said a decision-making process and timeline for Trans Mountain’s latest request is still being determined.
Smithers Member of Parliament: Taylor Bachrach will be home for Christmas — he hopes.
On Sunday, the NDP transportation critic and MP for the riding of Skeena-Bulkley Valley, plans to leave the House of Commons and start a series of train rides that will begin in Toronto and end more than 4,500 kilometres west in his hometown of Smithers, B.C. — about 200 kilometres inland from B.C.’s north coast.
That journey could be complicated by the fact that passenger trains in Canada are often delayed when they have to give right of way to cargo traffic travelling on the same tracks.
And that’s exactly the point: Bachrach’s journey is part of a quest to build support for a bill he introduced in Parliament this week.
The Rail Passenger Priority Act calls for the Canada Transportation Act to be amended so that any time a passenger and cargo train want to use the same rail line, the passenger train gets priority.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/taylor-bachrach-train-1.7061205
The 12-year-old who Halted COP28
From HEATED: The United Arab Emirates has severely restricted protest activity at this year’s U.N. climate summit, placing harsh limits on what activists are allowed to say, as well as where and when demonstrations can occur. But on Monday, one activist managed to slip past the COP28 host country’s gaze, and pull off a truly unsanctioned and uncensored disruption: 12-year-old Licypriya Kangujam, or Licy for short. Read more
https://heated.world/p/the-12-year-old-who-halted-cop28
Also at COP28 More than 250 environmental and community groups called on U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration in an open letter to stop permitting LNG facilities.
At the same time, activists gathered on the grounds of the summit in Dubai holding signs urging the world to “stop exporting climate chaos” and to “break the chains” of global LNG supplies.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/green-groups-cop28-demand-us-halt-support-lng-2023-12-08/
people from around the world attending COP28 with an eye to human rights and forest destruction also warned about a powerful impostor in the renewable energy sphere: forest biomass. With devastating impacts on communities, biodiversity and the global climate, the growing forest biomass industry could turn clean energy dreams into nightmarish destruction.
The forest biomass industry has ballooned in recent years with the help of massive subsidies geared toward the green energy transition. Members of the industry like U.K. energy giant Drax, which owns the majority of facilities in British Columbia, produce wood pellets that are burned by power utilities overseas to generate electricity.
Nearly two-thirds of US adults say they are worried about the threat of climate change in their communities, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS. More than half are worried about the impact of extreme weather, as the climate crisis touches every region in the form of extreme heat, devastating storms and drought.
Even more want the federal government to do something about it. A broad majority of US adults – 73% – say the federal government should develop its climate policies with the goal of cutting the country’s planet-warming pollution in half by the end of the decade.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/08/politics/cnn-poll-climate-change/index.html
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