LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD THE MARCH 5 SHOW:
LINKS MENTIONED:
The Kootenay Carshare Coop. Carsharecoop.ca
You can learn how to be come a member and use a convenient vehicle anytime.
Marc Lee’s 10-year vision for public transit throughout BC
From the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives BC, Policynote.ca.
Video of the March 1 Transit Webinar on Youtube
West Kootenay Transit Action https://westkootenaytransitaction.ca/
Our local group pushing for greatly expanded public transit services. Get a bus anywhere in BC.
Simon Wiebe from Wildsight on the latest Crowsnest Pass Coal mine scheme.
https://wildsight.ca/2024/02/20/proposed-crown-mountain-coal-mine-would-fan-the-flames-of-selenium-crisis/
ENVIRONMENTAL EVENTS
Thursday March 7, 2024.
Mir Centre for Peace, Castlegar Campus at 7 pm in person or by ZOOM
From The Mir Centre, Selkirk College
Peace Cafés: Wounded Doves – Israel/Palestine Crisis – Conversation with Raja Khouri & Jeffrey Wilkinson, The Wall Between
Join Raja Khouri and Jeffrey Wilkinson, co-authors of The Wall Between: What Jews and Palestinian Don’t Want to Know About Each Other, for a Q&A about their book and their recent work facilitating dialogue in workplaces experiencing “the conflict about the conflict.” By donation to defray the costs of hosting the event. If donations exceed the costs, the surplus will be donated to MSF.
Tuesday March 12. 12 Noon PT
Winning LNG campaigns: What we can learn from Quebec and the U.S.
David Suzuki Foundation Webinar
The David Suzuki Foundation is providing a chance to glean lessons from these groundbreaking, and successful, efforts in resisting LNG development in Quebec and the US.
The panellists are:
• Louis Couillard, Mobilization Campaigner, Greenpeace, Quebec
• Talia Calnek-Sugin, Senior Policy Advocate, Natural Resources Defense Council, United States
• Janelle Lapointe, Public Engagement and Mobilization Co-lead, David Suzuki Foundation, British Columbia
Join us to learn from our U.S. and Quebec friends and allies to make the most of this key pre-election opportunity in B.C.
Register HERE
Noon Friday, March 15
West Kootenay Climate Hub webinar:
Weaving together people and place – creating a climate of regeneration
Jan Inglis will be exploring the concept of bioregionalism within our own community, sharing examples of on the ground regenerative projects and discussing how we can deepen ecological connections.
https://www.westkootenayclimatehub.ca/event-details/march2024-webinar
Sun. March 10, 1-3 pm
A Call to Action with Chief Na’Moks, Eve Saint, Cedar George-Parker, and Sarah Shamy
Webinar
On April 11th, the Royal Bank of Canada will hold its Annual General Meeting for shareholders in Etobicoke, Ontario. As they have the past two years, Wet’suwet’en and other Indigenous and Black Land Defenders will show up and denounce RBC for funding violence against their people and destruction of their lands. Outside the meeting, and across so-called Canada, we will rally by the thousands in support! You are once again called upon to organize your community to stand in solidarity with the Indigenous representatives, and amp up the pressure on RBC. To find out more, register now for a call with Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Na’Moks, Wet’suwet’en Land Defender Eve Saint, Tsleil-Waututh Land Defender Cedar George-Parker, and Palestinian Youth Movement Organizer Sarah Shamy.
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_E5v-F4L1SXuZwB1aHSjZLA#/registration
ENVIRONMENT NEWS
Members of the BC Teachers Federation (BCTF) protested in Vancouver last Wednesday, calling for a “fossil-free and weapons-free portfolio.”
The rally, organized by BCTF Divest Now and Van Climate Strike Coalition, was held outside of the BCTF’s offices.
They said they are calling for the crown corporation that manages their pensions to stop investing in fossil fuels and weapons manufacturing.
Twice a month, British Columbia Investments Corporation (BCI) receives 11.5 per cent of their members’ salaries, which are handed over to BCI through the Teachers’ Pension Plan.
Extreme Weather events caused by climate change are adding up in cost for the US and has reached early $100 Billion a Year.
A new study tracking the costs says climate crisis is already having a major impact on the U.S. economy, and the damages are only going to increase.
The new report from Swiss Re looked at data from 2022 and analyzed the impact of natural disasters on the GDP of 36 countries, including the U.S., to establish its findings. The report focused on the effects of floods, tropical cyclones, winter storms, and severe thunderstorms.
While the effects of climate change on the U.S. economy were significant, the country that was most affected by it was the Philippines. The report says climate change impacted 3% of the country’s GDP. The U.S. saw a 0.4% impact on its yearly economic output.
One climate consequence, increased heatwaves, was not even included in the report. Another study from 2022 found that human-caused increases in heatwaves potentially cost the global economy over $29 trillion between 1992 and 2013.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/climate-change-cost-u-s-yearly
When the federal government ended its green home retrofit program, because all the money had been used up years early, it threw Canada’s home retrofit industry into chaos say environmentalist organizations. But emissions in housing still falling far too slowly say two separate sign-on letters are urging Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson to restore funding for the Canada Greener Homes grant program.
Environmental Defence Canada said: “Discontinuing this program has created uncertainty in the HVAC and energy monitoring industries and an unsustainable boom-bust dynamic that will cause considerable chaos.”
“It has created uncertainty for businesses who have invested in this program and created almost 75,000 new jobs, while putting doubts into the minds of thousands of Canadians who have only recently considered switching to a heat pump.”
The federal government has said it will roll out a new program in the budget coming up in April.
According to Globe and Mail climate columnist Adam Radwanski, “The government is trying to quickly design a significantly different program, both because of lessons learned during Greener Homes’ clunky rollout, and to tailor the new initiative to the needs of its intended recipients.”
Finding optimism in the fight against climate change can be challenging but CBC’s The Current radio show had a segment with three prominent climate writers last month to talk about it.
The interview with well-known commentators Rebecca Solnit, Chris Turner and John Vaillant is available online of course, and I’ll put up a link.
Transcript: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/tuesday-october-24-2023-full-transcript-1.7006850
The Sierra Club of BC says the historically low snowpack, is bringing a greatly increased risks of drought and wildfires. Some regions are so dry that 100 wildfires are still smoldering from last year. Sierra Club says that makes preservation of intact primary forests and Old-growth even more important to reduce the risks of fire and severe climate impacts. Industrially degraded landscapes and clearcut logging compound the effects of the climate crisis, they say. Several initiatives were announced towards the end of 2023, but they have not yet resulted in tangible change on the ground. The latest provincial data shows that old-growth logging continues at more than 160 soccer fields per day.
Take action here.
Climate disaster has had at least one good side benefit. Texas has been hit with a massive wildfire storm. Texas officials recorded the state’s second-largest wildfire in its history last week as several fast-moving blazes formed what one resident called a “ring of fire” around her town in the Panhandle and forced a temporary closure of a nuclear weapons facility.
Unfortunately, it was only a temporary closure of the plant which reopened “for normal day shift operations” on Wednesday morning.
And of course, the fires had terrible consequences for Texans and the Texas landscape. A hospital system in the town of Canadian was also forced to evacuate patients and staff. How can Texas have a town with the name Canadian? A lot of nerve, those Texans.
theecocentricradioshow.ca 