LISTEN NOW OR DOWNLOAD JUNE 4th ECOCENTRIC:
Losing Blue is beautiful short documentary you can watch free online anytime at NFB.ca. It’s about our mountain lakes. Filmmaker Leanne Allison tells us how it the film was made.
Massive advertising campaigns pushing LNG and methane (natural) gas are prominent in Vancouver, Calgary and across the country. The Ad Standards Canada recently ruled some of it is misleading. Leah Temper from the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment tells us more about greenwashing in Canada.
The West Kootenay Watershed Collaborative is holding a ‘science pub’ on Fires and Watersheds on June 26. Ramona Faust tells us about the Watershed Collaborative and what it’s doing.
LINKS MENTIONED:
Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment campaign against greenwashing
West Coast Climate Action Network campaign to write advertising outlets about LNG misleading ads
The Competition Bureau of Canada is the legal enforcement agency promoting fair competition and protecting consumers, including from misleading advertising.
https://competition-bureau.canada.ca/
Ad Standards Canada, the advertising industry voluntary association.
West Kootenay Watershed Collaborative WestKootenayWater.ca
ENVIRONMENTAL EVENTS
Monday, June 3 – Sunday, June 9
Go By Bike Week Events
Go By Bike Week is a BC-wide initiative to encourage people to experience the joy of cycling and to ride their bikes as much as possible. You can register and log your go by bike trips to be at gobybikebc.ca
The West Kootenay Cycling Coalition has events planned for the Nelson area during the week.
• Bicycle Photo Booth: June 8, 10:30 am, near Tennis Courts, Lakeside Park
Get a free professional digital photo of yourself (or with friends).
Followed by a Community Bicycle & BBQ Ride: June 8, 11 am, near Tennis Courts, Lakeside Park Group ride to Taghum Beach for a community BBQ. Meet at Lakeside Park at 10:30am, ride at 11 am. Leave Taghum Beach for Nelson at 2 pm. All ages and abilities are welcome. 8 km each way. Please RSVP by June 4 on Facebook.
Friday, June 7, 10:30 am
“I need a bus to” Day in BC,
In Nelson meeting at Railtown Parking lot
In Nelson we are celebrating BC We Need a Bus Day on Friday, June 7th with a roadside sign-waving rally. Rural BC needs a full functioning public transportation system as an affordable, emission-busting alternative. That means MORE public buses, more routes, and more.
Sign making starts in the Railtown parking lot at 10:30
The whole event will wrap up within two hours.
For more information: WestKootenayTransitAction.ca.
Thursday, Friday June 13, 14 9:30 to 4
Healing the Land, Healing the Heart: A Free Symposium on Eco-Justice & Hope
In Castlegar
Free, two-day symposium exploring the interplay between hope and environmental justice in these urgent times. Co-hosted by Circle of Indigenous Nations (COINS) and Kutenai Art Therapy Institute (KATI).
A special invitation to youth (under 30) and Indigenous participants, but all are welcome.
Share responses to the climate crisis through an anti-racist perspective. Recognize wisdom of elders, dialogue across generations, cultivate thoughtful deliberate discussions, while making art together.
The 9:30 Thursday opening session will also be free and available online.
We are delighted to be joined online by two grounded and compassionate Elders – Duncan Grady and Mitchell Thomashow. Duncan and Mitchell guiding the conversation, it promises to be an inspiring gathering full of shared stories and meaningful dialogue.
The event is free but you need to register.
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/kati/1248034/r/web
Saturday, June 15, 4 – 7 pm
The Kootenay Resilience Festival
Front St Park, Kaslo
The inaugural Kootenay Resilience Festival will be held in Kaslo this summer. There will be four separate events over four months.
The June 15 event is a food forum with talks and music
Monthly Resilience Festival Events happen in Kalso in July, August and September
For more information on this and later events visit Kootenay Mountain culture.com
https://kootenaymountainculture.com/kootenay-resilience-festival/
Friday, June 21 at noon PDT
Climate Hub June Webinar: Preparing for Wildfire Season
Zoom – Registration required
As we face another summer with risks of wildfires, heat and smoke, our last webinar of the season will explore ways to build our community’s resilience in the face of worsening climate impacts. Topics include resilience centres, DIY air purifiers, basics of fire smarting our homes and neighbourhoods, and how to prepare ourselves and our communities before an emergency.
Wednesday, June 26 6:30 pm
Taghum Hall
The West Kootenay Watershed Collaborative for a Science Pub featuring guest speaker Robert Gray AFE Certified Wildland Fire Ecologist and the president of R.W. Gray Consulting LTD.
How can we make our landscapes more resilient to fire, drought and insects.
Tickets for the event are just $10. To reserve yours in advance you can E-transfer to wkwccontribute@gmail.com or you can pay at the door.
ENVIRONMENT NEWS BITS
New government support programs for energy retrofitting your home are coming on line. BC has announced new rebates that can provide up to $24,000 for low income families to install a heat pump. Rebates are really a problem for lower income people who must first finance the retrofit and wait for the funding after. Which sometimes isn’t forthcoming if you don’t quite fit the guidelines, as I didn’t .
In Nelson and the West Kootenays the Regional Energy Efficiency Program has advisors that can connect home retrofitters with funding and technical resources.
The federal government Greener Homes grant system had allotted all its funding by February this year, and as near as I can tell, the promised new home retrofit subsidy plan is not yet in place.
https://www.nelson.ca/222/Energy-Retrofit-Program
Almost two-thirds of Canadians feel that inflation at the grocery store is getting worse, a new poll suggests, although inflation has been cooling. Prices are still going up, but not as fast.
The Leger survey found that almost 30 per cent of Canadians believe food inflation has been primarily caused by grocery stores trying to increase profit margins. Another 26 per cent think it’s mostly due to global economic factors, while one in five blame the federal government
The cost of groceries was up again, 1.4 per cent in April but that helped bring the overall inflation lower to 2.7 per cent, Statistics Canada said.
Over the past three years, grocery prices have risen 21.4 per cent, according to the agency.
The major grocers have said they did not unduly profit from inflation, amid political and public pressure over the rising cost of food and other necessities.
A group of consumers organized a boycott of Loblaw-owned stores in May over frustrations with higher prices and industry concentration.
Seven out of 10 Canadians polled said they are aware of the ongoing boycott, and 58 per cent said they support it, but only 18 per cent say that they or someone in their household have joined the boycott.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/05/22/news/canadians-boycotting-loblaw-grocery-inflation
Experts expect a ‘lot of casualties’ for the ecosystem if temperature peaks continue.
The number of heat-related howler monkeys deaths in Mexico has risen to 157, the government said, with a tragically small number of the primates treated or recovering.
Meanwhile, an animal park in northern Mexico confirmed it has received reports that at least a hundred parrots, bats and other animals have died, apparently of dehydration.
A heat dome – an area of strong high pressure centred over the southern Gulf of Mexico and northern Central America – has blocked clouds from forming and caused extensive sunshine and hot temperatures all across Mexico.
My Sea to Sky, an environmental organization, is challenging a permit issued by the BC Energy Regulator allowing the Woodfibre LNG project to release contaminated water into the Howe Sound fjord on the West Coast of British Columbia.
The permit authorizes the liquefied natural gas facility to release up to 1,220 cubic metres of wastewater in a single day from its construction site in Squamish, near Vancouver.
The Squamish-based group is also seeking to cancel a wastewater permit the regulator issued to FortisBC, allowing the natural gas utility to release effluent from the construction of a tunnel beneath the Skwelwil’em Squamish Estuary. The tunnel will carry the final leg of a natural gas pipeline to the Woodfibre LNG plant, majority owned by Indonesian billionaire Sukanto Tanoto’s Pacific Energy Company.
Long-term electric vehicle owners are beginning to realize that their batteries are outliving the cars, while surveys show that seeing is believing as newer buyers move past their initial anxiety with EVs, automotive journalist Krystyna Lagowski writes for the Globe and Mail.
concerns over battery life were a concern for 40% of respondents who said they weren’t considering a future EV purchase. But those concerns don’t hold up against hands-on experience. Analysis by Seattle-based Recurrent Motors Inc. found that EV batteries had at least 90% of their original range after being driven for more than 160,000 kilometres.
International Tariffs May Force a Poilievre Government to Unaxe the Tax.
The debate over the carbon tax has focused so far on domestic politics. However, this misses the importance of the international context. Increasingly, Canada’s trading partners take the threat of climate change seriously and use carbon tariffs to punish other countries they see as free-riders.
Any government that wants to protect Canada from these tariffs will need a credible plan to reduce emissions. The result is that a future Conservative government may have to bring back the carbon tax, whether it likes it or not.
Longest running Enviro News show on the Radio! 