LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD JANUARY 28 ECOCENTRIC HERE:
Local forest activist Tom Prior comes in to remember his friend and frequent blockade comrade, Eloise Charest from Kaslo who died last week. Tom gives a heart felt remembrance to a woman who undertook remarkable activism throughout her lifetime.
The BC Climate Emergency Campaign produces an annual report card on ten measures of effectiveness on climate. Emiko Newman from the campaign tells us about this year’s report, and some failing grades for BC on climate.
Ottawa economist Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives talks about this much maligned approach to bringing down climate pollution, and why it’s such a lightning rod.
LINKS MENTIONED:
Vancouver Sun piece on Anna and Eloise Charest rescue of children from Cambodia.
https://www.pressreader.com/canada/vancouver-sun/20150418/281479274948804
Video from Eloise Charest’s Walk for Water in 1998
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ8ZRHqrvVA&list=PLiu3h2IUpSC6lHIXUdgBkdVX756wbXcVf&index=3
Here is the news video that was taken in 1975 in Cambodia in Phnom Penh at the orphanage called Canada House ran by Families For Children Inc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbxcN0feyLE
BC Climate Progress Report 2024
https://tinyurl.com/2kcnphyz
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives publication The Monitor
Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood’s piece on Pity the Carbon Tax is in this issue
https://www.policyalternatives.ca/news-research/the-monitor-winter-2025/
COMING EVENTS
Wednesday, February 12, 2025 | 7pm – 8pm
Castlegar, Brilliant Cultural Centre
Mir Lecture: Carol Off
At a Loss for Words: Conversation in an Age of Rage
Come and listen to beloved CBC broadcast journalist Carol Off on the importance of reclaiming the words that give life and meaning to our pursuit of a better world. Through stories from her 15 years of talking to people in 25,000 interviews, Off will share her insights into what happens when we lose our shared political vocabulary—and what it will take to reclaim it.
Tickets. Adults: $35
Students, youth and low-barrier: $22
Noon Wed, Feb 26
Zoom – registration required
West Kootenay Climate Hub Interactive Café
Jayme Jones (Selkirk Innovates) and Keith McCandless (Liberating Structures) will join us for an interactive discussion on complexity.
For more info and to register go to WestKootenayClimate hub.ca
https://www.westkootenayclimatehub.ca/event-details/climate-hub-webinar-columbia-river-treaty-and-climate-change-1
Join us for Earth Week 2025
Nelson and Area
April 22, 2025
Earth Day and Earth Week 2025.
As Earth Day 2025 approaches, the West Kootenay Climate Hub is inviting the community to celebrate the planet by hosting events.
Community-wide events Planned so far:
April 26th Taghum Hall Earth Day Festival
April 27th, Nelson Parade, route TBA.
If your organization has an idea or would like to create an event, reach out to us before January 31st. Contact: EarthWeekNelson@gmail.com
ENVIRONMENT NEWS BITS AND LINKS
A Pakistani-born B.C. climate activist is being sent to Pakistan after an unsuccessful attempt to stop a deportation order, with his lawyer saying the move is harsh and unjustified.
Zain Haq, 24, was ordered deported last year by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) over alleged violations of his study permit, related to his academic progress. The order also followed Haq’s arrest at Save Old Growth and Extinction Rebellion protests in 2021 and 2022.
Haq pleaded guilty to five counts of mischief in the protests, but was not considered a violent offender by courts.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/zain-haq-deported-save-old-growth-1.7441765
President Biden has granted clemency to Native American activist Leonard Peltier shortly before leaving office came as a surprise.
Peltier had been serving life in prison for the deaths of two FBI agents during a standoff on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1975. He will transition to home confinement to finish his life sentence.
Peltier’s supporters pushed for him to be freed because of his age, and has health problems. He was denied parole in July 2024, and was not eligible for parole again until 2026.
The family of Annie Mae Pictou Aquash a migmacie woman from Canada who was murdered after traveling with the American Indian Movement at that time, is unhappy with Peltier’s release. The say there is evidence he may have played a role in Pictou Aquash’s death.
Actor Dallas Goldtooth wrote on Facebook that he recognized the family’s concerns but also:
“My celebration for Peltier’s clemency is not done so blindly. He served almost 50 years in prison based on false testimony and evidence.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/pictou-aquash-peltier-clemency-1.7441247
Only in Texas, there is a new virtual power plant program to help home owners cut electricity bills, protect their homes from blackouts, and support clean energy for the Texas grid—all at no additional cost.
Launched January 16, the program builds on a novel virtual power plant power purchase agreement between retail electricity providers in Texas, California financier Solrite Energy, and global solar and storage provider, sonnen.
Participating homeowners receive a free solar-plus-storage system and a guaranteed low price for electricity, reports Canary Media. In return for the zero-upfront-cost installation of rooftop solar and two or three 20 kilowatt-hour batteries. The sponsoring companies will benefit from profits from extra power sold.
Following the Fukushima tsumanic nuclear meltdown, Japanese radiochemist Satoshi Utsunomiya found that air samples from March 15, 2011, in Tokyo contained a very high concentration of insoluble cesium microparticles. He immediately realized the implications of the findings for public safety, but his study was kept from publication for years. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is reporting that the controversy surrounding his attempts to publish his findings nearly cost him his career and prevented his results from being widely known by the Japanese public ahead of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Last year the Victoria Times-Colonist reported on mass die offs at many open pen net salmon farms on BC’s west coast.
On scientists said three of five open-net pen farms run by Grieg Seafood had reported mortality events in June The highest was at Muchalat North, where over a 10-day period, 23 per cent of the farm’s stock, about 1,000 tons of salmon, was lost.
Elevated levels of mortalities have been occurring recently among farmed fish at farm sites in Clayoquot Sound, Port Hardy, Clio Channel, Esperanza, and Nootka.”
DFO biologists and veterinary staff “confirmed that the mortality events were caused primarily by environmental conditions: extremely low oxygen events and harmful plankton in the marine environment,”
Mass die-offs of farmed salmon are increasing around the world, with Canada experiencing some of the biggest and most frequent mortality events, according a study published in March.
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