February 25, 2025. Rachel Holt on forests. Sierra Club on the Speech from the throne. More detail on Spearhead expansion.

CLEARCUT ON PRIVATE LAND ABOVE MOUNTAIN STATION.

LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD FEBRUARY 25 SHOW HERE:

Rachel Holt, the local forest ecologist who has played a key role in forest conservation planning in the province, talks about emerging troubling announcements in forestry management in BC.

Dr. Shelley Luce, campaigns director with the Sierra Club of BC talks about the near total omission of climate and biodiversity protection goals in the recent Speech from the Throne, the outline of the new NDP government’s agenda.

Neighbours of the Spearhead plant at 12 Mile, on the North Shore detail some of the community concerns with the planned big expansion on the site.

LINKS MENTIONED ON THE SHOW:

Local research on clearcutting and logging from Save Whats Left
https://savewhatsleft.ca/

The Sierra Club of BC campaigns on protecting the province’s natural world
https://sierraclub.bc.ca/

ENVIRONMENTAL EVENTS COMING UP

Wednesday, Feb 26 6:30 pm
Resilience Café #1 Understanding Complex Systems: The Foundation of Climate Resilience

Zoom – registration required

Resilience Café #1 Understanding Complex Systems: The Foundation of Climate Resilience
Zoom – registration required

https://www.westkootenayclimatehub.ca/event-details/climate-hub-webinar-columbia-river-treaty-and-climate-change-1

Sunday March 2 6 pm
Thompson Funeral Home
A wake for our planet, a Seniors for Climate event.

Seniors for Climate says the wake event is a creative expression on the national slogan of “Later is too Late”. The evening will include poetry, music and film.

A wake is both a celebration of life and an opportunity to express one’s grief, gratitude and appreciation of what a person, species, and place has given us and continues to give us. It’s a reminder that for our natural world, Later is too late. 


Saturday, March 22nd 8:30 pm
Earth Hour 2025
Turning off everything electrical for the hour.

Last year, was Earth Hour the biggest one yet, giving over 1.4 million hours relief to our planet. This do it yourself at home event by switching off power in the house and Giving an hour for Earth by spending 60 minutes from 8:30 to 9:30 doing something good for the planet and celebrating naturally something you love. Put it in your calendar.

Earth Day and Earth Week 2025.
Earth Day April 22
Earth Week April 20-27

Nelson West Kootenay Events

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 SHORTS

The environmental legal campaigners EcoJustice are reporting what they call a huge victory. The Federal Court has ruled that Health Canada’s approval of the glyphosate-based herbicide Mad Dog Plus was unreasonable. That’s right the poison was branded Mad Dog Plus. Go figure.
 
Health Canada had renewed the approval for this herbicide in 2022 based on an outdated risk assessment, despite significant new science linking glyphosate to cancer, metabolic diseases, reproductive harm, and environmental damage.

EcoJustice says 50 million kilograms of glyphosate are sprayed on Canadian food and forests every year.

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B.C. MLA Adrian Dix says many people are urging him to cut off power or even water to the U.S. including stopping the Columbia River Treaty which remained unsigned after the recent election.

This is happening as tensions rise over U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats and repeated calls to make Canada his country’s 51st state, while eyeing Canadian resources, like water.

Last year Trump talked about a “very large faucet” that could be diverted to the U.S. While the faucet is fiction, questions about what will happen next for the 61-year-old Columbia River water treaty under renegotiation are very real.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/columbia-river-treaty-trump-1.7462660


Six environmental groups are suing two federal ministers over a delay in issuing an emergency-order recommendation to protect B.C.’s endangered killer whale population.

The legal action, filed Monday at a Vancouver federal court, said the failure of Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault and Fisheries Minister Diane Lebouthillier to recommend an emergency order to cabinet represents an “unlawful” delay.

The petition comes two months after a federal threat assessment concluded that despite interim protection measures, an “imminent threat still exists” to the survival of the southern resident killer whales.

https://www.biv.com/biv-rss-newsletter/canada-sued-over-delay-in-protecting-endangered-killer-whales-10144598


Climate advocacy groups are calling on officials to crack down on the fossil fuel industry’s role in K-12 education, suggesting its alleged influence has gone largely unchecked in the absence of robust climate change education.

A report released Tuesday by the groups For Our Kids and Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment suggests at least 39 oil and gas companies exercised some measure of education influence, from sponsoring public school science fairs to supplying lessons that the report alleges downplay the harms associated with their operations.

The report suggests the industry’s most common influence tactic is establishing or funding third-party education non-profits that supply material to teachers and run programs related to energy, environment and climate change.

https://www.nelsonstar.com/national-news/climate-groups-want-transparency-allege-fossil-fuel-education-influence-7832311


Even as far-right support surged amid a Christian Democratic Union election win, experts suggest that Germany’s climate policy will remain largely unchanged, though the messaging may shift.

The CDU is expected to join with the weakened SPD (Social Democratic Party), an alliance that would likely stay the course on existing climate policy without delivering greater ambition on decarbonization. CDU leader Friedrich Merz is not known as a fierce climate advocate, but he has repeatedly said that he recognizes the need to rapidly mitigate emissions—and to make the German economy fit to compete in a post-fossil future, writes Clean Energy Wire.


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