LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD JUNE 10 SHOW HERE:
We tour the new Castlegar Chamber of Commerce building with the designing principle architect Lukas Armstrong from Stand Architecture. The building is called The Confluence and it’s in the process of being certified highly energy efficient. And it’s cool, on the hottest day so far this year, it was wonderfully comfy.
The news is full of the Canada and BC rush to start new ‘nation building’ projects to cope with the coming apparent economic crash. Liz McDowell a senior campaigner with the environmental group Stand.Earth tells us nation building should be nation healing projects and we shouldn’t rush into more resource digging and burning. With another catastrophic wildfire season here, some climate healing is certainly in order.
I want to note that it’s a pure coincidence that my guests today are both from organizations named STAND. Stand Architecture is a local firm, Stand.Earth is an international environmental organization.
Let’s Tax The ULTRA Rich.Economist Alex Hemingway from BC Policy Solutions says it’s a realistic idea, and a new report sketches out how it would work. A great way for BC and Canada to afford to do all the good things we need to protect our families and environment. Alex presents a thorough proposal.
LINKS MENTIONED:
The Castlegar Chamber of Commerce Confluence Building
https://www.castlegarconfluence.com/.
Stand.Earth comment on ‘nation-building’ projects in Canada
https://stand.earth/press-releases/speech-from-the-throne-unprecedented-challenges-opportunities-false-climate-solutions/
A wealth tax could raise half a trillion dollars for a stronger, fairer Canada
Report from BC Policy Solutions economist Alex Hemingway
https://bcpolicy.ca/2025/06/04/wealth-tax/
COMING EVENTS
Meet the 2025 Youth Climate Corp
Friday June 13, between 8:30 am and 3 pm
Rosemont, Nelson
Meet the 2025 Youth Climate Corp
Come meet the West Kootenay Youth Climate Corps and join them as they work on the Monarch Way Station, in partnership with the Kootenay Native Plant Society. Bring your gardening gloves and a trowel to lend a hand! Email data@kootenaynativeplants.ca to join, or get more information.
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Saturday June 21, 3-7 pm
Kinnaird Park, 2501 14 Ave, Castlegar
Aboriginal People’s Day Celebration
For National Aboriginal Peoples’ Day, the Circle of Indigenous Nations Society is hosting a free, public community event featuring cultural offerings, children’s activities, Indigenous vendors, and an Indigenous-themed dinner.
More details on the COIN website: https://coinations.net/
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Saturday, July 5th, 2025
10:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Nelson District Rod & Gun Club Hall
NELSON REPAIR CAFÉ – FIRST EVENT JULY 5th!
Come to Nelson’s first Repair Café — a free community event where you
can bring broken items and fix them with the help of skilled volunteers!
Helping repair:
- • Small appliances
- • Clothing & textiles
- • Bikes
- • Electronics
- • Small furniture or tools
Want to volunteer? Visit: RepairCafeNelson.ca to sign up!
ENVIRONMENT NEWS BITS
Another summer, and another devastingh wildfire season in Canada. Manitoba and Saskatchewan are still under province-wide states of emergency. In Manitoba hse fires have forced 21,000 people from their homes and 27 communities are under mandatory evacuation order. Thousands are also evacuated in Saskatchewan and more in Alberta as well.
The Prairie provinces have been comparatively unscathed in recent years as parts of the country, especially western provinces, have battled hotter, larger and more frequent fires: the blaze that levelled Jasper, Alta., in 2024; the tragic Lytton, B.C., fire in 2021; Fort McMurray in 2016 and Canada’s most destructive wildfire season on record in 2023, which burned more than 150,000 square kilometres.
Saskatchewan is battling the worst wildfire it’s seen in decades — including the 300,000-hectare Shoe Fire in northern Saskatchewan — and experts say it’s largely caused by climate change.
According to the Canadian Drought Monitor, about 40 per cent of the Prairies — including much of south and central Manitoba — experienced abnormally dry and moderate drought conditions through April. Then, already above-average temperatures spiked into a record-breaking May heat weave, with the mercury reaching 38 C in parts of the province mid-month.
https://thenarwhal.ca/manitoba-wildfires-climate-change/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/is-climate-change-the-cause-of-saskatchewans-wildfire-1.7548474
Almost 40% of glaciers in existence today are already doomed to melt due to climate-heating emissions from fossil fuels, a study has found.
The loss will soar to 75% if global heating reaches the 2.7C rise for which the world is currently on track.
The massive loss of glaciers would push up sea levels, endangering millions of people and driving mass migration, profoundly affecting the billions reliant on glaciers to regulate the water used to grow food, the researchers said.
However, slashing carbon emissions and limiting heating to the internationally agreed 1.5C target would save half of glacier ice.
Scientists said that every tenth-of-a-degree rise that was avoided would save 2.7tn tonnes of ice. Photograph: Harry Zekollari
Methane leaks from dormant oil and gas wells in Canada are seven times worse than thought.
A study from McGill University reveals that a small fraction of wells—especially unplugged gas wells—are responsible for the vast majority of non-producing well methane emissions.
“Rather than just measuring more wells at random, we can use well attributes to identify where emissions are likely to be highest, and focus monitoring and mitigation efforts there,” said Mary Kang, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering at McGill
“There’s potential to repurpose these sites in ways that generate funding for long-term monitoring and emissions reduction,” said Kang.
https://phys.org/news/2025-06-methane-leaks-dormant-oil-gas.html#google_vignette
The world’s oceans are in worse health than realised, scientists have said today, as they warn that a key measurement shows we are “running out of time” to protect marine ecosystems.
Ocean acidification, often called the “evil twin” of the climate crisis, is caused when carbon dioxide is rapidly absorbed by the ocean, where it reacts with water molecules leading to a fall in the pH level of the seawater. It damages coral reefs and other ocean habitats and, in extreme cases, can dissolve the shells of marine creatures.
Until now, ocean acidification had not been deemed to have crossed its “planetary boundary”. The planetary boundaries are the natural limits of key global systems – such as climate, water and wildlife diversity – beyond which their ability to maintain a healthy planet is in danger of failing. Six of the nine had been crossed already, scientists said last year.
However, a new study by the UK’s Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), the Washington-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oregon State University’s Co-operative Institute for Marine Resources Studies found that ocean acidification’s “boundary” was also reached about five years ago.
Premier David Eby’s government has given the green light to American billionaires planning to build another huge fracked gas pipeline across B.C.
Lobbyists for the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline argued the project was “substantially started” – despite clearing less than two per cent of the route in the last decade.
Today bureaucrats in the Environmental Assessment Office agreed, allowing the project to continue construction using an 11-year-old certificate that should have expired last fall.
It’s a capitulation to one of President Donald Trump’s top donors and closest advisors, Steve Schwarzman. Schwarzman is CEO of trillion-dollar investment firm Blackstone, PRGT’s biggest investor.
On paper PRGT is owned by the Nisga’a treaty government and Western LNG, a shell company based in Houston Texas. But all the money comes from Wall Street private equity firms.
The company being paid to build the pipeline is Bechtel, another huge American contractor with close ties to the U.S. State Department, and a history of using ex-special forces soldiers for security.
These are the companies Eby is now turning loose on Gitanyow and Gitxsan communities, where people vow to fight PRGT to the end.
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