Vancouver author and environmental journalist Arno Kopecky talks about the threat to Howe Sound from LNG operations.
BC NDP sanctioned destruction
The amazing natural world
This video is from National Geographic’s new docuseries Queens. It shows an encounter between a 60-year-old female orca whale and a great white shark. The first three episodes of the seven-part docuseries are available to stream on Disney+.
Inadequate penalties are licenses to pollute
Glacier Media’s climate and environmental reporter Stefan Labbé has a disturbing report about heavy metals and other pollutants in waters moving from Canadian coal mines to the USA. The item is headlined B.C. coal mines linked to record-breaking toxin spike in U.S. waters…
323 years into a 246 year cycle
Earlier this year the TMX budget stood at $31 billion, but public officials recently admitted to further delays that will inevitably result in expenditure of additional billions. But wasting money may be the least of the problems affecting Trans Mountain pipeline. It has now been 323 years since the last really big earthquake hit the coast of British Columbia, Washington, Oregon,and northern California…
Thermal coal exports – BC’s dirty secret
Hollow promises by politicians are worthless. Thermal coal continues to be exported from British Columbia and capacity to handle this dirty fossil fuel has been significantly increased. The vast majority of coal reserves must stay in the ground.
Record setting wildfire burns – updated
As of July 30, BC Wildfire Service is calling 2023 the worst year for land damaged by fire. In fact, with months to go in fire season, 15 percent more land has burned than in 2018, the second worst year BC has recorded. Three hundred and fifty-seven wildfires are burning on July 30, 188 of them out-of-control.
Shareholder value built on destruction
A whistle blows and another train rumbles through White Rock, headed toward the Roberts Bank coal export dock. This one is carrying thermal coal from Montana, bound for a massive power plant, perhaps in Korea. As the train rolls through Delta, black clouds of coal dust billow from the open rail cars, irritating asthmatics and coating farmers’ crops. . .
Dangerous actors — corporate and political
Progressive punishment is not enough to regulate behaviour when an offender has extraordinary wealth. To a corporation like Teck Resources Ltd. — market capitalization $29 billion — inconsequential fines are minor costs of doing business. A $1 million penalty imposed on Teck corresponds to a fine of $11 levied on a household holding Canada’s median net worth, reported at $329,900 by Statistics Canada in 2019.
Protect nature, or face human extinction
It seems like a no-brainer that in protecting nature, we are protecting ourselves and working to ensure human survival. Yet the ruling classes believe they can insulate themselves from consequences of environmental destruction and ruling politicians are unwilling to slow or end the pursuit of wealth. So far, powerful forces refuse to acknowledge seriously the existential risks facing our physical world.
Things that make u go HMMM!
The BC Government promised transformative change to Indigenous people. What First Nations are getting is transformative change to traditional territories altered for hydropower, coal, oil and gas.
Corporate pollution and destruction licensed by government
In May 2016, British Columbia’s Auditor General Carol Bellringer released An Audit of Compliance and Enforcement of the Mining Sector. It was a scathing but underreported report quickly forgotten by mainstream media.
Fossil fuel dangers are even worse than we knew
Consumption of fossil fuels may be even more dangerous to humans than COVID-19. According to researchers from Harvard and three British universities, over eight million people died in 2018 from fossil fuel pollution. They estimate exposures to particulate matter from fossil fuel emissions accounted for 18 percent of total global deaths, which is almost one out of five…
Good choices – bad choices
Faced with energy market disruption, the European Union is proceeding with REPowerEU, a plan for conservation and production of clean energy. The EU knows that conservation is the cheapest, safest and cleanest option. It can reduce individual energy costs and add resilience to the economy. The same is true in North America. The European Union is putting into action what John Horgan’s NDP promised until elected in 2017,
Obligations to future generations
The Supreme Court ruled that cumulative effects from decades of industrial development on lands of northeast BC infringed treaty rights of Blueberry River First Nations. I suggest that cumulative effects from decades of industrialization and commercialization on lands of southwest BC infringe on the implicit rights of future generations.
Canada’s derelict branch of government
In ten years, seven different cabinet ministers have led Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). The department has been a dumping ground or holding area for out-of-favour or inept politicians. Little wonder the […]
Disheartening news
Down To Earth, a weekly newsletter from The Guardian, provided information that should distress every person hoping the climate crisis can be improved, or even moderated…
Existential topics
English journalist George Monbiot published a Twitter thread on January 28 that resonates powerfully with me. The contents are reproduced…
Inaccurate carbon accounting
Calling bioenergy “carbon-neutral” suggests that emissions are instantaneously offset, when in reality it can take trees decades to absorb all the carbon emitted by burning wood, say critics…
Unprepared, ill-equipped
Despite massive disruption to the entire province, John Horgan’s government has made no change to its policies of promoting fossil fuels with lax regulation and multi-billion dollar industry supports. It continues to employ climate change deniers in senior positions. British Columbia remains North America’s leading coal exporter. The BC NDP has admitted no failures in its current strategies. Instead of substantive policy changes to protect the ecosystem. It seems to believe the only actions needed are saturation advertising campaigns that play fast and loose with the truth.
Organized irresponsibility
For decades, flood risk studies have accumulated on shelves in Victoria. One government after another failed to prioritize actions recommended by experts. Politicians and senior bureaucrats rated other expenditures as more important. Like the $16+ billion dam project on the Peace River, like the $13 billion rewards (present day value) given to benefit fossil fuel producers since 2007, or the $10+ billion above market value paid to private power producers by BC Hydro…
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