Capturing fog

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Not everything is doom and gloom at IN-SIGHTS. A story from The New Yorker’s Brave New World Department is about Pavels Hedström, a Swedish architect based in Denmark. In architecture school, Hedström was drawn to Japanese principles of design and how they applied to a world—and a profession—increasingly troubled by the climate crisis. Hedström believes that design often separates people from nature. His Fog-X is a design that aims to strengthen the human connection to nature by offering help to communities affected by the scarcity of safe drinking water…

Don’t axe the tax; fix the tax

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In theory, governments use carbon taxes to shift the costs of climate degradation from the public to those responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. However, contaminators can avoid paying carbon tax. Many economists say carbon pricing is critical to scaling up climate action, so it should be effectively applied. There can be serious flaws in how carbon taxes are imposed, and how the revenue is disbursed…

Financialization of housing

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New analysis from Popular Democracy and the Institute for Policy Studies reveals how billionaire investors have become a major driver of the nationwide housing crisis – and several common-sense measures to help expand permanently and deeply affordable housing stock…

Post election comments

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The NDP holds one more seat in the Legislature than the BC Conservatives. David Eby will continue as Premier by depending on support from Rob Botterall and Jeremy Valeriote, two elected Green Party members. With all ballot boxes counted, material change is unlikely when the final count is released on October 26. John Rustad’s right-wing coalition will form the Official Opposition but it is an unstable group. Newly elected centre-right Conservatives are wary of far-right radicals and will fight them for control of the party.

Greenpeace message

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By exploiting coal, oil and gas, fossil fuel companies are inflaming extreme weather, making climate disasters more frequent and more severe–from hotter heatwaves to more destructive wildfires and unsafe air quality. Greenpeace asks people to support their call for making fossil fuel companies pay into a Climate Recovery Fund because of the climate disasters they’re fuelling.

BC Conservatives tolerate bigotry

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South Surrey Conservative candidate Brent Chapman was revealed to have called Palestinian children “inbred, walking, talking, breathing time bombs.” Additionally, he agreed with a podcast host from the fringe that what happened at residential schools was a “massive fraud.” Chapman joked about Indigenous kids dying after they’d been forced to leave their family homes. Rustad refused to eliminate Chapman or other Conservative candidates with records of bigotry. He said, “People sometimes make mistakes.”

An important week in British Columbia

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Right-wing coalitions friendly to big business ruled this province for 52 of the last 72 years. Led by a man removed in 2022 from the Official Opposition caucus for denying established climate science, Conservatives have absorbed BC United, successor to the misnamed BC Liberal Party. After next Saturday, a new government will be formed by the centrist free-enterprise NDP, or the Conservatives, a party that welcomes far-right radicals, fascists, and bigots.

The forever war against regulation

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John Rustad and Kevin Falcon talk about red tape reduction, but the real goal is deregulation, something demanded by their business sponsors. But regulations are vital tools for improving our day-to-day lives. These promote trust, predictability, and stability. Regulations exist to protect consumers from unsafe products and unfair business practices such as collusion and price-fixing. They exist to protect public health and safety and the environment…

Dangerous methane emissions are rising faster than ever

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Canada is one of 155 nations that signed the Global Methane Pledge. GMP promises to reduce methane (CH4) emissions by 30% from 2020 levels by 2030. Despite the commitments, atmospheric concentration of the greenhouse gas is increasing faster now than at any time since the 1980s. Methane emissions result primarily from fossil fuel production, agriculture, waste management, and other human activities, including flooding of hydropower reservoirs like the one behind BC’s Site C dam.