TheTyee.ca – Olduvai.ca

WATCH: The noted journo delivered a talk on what we’re up against, and what we need to do. Warning: His prescription is bracing.

WATCH: Andrew Nikiforuk’s Southam Lecture. Some attendees wondered where he finds hope. His answer: Hope is using every initiative ‘to restore the possibility of people making their own decisions.’

[Editor’s note: On Nov. 17, Andrew Nikiforuk, the highly awarded journalist, author and Tyee contributing editor gave the Southam Lecture at the University of Victoria. Over 1,000 people attended in person or online. You can view the recorded video above. Below, a bonus from Nikiforuk. He addresses questions some members of the audience sent his way.]

Two weeks ago, I gave a talk at the University of Victoria arguing that our morally bankrupt civilization is chasing dead ends when it comes to climate change and energy spending.

I argued that by focusing on emissions, we have failed to acknowledge economic and population growth as the primary driver of those emissions along with the unrestrained consumption of natural systems that support all life.

I added that people plus affluence plus technology make a deadly algorithm that is now paving our road to collective ruin.

As Ronald Wright noted in his book A Short History of Progress, civilization is a pyramid scheme that depends on cancerous rates of growth.

I also explained that many so-called green technologies including renewables, hydrogen and carbon capture and storage are not big solutions. Because they require rare earth minerals and fossil fuels for their production and maintenance, these technologies shift problems around.

In addition these green technologies cannot be scaled up in time to cut emissions or require too much energy to make any difference at all.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

On Fossil Fuel Subsidies, the Facts Matter

December 5, 2021

On Fossil Fuel Subsidies, the Facts Matter

The BC Green leader responds to the energy minister’s Tyee op-ed on provincial subsidies.

LNG Canada’s marine terminal under construction. Photo via LNG Canada.

In his Tyee op-ed on Monday titled “Let’s Talk Fossil Fuel Subsidies in BC,” Bruce Ralston, the provincial minister for energy, mines and low-carbon innovation, tried to distract from his government’s continued support for fossil fuel extraction.

In particular, he raised an issue over the numbers in a report from Stand.earth, which he says lumped together the fossil fuel industry’s exemptions with exemptions that regular British Columbians get on hydroelectricity.

He then used this to create a straw man argument about the BC Greens, suggesting that because we cited the Stand.earth report, we therefore consider PST exemptions for residential users a fossil fuel subsidy. This is, to say the least, a stretch.

In the appendix attached to Ralston’s article, it is pointed out by Stand.earth that “Note: does not provide a delineation between different fuel sources.” And so yes, some portion of those figures included PST exemptions for residential users of hydro power, and some included PST exemptions for residential users of natural gas. Because the government does not provide disaggregated data that shows how much goes to each, neither Stand.earth nor the public knows what the exact breakdown is.

Should those figures have been lumped in with the hundreds of millions of dollars that the provincial government gives away each year in fossil fuel subsidies? No, the PST exemption British Columbians enjoy on their hydro bill is not a fossil fuel subsidy.

But this does not change the fact that the BC NDP government is subsidizing the fossil fuel industry and has increased them beyond what the BC Liberals gave…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

When Surging Floods Meet Expanding Pipelines

November 23, 2021

When Surging Floods Meet Expanding Pipelines

The impact of last week’s deluge sends a sobering message, say engineers and activists.

Construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline near Hope, BC, in October. The pipeline is currently shut down due to massive floods and landslides that hit the province last week. Photo by Jonathan Hayward, the Canadian Press.

Romilly Cavanaugh stood at the edge of the Coquihalla River north of Hope, watching big trees snap off the bank like blades of grass in a lawn mower. Some of those not swept away held dead fish in their branches three metres off the ground — a reminder of what came before.

Cavanaugh and her fellow engineers had been sent into the chaos for a sole purpose: to watch the Trans Mountain pipeline through the flood of 1995.

Over that week they held vigil in torrential rain because the pipe, usually buried in a thick blanket of soil and rock, was bare and moving up and down in the river “like a piece of cooked spaghetti.”

That was new to her. “You don’t expect metal structures to be moving.”

On the other side of the river was a less visible danger. Enbridge’s Westcoast gas pipeline also had escaped its casing, leaving it at the mercy of rushing water.

Cavanaugh left her job at the company decades ago and now works as an independent environmental engineer. But such memories worry her. “I’ve been watching the news for the last couple days, just praying that we don’t see an oil spill on top of everything else we’ve already seen.”

“It was chaos. And it’s even worse now.”

After massive floods and landslides hit the province this week, the Trans Mountain and one of three Enbridge pipelines are shut down, although oil and gas continue to sit in the pipes.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Returning to a 1970s Economy Could Save Our Future

November 4, 2021

Returning to a 1970s Economy Could Save Our Future

We’d contract energy use by half. Shrinking consumption is the solution we can actually live with. Second of two.

A society that consumes less energy and stuff could rehumanize society and heal the biosphere.

[Editor’s note: Read part one of this two-parter here.]

Thanks to bright green technologies, we can continuously grow the level of consumption on planet Earth and deliver a bloated North American lifestyle to all without inviting climate catastrophe or a general breakdown of natural ecosystems that support all living things.

That’s the big bold lie that politicians are telling themselves this week at yet another climate conference. Greta Thunberg calls such dissembling just so much “blah, blah, blah.”

As I’ll share in this piece, a number of brilliant energy critics from Vaclav Smil to William Rees have done the figuring, acknowledged the physical limits of things, and told us the truth. A truth that is not as uncomfortable as you might think.

It is this. We must contract the global economy, restructure technological society and restore what’s left of natural ecosystems if we want to live and breathe.

The appeal of the “tech will save us” charade crosses ideological lines. No sacrifice is necessary; no wisdom is required; no change is necessary. Both Green New Dealers and the Business-as-Usual Crowd believe a variety of so-called green technologies forged by the burning of more fossil fuels will save the day and postpone what is already happening: a great unsettling.

These green illusions, as I explained yesterday, represent the worst kind of falsehood. Many of these techno fixes, such as direct air capture, are largely unproven, don’t scale up or will invite bankruptcy.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tech Won’t Save Us. Shrinking Consumption Will

November 4, 2021

Tech Won’t Save Us. Shrinking Consumption Will

Beyond the ‘blah blah blah’ of climate summits lies the real solution our leaders refuse to acknowledge. First of two parts.

Oversold: Forget carbon storage, direct air capture, hydrogen power and the Earth relentlessly mined to support ‘green tech.’ Image from Shutterstock.

Since 1995 there have been 25 global conferences on climate change. At every one our so-called political leaders have kicked the can down the road and sung from a bright green hymnbook.

Greta Thunberg has disparaged the refrain as nothing more than “blah, blah, blah.”

She is right of course. Blah, blah blah has kept emissions rising, along with energy spending and its twin sibling unbridled economic growth.

Blah, blah blah has become the standard substitute for the conversation that needs to occur at global conferences and in every public venue: how to shrink the economy and beat a sustainable retreat?

And how do we do that without unhinging a highly complex society that is already teetering on the verge of collapse due to overconsumption of everything?

The notion of shrinking the economy isn’t as medieval as you might think, given the enormous waste of our high-tech and high energy civilization. The existing system contains so much slack and fat that we could easily reduce our energy spending to levels common in the 1960s and 1970s. That wasn’t exactly the Dark Ages. (More on why this is possible, what stands in the way, and how to get there, in a second piece tomorrow.)

Of course such a conversation is considered impossible by our leaders who are ruled by the mantra of growth and short-term election hurdles.

So in Canada, the world’s fourth largest oil exporting nation, the blah blah blah refrain gets louder by the day. We want our emissions and our green cake, too.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

BC’s Faltering Effort to Manage Water Use Brings a Looming Crisis

August 3, 2021

BC’s Faltering Effort to Manage Water Use Brings a Looming Crisis

Thousands of groundwater users could be cut off in March as they fail to apply for water licences. Critics blame government inaction.

Farms across BC rely on well water for irrigation. If they don’t register by March 1, the supply could be cut off. Photo by Brad Smith, Creative Commons license CC BY-NC 2.0.

The way it looks to David Slade, a water-well driller with 50 years of experience, some 15,000 British Columbia groundwater users are going to become criminals overnight next March.

“That certainly seems to be the trajectory we’re on now,” said Slade, who is based on Vancouver Island and is a past president of the B.C. Groundwater Association.

Existing users of groundwater — generally from wells or dugouts — for agriculture, industry or business have until March 1 to get licences. So far, fewer than one-quarter of the affected water users have applied. People using well water for household use are exempt from the requirement but are encouraged to register their wells to help government manage the resource.

“I don’t know if it’s willful ignorance, or just people are ignoring it in hopes it will go away,” Slade said.

Former civil servants and others with knowledge of the situation are warning that few people are aware there is a crunch coming that could have severe consequences for water users, food security and the wider economy.

Even people like Slade who believe the change is badly needed say the government has bungled its implementation.

“I think there’s a lot of frustration all around, and it’s because the government, in my mind, hasn’t taken this file seriously,” said Slade. “It’s a big story but it hasn’t gotten much traction. It’s going to be a big story.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

BC’s Methane Emissions Are Double What Government Thought: Study

July 16, 2021

BC’s Methane Emissions Are Double What Government Thought: Study

The province’s own research has found flaws in how natural gas was detected and measured.

Premier John Horgan in Kitimat announcing LNG Canada’s $40 billion investment in 2018. At the time, BC said fracked gas fit its climate action goals, but a new study doubles emissions estimates. Photo: BC government Flickr.

Methane emissions from natural gas fracking in B.C. are about double what the government has assumed, according to a recent study initiated by the province and the BC Oil and Gas Commission.

The discrepancy comes from the method used to detect emissions, say the report’s authors. While the government and industry-led emissions studies typically gas imaging cameras to detect methane, the paper echoes a growing body of research challenging the method.

“Recent studies have shown that [optical gas imaging] cameras may not be as effective as originally thought,” wrote the study’s authors.

In the first public study of its kind, researchers used aerial methane measurements — captured by flying over fracking sites and production facilities — to get a clearer picture of their climate impacts. They found significantly higher emissions from sites like production tanks, compressors and unlit gas flares than those being reported.

“This is rigorous research that the government and industry can’t deny because they’ve been involved in it,” said Tom Green, climate solutions policy analyst at the David Suzuki Foundation. “So now we have a much better handle on what those emissions are, and how that’s a problem.”

The research was supported by the BC Oil and Gas Methane Emissions Research Collaborative, a joint collaboration between industry, government non-profits and the Oil and Gas Commission, to support B.C.’s emission targets.

The findings have consequences for the climate — particularly given B.C.’s plan to more than triple its fracking activity by 2040 if the LNG Canada project comes online.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Speaking for the Old Growth

July 12, 2021

Speaking for the Old Growth

Famed tree botanist Diana Beresford-Kroeger has a tough message for BC Premier John Horgan.

‘These giants of the universe with their unique DNA represent a living library of medicine for the citizens of the world,’ says biochemist Diana Beresford-Kroeger. Photo for The Tyee by Colin Rowe.

The world recognized tree botanist, biochemist and bestselling author Diana Beresford-Kroeger is angry.

“I’m furious actually,” she says over the phone from her home in Merrickville, Ontario.

“In this day and age I am furious that they are logging the last old-growth forests during a pandemic. It is sneaky.”

She squarely directs the bulk of her considerable wrath against the British Columbia government of Premier John Horgan.

“The whole idea of a democracy is to look after the whole,” she says.

And she thinks that fine idea has been undermined by Horgan’s commitment to the industrial logging of the province’s last remaining giant trees.

And all to take advantage of rising prices during a pandemic.

“It is so underhanded. It’s like watching a plumber perform brain surgery,” she adds with a ladle of Irish wrath.

“The liquidation of B.C.’s ancient forests and their rare genetic richness, represents a direct assault on Indigenous people and their ability to survive,” she argues. “It is a form of mass murder.”

Beresford-Kroeger knows a thing or two about colonialism. Orphaned at an early age, she just barely escaped the clutches of Ireland’s dreaded Magdalene Laundries, brutal residential schools for orphans, unwed mothers and prostitutes.

Raised by traditional Celts in the old ways and Brehon Laws, she learned how England’s colonialism systematically robbed the Irish of their language, customs and, yes, their once great forests.

Ireland once had magnificent forests but the patriarchs of the British Empire played a powerful role in their destruction, all for money.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Canada Spent $23 Billion to Support Pipelines in Just Three Years

July 8, 2021

Canada Spent $23 Billion to Support Pipelines in Just Three Years

Taxpayers should understand the financial and climate risks of the big commitment, says an independent report.

Governments’ financial support for pipelines is financially and environmentally risky, says a report. Photo from Trans Mountain.

Canadian pipelines have received over $23 billion in support from federal and provincial governments over the past three years, according to a new report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

The independent think tank crunched the numbers in a report that looked at the scope of government support for oil and gas pipelines.

The report looks at a broader definition of government support than just subsidies. Government support includes “any way that the federal or provincial governments promote fossil fuel production in a way that has to do with public money,” Corkal says.

Subsidies, on the other hand, are legally defined by the World Trade Organization as a beneficial financial contribution from a government.

Author Vanessa Corkal, policy advisor for Canada Energy Transitions at the institute, says it’s impossible to calculate the exact amount of pipeline subsidies because of a lack of government transparency.

“We thought it was important to highlight the high level of support the Canadian and Albertan government put towards this area,” Corkal says.

It’s important Canadians understand the financial risk governments have made by investing in pipelines, which may never get finished or never pay off, Corkal says.

But the report was also released one week after British Columbia experienced a devastating heat wave, which is likely linked to climate change and therefore the fossil fuel industry, she says.

Canadians need to consider “whether or not these investments are putting us on the path to deal with climate change at the scale and the pace that we need. And the pace we need has really been made clear this past week,” she says.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Future of Fire in Canada

July 5, 2021

The Future of Fire in Canada

We’re on the brink of a ‘runaway fire age.’ Here’s why. And how to respond.

A motorist watches from the Trans-Canada Highway as a wildfire sweeps down a mountain near Lytton, BC, destroying the town on July 1. Photo by Darryl Dyck, the Canadian Press.

Five days after wildfire destroyed the town of Lytton in British Columbia killing two people and injuring several others, officials were still trying to account for some residents who were missing. No one apparently saw the fire coming. When they saw smoke, according to Mayor Jan Polderman, it took all of 15 minutes before the whole town was ablaze.

This was the third time in five years during Premier John Horgan’s time on the job in which catastrophic fires have taken their toll. “I cannot stress enough how extreme the fire risk is at this time in every part of British Columbia,” he said the day after the evacuation. “This is not how we usually roll in a temperate rainforest.”

Lytton is actually located in the drier, fire-prone montane forest which dominates most of the interior of B.C. Contrary to what Horgan said, this is exactly how things have been rolling since at least 2003 when more than 45,000 people were evacuated from Kelowna and Kamloops as fires tore through thick stands of forests filled with ponderosa and lodgepole pine, Douglas fir and Sitka spruce, trees that need to burn because heat from a fire is the most effective way of opening up enough cones to release the seeds they hold.

Hotter hells

The year 2003 was notable not for the amount of forest that was consumed, but for the number of people in the West who were in harm’s way…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

BC’s Utilities Commission Blocks Climate Goals, Say Enviro Groups

June 28, 2021

BC’s Utilities Commission Blocks Climate Goals, Say Enviro Groups

The regulator of BC Hydro needs a new ‘energy justice’ mandate, province told.

Environment and Climate Change Strategy Minister George Heyman received a letter from seven organizations focused on energy, equity and the climate crisis urging a reset for BC’s utilities regulator, which they call a ‘barrier’ to needed change. Photo: BC government Flickr.

Advocacy groups are encouraging the British Columbia government to overhaul the commission that regulates BC Hydro and other utilities so that it can better support a transition to cleaner energy and other provincial goals.

With processes coming early next year that will determine energy policy for years into the future, widening the B.C. Utilities Commission’s mandate needs to happen soon, the seven groups say.

“The BCUC now makes its decisions in largely the same way it has since its inception,” said Dylan Heerema, the policy and research lead on community energy for one of the groups, Ecotrust Canada. “It tries to keep rates as low as possible and tries to maximize the economic efficiency of the utilities’ operations across all of the ratepayers.”

That mandate made sense 50 years ago amid concerns that utilities would take advantage of their monopolies to make rates unfairly high, he said, but now that economic lens has become a “significant barrier” to needed change.

Ecotrust and the other groups sent a June 17 letter to B.C. Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation Minister Bruce Ralston and Environment and Climate Change Strategy Minister George Heyman. In it they argued changes need to be made before 2022 when the BCUC will consider BC Hydro’s Integrated Resource Plan as well as the utility’s Rate Design Application.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

BC Looks like an LNG Loser: Report

June 24, 2021

BC Looks like an LNG Loser: Report

Prospects have been battered by global competition, volatility, delays and cost overruns.

Facing a world of challenges: Artist’s rendition of the sole LNG project under construction in BC, the LNG Canada terminal in Kitimat. Image via Fluor.

Once touted as an economic powerhouse, the liquified natural gas industry is on the rocks, according to a worldwide survey of LNG terminals from the Global Energy Monitor, a non-profit research group responding to climate change.

LNG terminals are among the largest capital projects attempted in modern industry, costing up to $30 billion per project. Gas is extracted from underground deposits, piped to LNG plants where it is compressed by cooling to liquid form, loaded onto ships and transported to other markets.

“The sheer size of the projects has exposed investors to catastrophic losses,” said Lydia Plante, lead author of the just-released report.

The survey found that planned projects representing 38 per cent of global export capacity are facing delayed final investment decisions and other serious hold-ups. Cost overruns are common.

Canadian LNG is particularly bad off, Ted Nace, executive director of the Global Energy Monitor, told The Tyee. “The problem with the Canadian LNG expansion is that it’s especially vulnerable because Canada is a high-cost producer on a world basis.”

That’s because Canada plans to produce its LNG from fracking — an energy and capital-intensive process to access gas hidden deep inside shale rock.

Canadian LNG comes up short on the global market, said Nace, particularly when it competes against countries where conventional gas sources make LNG cheaper to produce.

And global competition is only getting fiercer. Qatar and Russia, for example, have vast supplies of cheap natural gas. “These super low cost producers,” said Nace, “are not giving up market share without a fight.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

BC’s Axed Climate Action Fund Worries Municipalities

June 18, 2021

BC’s Axed Climate Action Fund Worries Municipalities

Government promises replacement for program that helped towns and cities reduce emissions.

Municipalities used funds from the climate program for everything from bike lanes to planting trees to electric vehicle charging stations. Photo by Paul Krueger, Creative Commons licensed.

After abruptly cancelling a program that helped local governments fund projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, B.C. Municipal Affairs Minister Josie Osborne says she’s committed to working collaboratively with them on a replacement.

“We’re here to listen,” she said this week. “I certainly hear from local governments on my monthly calls and am hearing from local governments about those ambitious climate action goals that they have. We’ll be working with them to develop a new program and I’m really looking forward to that.”

In mid-May Osborne’s ministry let local governments know it was cancelling the $8.4-million-a-year Climate Action Revenue Incentive Program that had been in place since 2010.

Under the program, originally intended as an incentive to join the province’s climate action charter, the province returns the money that local governments pay in carbon taxes to be invested in climate action.

Municipalities have used the funding for a wide variety of projects such as restoring habitat, planting trees, conserving water, adding cycling infrastructure, starting composting programs, adding electric vehicle charging stations and installing energy-efficient lighting and heating. In 2018, the program funded 2,723 projects around the province.

Brian Frenkel, the president of the Union of BC Municipalities and a Vanderhoof city councillor, initially said UBCM members were “puzzled” by the province unilaterally cancelling the program without consulting them.

“The UBCM Executive has received an outpouring of responses from our membership since Ministry staff informed local governments this would be the final year for CARIP,” Frenkel later wrote in a May 28 letter to Osborne.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Vancouver Council Votes Against Delay for Climate Emergency Plan

June 13, 2021

Vancouver Council Votes Against Delay for Climate Emergency Plan

City bylaw will require new homes built after Jan. 1 to use zero-emissions heat and hot water systems, effectively banning natural gas hookups.

‘What’s clear to me after years of doing climate work is that climate delay is the same as climate denial,’ said Coun. Christine Boyle of the vote. Photo by Ervins Strauhmanis, Creative Commons license CC BY 2.0.

New homes in Vancouver will be built with zero-emissions heating and hot water systems starting Jan. 1 following a city council vote this week.

Council was considering delaying the zero-emissions requirement by one year to give the heating and plumbing industry additional time to adapt to the new bylaw, which was introduced in 2019.

Council voted 6–4 to stick to the original timeline outlined in Vancouver’s Climate Emergency Action Plan. OneCity’s Christine Boyle, independent Mayor Kennedy Stewart, COPE Coun. Jean Swanson and Green councillors Adriane Carr, Pete Fry and Michael Wiebe voted to keep the original timeline.

Independents Rebecca Bligh, Lisa Dominato, Colleen Hardwick and Sarah Kirby-Yung voted for a one-year deferral. NPA Coun. Melissa De Genova abstained.

“I’m really pleased and relieved about it,” says Boyle. “What’s clear to me after years of doing climate work is that climate delay is the same as climate denial. We’ve been losing slowly for too long, and we don’t have enough time to continue to take that approach.”

Boyle was an outspoken opponent of the one-year delay. Earlier in the week she told The Tyee a delay would punish businesses that had invested in Vancouver’s low-carbon transition and signal to the fossil fuel industry that the city was willing to cave on its climate goals “with a tiny bit of pressure.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

‘Monumental Steps’ on Protecting Old Growth Says Horgan. Critics Aren’t Convinced

June 10, 2021

‘Monumental Steps’ on Protecting Old Growth Says Horgan. Critics Aren’t Convinced

BC defers logging of southern Vancouver Island old growth after months of protests and blockades.

Premier John Horgan announced a pause in old-growth logging on southern Vancouver Island Wednesday. Photo: BC government.

The British Columbia cabinet has agreed to defer the logging of 2,000 hectares of old-growth forest in the Fairy Creek watershed and the Central Walbran Valley, Premier John Horgan announced Wednesday.

The two-year deferrals fulfil a request made by the Pacheedaht, Ditidaht and Huu-ay-aht First Nations, but are unlikely to satisfy people who have been blocking logging activity in the area between Port Renfrew and Lake Cowichan on southern Vancouver Island.

“These are monumental steps,” Horgan said. “I know it appears at the moment to be just another announcement by another premier, but these announcements are transformative for an industry that has been foundational to British Columbia’s success and will be foundational to our future success, but it has to be done in a different way.”

The deferral areas shown on maps the government released include 884 hectares of old-growth forest in the Fairy Creek watershed and 1,150 hectares in the Walbran. Logging is also deferred in a few hundred hectares of second-growth forests in the two areas.

The deferrals include a stop to new road building in some areas.

“We welcome the decision by the Government of British Columbia to approve the request made by our three Nations to defer old-growth harvesting in the Central Walbran and Fairy Creek watersheds for a period of two years,” said a statement from the Pacheedaht, Ditidaht and Huu-ay-aht First Nations.

“We will work with the Government of British Columbia and the licensees to monitor all forestry activity outside of the deferral areas to ensure that continuing forest activity does not impact the old-growth timber within the Central Walbran and Fairy Creek protected areas.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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