Tag Archive for: climate change

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Bearing the Burden (Season 2, Ep. 5)

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Mission Transition: Clean Energy and Beyond

A podcast from Sierra Club BC

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Over the past few decades, oil and gas companies have fueled and financed the pumping of billions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. They’ve cashed in, but who bears the cost now? Who’s responsible when thousands lose their homes to climate change fueled fires and floods? Who pays when crops fail in droughts? Who’s on the hook when house values plummet in hurricane zones? We’re being told it’s up to us as individuals to be responsible for the shift to a climate-friendly world, but is this really fair?

In this episode, we explore who bears the burden of responsibility for this transition. 

To find out, we speak with Catherine Gauthier of ENvironnement JEUnesse about their class action lawsuit against Canada over climate inaction. We hear from the Mayor of Victoria, Lisa Helps, about the burden on municipalities. And we talk to Anjali Appadurai formerly of West Coast Environmental Law about who’s really responsible, and how personal guilt is not going to help move us forward.

Find links for more information on the initiatives mentioned in this episode below.

Podcast Episode 5 interviewees

L-R: Anjali Appadurai with Sue Elrington, Lisa Helps and Catherine Gauthier.

Learn More

ENvironnement JEUnesse lawsuit against the Canadian government on behalf of young people and a safe climate

Oregon and California crabbers sue fossil fuel companies

More on lawsuits against oil and gas companies from West Coast Environmental Law

Accountability letter a ‘fair’ way to share cost of climate impacts, Victoria mayor asserts

Kim Kardashian’s private firefighters expose America’s fault lines

Wealthy’s use of private firefighters ignites debate in wildfire country

How federal disaster money favors the rich

Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps

VIDEO – Anjali Appadurai on feeling guilty About climate change, from West Coast Environmental Law

EVENT: Green New Deal Town Hall – Lekwungen Territories/Victoria

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Thursday May 23

6:30pm – 9:00pm

Fernwood Community Centre Gym (1240 Gladstone Avenue)

Lekwungen Territory (Victoria)

Join us for a town hall on the Green New Deal at the Fernwood Community Centre gym.

The Green New Deal is a bold vision for tackling climate change and inequality at the same time. That means totally re-organizing our economy to run on 100% renewable energy, creating millions of jobs, respecting the rights, title, and sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples, and enshrining dignity, justice, and equity for all.

The week of May 20 there will be town halls across the country to crowdsource ideas for what a Canadian Green New Deal could actually look like. We have the opportunity to define what it means for our community here in Victoria. We can lobby for massive government investment but we can also start changing the economy ourselves.

We invite people from all walks of life and all movements — Indigenous communities, anti-racist activists, the labour movement, faith groups, anti-povery activists, environmentalists, and everyday people — to come to the town hall and shape this vision. Bring your friends and neighbours.

RSVP on Facebook

Co-hosted by: Rise and Resist, Social Environmental Alliance – SEA, and Sierra Club BC

Featured Image: Rise and Resist

EVENT: Forests + Climate Change: Townhall Meeting & Community Dialogue

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Friday May 10

6:30pm – 9:00pm

Native Sons Hall (360 Cliffe Avenue)

K’ómoks Territory (Courtenay)

Please join Sierra Club BC, the Wilderness Committee and local Comox Valley activists for an evening of presentations on the climate crisis, the state of old-growth and second-growth forests on Vancouver Island and how these two relate to each other, followed by group discussions about how we can build a just and sustainable future in the Valley and across the Island!

Climate change and decades of mismanagement of forests in and around the Comox Valley are and will continue to be major challenges into the future. How can we build interest in meaningful change on both these interconnected issues simultaneously, and with the speed required? How can we do this in a way that benefits everyone and respects the sovereignty of the First Nations in whose territories we live?

These are the questions we want to dive into.

All perspectives are welcome, and we want to issue a challenge that everyone interested taking part in this conversation: try to bring one other person who may not otherwise attend an event like this!

The Wilderness Committee and Sierra Club BC will be on the road during the first two weeks of May, documenting old-growth forests and logging, meeting with First Nations, local governments and communities up and down Vancouver Island.

The meeting will be held in the Lodge Rooms in the lower level of the Native Sons Hall in downtown Courtenay.

RSVP on Facebook

**This event is being organized on the unceded territory of the K’ómoks First Nation.

 

Feature image: Andrew S. Wright

Billions in subsidies to LNG Canada undermine B.C.’s ability to meet climate targets

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

March 25, 2019

Legislation introduced today by the B.C. government confirms multi-billion dollar giveaways to foreign multinationals that make it impossible to meet meaningful climate targets, said Sierra Club BC today.

“Why is our government spending billions to subsidize fossil fuel corporations when the resulting extreme weather will put B.C. communities at risk of increasing wildfires and drought, and rob our young people of a livable future?” asked Sierra Club BC’s campaigns director Caitlyn Vernon. “We have just eleven years to limit climate pollution and defend our life support systems, yet instead of doubling down on the energy efficiency retrofits and public transportation infrastructure needed to fulfill the important CleanBC program, this government is throwing fuel on the flames of the climate crisis.”

The B.C. government’s legislation helps enable more than $5 billion in subsidies to the foreign-owned LNG Canada conglomerate. These include subsidized electricity rates, exemption from PST during construction, elimination of the LNG income tax, and a future tax credit once production begins.

“This massive giveaway can’t be squared with the provincial government’s commitment to reducing climate pollution,” said Vernon. “It’s like digging a hole and trying to fill it at the same time. There is nothing ‘clean’ about fracked gas, and we could be creating more jobs and security for our communities by investing in green renewable energy instead.”

The world remains on a path to more than 3°C of warming, which would be catastrophic. Severe climate impacts are becoming an increasing fact of life in B.C., from record breaking wildfire seasons to droughts and flooding. In March of this year, temperature records were broken across the province, and Vancouver Island is experiencing low water levels more typical of those usually recorded in August.

B.C.’s carbon pollution has continued to rise, increasing 1.5 per cent in 2016, according to figures quietly released by the Province in December.

The CleanBC strategy, announced last fall, is a plan to get to 75% of B.C.’s current climate pollution targets. As such, it is a major step forward in the race to combat the climate crisis and secure a better future for British Columbians, although it will not reduce carbon pollution as much or as fast as the climate science tells us is needed.

“B.C. communities need to be given the tools to adapt to increasing extreme weather events, secure in the knowledge their governments are doing everything in their power to reduce climate threats,” said Vernon. “We need clear-eyed, practical policies to build resilience and hope for a livable future, not obscene giveaways to fossil fuel multinationals that are making things worse.”

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Contact:

Caitlyn Vernon

Campaigns Director

Sierra Club BC

250.896.3500

caitlyn@sierraclub.bc.ca

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