Tag Archive for: climate change

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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

Standing Up for the Sooke Hills—again

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Galen Armstrong speaking at CRD Parks and Environment Committee

By Galen Armstrong, Lead Organizer

March 2019

Last week, I was proud to stand alongside Sierra Club BC supporters and volunteers, representatives from other organizations, and community members in speaking up for protection of the Sooke Hills Regional Wilderness Park.

A couple of weeks earlier, news started to spread that the BC government was planning to announce a feasibility study on (get this!) punching a road through the Sooke Hills as an alternative to the Malahat section of highway. Negative reaction to this plan was strong and swift.

Sierra Club BC received numerous emails of concern from our members, and we knew this was something we would not stay silent on.

That’s why I attended the Capital Regional District (CRD) Park and Environment Committee’s meeting and spoke along with more than thirty others—all against the Province’s anticipated proposal.

Grey wolf in the Sooke Hills. Photo by Gary Schroyen.

In our fifty years as an organization, Sierra Club BC’s members and supporters have fought many fights, all across the province, to protect fragile ecosystems and irreplaceable places. The Sooke Hills is one of those places. In the 1990s, our members were among the many voices calling for protection of this local treasure.

The value of the place was easily understood, and it was protected under the management of the CRD.

Now that we find ourselves in the position of fighting again for protection of the Sooke Hills, it provides us, as individuals, communities, and as a province, a chance to remember why this place matters.

The Sooke Hills is valuable for a myriad of reasons. Its forest acts as a buffer for the watershed that provides drinking water for Greater Victoria. That alone is enough, and should be enough for the Province to understand.

This threat also comes in the era of climate change. We have no time to waste, and we must move quickly on climate solutions such as improved public transportation. Building a road through the Sooke Hills should not be on the table, and certainly not before far more reasonable solutions are attempted; for example, bringing back train service, creating a dedicated bus lane, and reducing the cost of taking public transit on this route.

Black bear sow with 7 month old cubs in the Sooke Hills. Photo by Gary Schroyen.

The CRD Parks and Environment Committee meeting last week provided a wonderful opportunity to remember why we haven’t – and mustn’t – build a road through the Sooke Hills. We heard articulate arguments from Wilderness Committee campaigner Torrance Coste, longtime activist Vicky Husband, young climate activist Antonia Paquin, and many more.

We heard about climate change, forest fires, freshwater and protection of ecosystems for wildlife such as the endangered marbled murrelet.

One person we did not hear from at this meeting was wildlife photographer Gary Schroyen. Instead, meeting attendees and committee members sat in rapt silence as Gary used his four minutes to show breathtaking photos of bears, elk, cougars and more, taken in and around the Sooke Hills protected area.

The only sounds in the room were the occasional gasp or “wow” as the photos showcased wildlife that most of us are rarely if ever able to see—wildlife that is protected from, and now threatened by, a new “emergency” highway.

Bull elk in the Sooke Hills. Photo by Gary Schroyen.

The meeting went well. After hearing the unanimous message from community members, the committee voted (almost unanimously) to recommend to the CRD that they send the Province a clear message: the Sooke Hills Wilderness Park exists for very good reasons, and it must continue to exist as it is.

The CRD Board met on March 13 and voted to follow the recommendations from the Parks and Environment Committee and the Water Commission to tell the Province that a road through this area is unwanted. Now the ball is in the Province’s court.

I suspect by now the Province has noticed this strong reaction to what is clearly a very bad idea. It is my hope that they will scrap the feasibility study and get to work on modern, smart solutions to our transportation problems and climate change crisis.

And until they do, we will continue to stand up and speak out.

Feature image: female cougar with 6 month old cubs in the Sooke Hills. Photo by Gary Schroyen.

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