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Sierra Club BC hails Clean BC as important step forward

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Cautions more work needed

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

December 5, 2018

VANCOUVER—B.C.’s clean growth plan is a major step forward in the race to combat the climate crisis and secure a better future for British Columbians, said Sierra Club BC. Moving forward, more will need to be done to build on the strategy’s strengths, namely ensuring our targets are based on science and stopping new major energy projects that increase emissions.

“We welcome today’s announcement as an important step forward and a good day for all British Columbians. This is an excellent step towards defending our communities from climate impacts and building a strong clean energy economy that works for everyone,” said Caitlyn Vernon, Sierra Club BC’s campaigns director.

Since any plan is only as good as how it is implemented, Sierra Club BC welcomes the accountability mechanisms built into the Clean BC plan.

“The plan delivers specific, effective actions with transparent reporting and accountability, which deserves both applause and support,” said Vernon. “We will be watching to ensure that the climate advisory council has sufficient budget and capacity to do its work, can set interim sectoral targets and has the ability to revise pollution reduction targets in future in light of the latest science.”

Sierra Club BC is concerned that the plan will not reduce carbon pollution as much or as fast as the climate science tells us is needed.

The government’s continued commitment to LNG remains a matter of deep concern, given the massive carbon footprint of the LNG Canada project alone. The provincial strategy leaves it unclear how much carbon pollution is allowed from LNG terminals, and what binding mechanism will be used to ensure they cannot increase above a certain level.

“The most fundamental measure of accountability for climate leadership is whether it keeps our world below 1.5 degrees of warming,” said senior forests and climate campaigner Jens Wieting. “If we are to support livable communities into the future, we must reduce carbon pollution faster than currently planned, alongside all that is praiseworthy in this plan.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has stressed we have twelve years to turn the tide, keep warming under 1.5 degrees and avoid the worst climate impacts on our health, communities and economy. This plan moves us significantly in the right direction, yet we must do more.

The Clean BC plan details exactly how 75 per cent of B.C.’s 2030 carbon reduction target will be achieved, and sets out a timeline for detailing how the remaining 25 per cent reduction will be met in the next two years. There is no mention of how we will meet our future (2050) pollution reduction targets.

“While we believe this plan should be celebrated today and implemented starting tomorrow, it’s worth noting that we could more easily get to 100 per cent without LNG in the mix,” said Vernon. “It’s counter-productive to act to reduce carbon pollution on the one hand, while on the other hand expanding fossil fuel extraction.

“We are calling on all British Columbians to support this plan, and to work together to strengthen it into the future, in a way that replaces divisiveness with cooperation, and rejects partisanship in favour of our common interests.”

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Contact:

Caitlyn Vernon
Campaigns Director, Sierra Club BC
(250) 896-3500
caitlyn@sierraclub.bc.ca

Jens Wieting
Senior Forest and Climate Campaigner, Sierra Club BC
(604) 354-5312
jens@sierraclub.bc.ca

Event: What’s up in the woods

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Wednesday, December 5th, 2018

6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

Victoria Events Centre
1415 Broad Street, Victoria, British Columbia, V8W 2B2

RSVP on Facebook

Join the Wilderness Committee, Ancient Forest Alliance and Sierra Club BC  for an update on Vancouver Island’s remaining old-growth rainforests and the movement to protect them!

Come hear what our organizations are doing to address this crisis and how you can get involved. We want to hear you concerns and share ideas on how we can protect these vital ecosystems before it’s too late. So join us, and bring a friend!

Event info:
– Doors at 6:30pm
– Hear from Ancient Forest Alliance Andrea Inness, Sierra Club BC’s Mark Worthing and Wilderness Committee’s Torrance Coste, followed by Q+A and community discussion starting at 7pm

Accessibility:
– The Victoria Event Centre currently does not have an operational elevator, and there is one long flight of stairs at the venue entrance. If you would like to attend the event but require assistance with accessing the space, please contact us at events@victoriaeventcentre.ca and VEC staff will do their best to accommodate.
– More detailed venue accessibility info is available at https://victoriaeventcentre.ca/attendees/accessibility
– Washrooms are for all genders.

***This event is being held on the unceded Lekwungen territories of the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations. The organizers recognize that every tree on the coast grows on the territory of an Indigenous Nation and that any solutions that protect forests must centre the rights of these Nations first and foremost

Background Info:
The vast majority of productive, low-elevation old-growth rainforest on Vancouver Island has already been logged. We need to protect what remains in order to insure the survival of these ecosystems and the Indigenous cultural resources, endangered species and tourism and recreational opportunities that they provide.

Every day, more than 34 soccer fields of original rainforest are destroyed, on Vancouver Island alone. At the same time, this industry isn’t sustainable from an economic and community perspective either — in the last decade, BC’s forestry sector has lost six jobs a day on average.

How can we protect remaining old-growth ecosystems before it’s too late? How can we ensure the rights, title and authority of the Indigenous Nations in whose territories all forests grow is truly respected? How can we build a just transition to a sustainable second-growth forest industry that can provide livelihoods in communities in perpetuity?

These are the questions our organizations are looking to solve, and we need your help!

Event: Is LNG ‘clean’? The fracked up truth

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Thursday November 22, 2018

18:30-20:30

HiVE Vancouver
210 – 128 West Hastings Street

Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Territory (Vancouver)

Hosted by Sierra Club BC and the Wilderness Committee

The federal and provincial governments say that “Clean LNG” will baseline BC’s new economy while acting on climate change, but what does LNG—liquefied fracked gas—really mean for our future?

Join us for an evening of conversation with experts from across the province as they uncover the truth behind LNG as an immediate threat to Indigenous rights, public health, and the climate we rely on. Speakers include Freda Huson, Unist’ot’en Hereditary Spokesperson, Marc Lee, Senior Economist from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, and Élyse Caron Beaudoin, health researcher at the Université de Montréal.

Come learn about why this is a critical moment in the LNG and fracking industry’s trajectory. Let’s talk about using this unprecedented opportunity to change course towards an economy that truly respects the environment and the lives it supports.

RSVP on Facebook

This event takes place on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

Accessibility info:

HiVE is up a flight of stairs and there is no elevator, unfortunately. The building is located on bus routes #20, #14, #16 with #22 and #19 one block away on Pender Street. There are pay parking lots on Abbott and Pender streets.

When Compassion and Passion Meet

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Guest blog by Sierra Club BC member Frances Litman

September 2018

Frances Litman is a 2018 City of Victoria Honorary Citizen Award Recipient, 2017 Victoria Leadership Award Winner, 2012 CRD EcoStar Community Leadership Award Winner and founder of the non-profit, CreativelyUnited.org. She wrote this guest piece for us about her inspiration to defend nature in BC and the importance of supporting proportional representation in BC’s referendum this fall.

 

I jokingly blame Robert Bateman and Sierra Club BC for adding another 40 hours to my already full work week.

I started the non-profit Creatively United for the Planet Society in 2012, shortly after finding myself at a special Sierra Club BC donor recognition event with guest speaker Robert Bateman at the Upland’s home of community patron, Paddy Stewart.

At first, I thought I received the invitation in error. After all, how could a self-employed photographer, like me, be a top donor? I learned that my earnest $50 monthly donation did qualify me as one of Sierra Club BC’s top donors.

The penny really dropped when Robert Bateman asked the group present, “Who is looking after the environment?” He pointed at each of the two dozen people present, myself included, and said “You are!”

Photo by Frances Litman. www.franceslitman.com

Given I was one of the youngest in attendance, I was shocked. I realized action needed to be taken to educate and inspire others to find compassion for the environment to ensure we would all continue to enjoy the natural health and beauty of a functioning ecosystem. With Sierra Club BC and other groups already doing the hero work in our communities, I could see a need for more people to know about these organizations.

CreativelyUnited.org was born of that desire. I love that the word passion is in the word compassion. My compassion for the underdog became my passion project.

I suppose I’ve always related to the underdog having grown up in foster care and mostly alone. My happiest memories are those I experienced in the company of nature, my nearest and dearest friend during the majority of my most impressionable years.  And nature, my friend, has been and continues to be very much the underdog given the lack of respect and compassion it has received since these lands were colonized a little more than 150 years ago.

Fortunately the forest and the ocean were never far from my reach as my early attempts to make friends often resulted in me being bullied where I lived in Campbell River from 1968-1970.  From my experience there, I have come to see that Indigenous rights, social justice issues and the destruction of our natural world are directly related. The systematic dismantling of families, culture and the environment and a complete lack of compassion and respect for Indigenous values and wisdom has led to the crisis we are now in.

Just think how many decades we’ve been negatively conditioned to see those who care about nature as “treehuggers,”  “hippies,” “conspiracists,” “bleeding hearts” and on it goes.  It seems compassion has become increasingly more commodified like so many other things.

Fortunately, we are awakening. Part of my personal awakening and my growing compassion for people and planet led to me pouring my heart and soul into supporting those I saw doing the hero work to raise awareness and bring action to important environmental and social justice issues affecting us all.

I recognized that it would take creativity and compassion to help rebrand “environmentalism and prejudice” so that we could move away from anger-based activism to compassionate, caring communities of people who recognize that we are empowered in togetherness, resulting in healthier, happier compassionate communities that benefit everyone.

Given I was maxed on the amount of money I could give to non-profits and charitable organizations, I gave, and continue to give, my time, skills and energy to CreativelyUnited.org where you’ll find fascinating videos, stories, events and resources and learn about the many non-profits and organizations in our community making a difference.

Stepping Into Nature, a book by by Frances Litman.

We live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. We are greatly fortunate and privileged to be here.

We can no longer be complacent. It’s our right and our responsibility to create the change we want to see in the world, because we can! Many only dream of doing so.

On this note, having a system of Proportional Representation can really make a tremendous difference. We have a historic opportunity this fall to take part in a referendum that could potentially change this archaic voting system so that every vote counts moving forward.

By doing so, we can actually move toward more compassionate ways of living compared to fossil fuel corporation-led initiatives that are destroying this beautiful land, water, air and democracy, trampling Indigenous rights, and destroying cultures.

By having every vote count, we can elect people who are invested in the greater good of all and show the rest of the country what’s possible. In fact, only the US, Canada and the UK still use the First Past the Post voting system that dates back centuries. It ensured wealth and power remained in the hands of those who already had it. The system was based on the first horse to past the post during a horse race…unreal!

No wonder those with the most money and power are mounting campaigns of fear and confusion. I’ve already seen full page ads and editorials in corporate-bought media…and using names very similar to FairVote Canada, like FairReferendum…ugh!

One compassionate initiative that could arise from having Proportional Representation is the creation of a basic income for all by simply raising the tax rate by a few percentage points for those who can afford it—namely multi-million dollar corporations and the super wealthy.

For example, it’s been said that if the wealth of the 12 richest people in the world was shared equally among the 7.8 billion people in this world, that everyone would be a millionaire.

Just think how that could change everything! That’s compassion in action.

Had we had Proportional Representation in place federally as Trudeau promised us, I can assure you that we, the taxpayers, would not have Site C and pipelines to pay for. Initiatives like a basic income for all would be possible if we weren’t subsidizing rich oil companies. Real jobs could be created in giving real power to the people through solar installations on every building, with affordable carbon-free power from the sun.

If we want to regain control of our governments in the interest of what’s best for people and planet, tell your friends and neighbours, get involved with non-profits like FairVote BC and be sure to vote YES to Proportional Representation. Anything is better than the current archaic system we have.

The Dalai Lama has shared that we won’t have peace in the world until women and girls are treated equally. It makes sense, when we stop and think about this.

We can break the cycle of submission and suppression by voting not only with our dollars in how and where we spend our money, but in electing governments that truly share the power proportionally.

We are currently using up five times our share of planetary resources in this region, which is not very compassionate. However, solutions exist!

Using the power of compassion, prayer and/or meditation and lending your support to non-profits and grassroot organizations like FairVoteBC and Sierra Club BC in whatever way you can makes a positive difference.

I invite you to live with gratitude and compassion for every moment in the spirit of a compassionate one planet community.

 

Feature image by Frances Litman. www.FrancesLitman.com

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