Op/Ed: Dear Ottawa, please get real about our climate action plan
Ottawa’s latest climate plan bets on expensive and unproven carbon capture technologies By Burgess Langshaw Power, from The Conversation Last week, the federal government released its long awaited plan to tackle greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Bill C-12, if passed, commits...
BC committed to regional environmental assessments, but experts warn they might never happen
COVID-19 has delayed the Environmental Assessment Office’s work on establishing regulations for regional assessments, which will look at the cumulative effects of all past, present and future industrial projects By Matt Simmons, for The Narwhal At first glance, northwest B.C. is a vast wild landscape home to big forests, even...
Column: Our ever-changing world and decolonization
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, most of us have been living in a landscape defined by unknowns. This lack of certainty about how the world around us can change at any moment shows no sign of abating in the foreseeable future. Dealing with the unknown is not something our modern society is used to or comfortable with. Over...
Column: Dirty tricks to oppose clean fuel standards
In its throne speech, the federal government committed to exceed Canada’s 2030 climate targets. The need for new, more ambitious targets and a plan to meet them couldn’t be more urgent. The UN’s annual “Emissions Gap Report 2019” found Earth is headed toward 3.2 C warming based on current and estimated emissions trends — a ...
Op/Ed: Glyphosate and our forests
Material contributed by “Stop the Spray BC” When a forest regrows after logging or fires, it can be and should be a paradise for wildlife including bees, moose, birds, and beavers, with a large selection of food including fireweed, poplar (aspen), birch, willow, grasses, berries and many other plants that are necessary for ...
Open letter to Dr. Bonnie Henry: speading COVID-19 in prisons
Dear Dr. Henry, Thank you profusely, Dr. Henry, for everything you and your ministry staff have done these past many months to safeguard British Columbians from the suffering of the global novel coronavirus (COVID 19) pandemic. I am a sixty-six year old Extinction Rebellion climate activist residing in Victoria, and am writing...
Explainer: Fall election – has the BC NDP kept its election promises?
The NDP rose to power in 2017 vowing to take action on climate change, old-growth logging, the Trans Mountain pipeline, endangered species and more. Three years in, The Narwhal examines how the government has fared on the environment By Sarah Cox, for The Narwhal B.C.’s NDP government came to power in 2017 promising to...
Op/Ed: How Canada could benefit from a carbon budget
By Kathryn Harrison and Anna Kanduth, for The Conversation Canadians have understandably been preoccupied by the COVID-19 emergency. Yet the climate emergency that prompted hundreds of thousands to march in the streets in September 2019 has not subsided. Just as Canadians have worked together to “bend the curve” on COVID-19,...
Column: COVID-19, school and climate change
The global pandemic has created a unique and challenging back-to-school season. Many parents, guardians and teachers are struggling to balance children’s safety with education, all while keeping their households running smoothly. It’s like nothing we’ve seen before. Many adults are rightfully focused on making sure the...
Fines for 'dooring' going up -- 'way up
Drivers will soon have a stronger incentive to take a good look around before opening their car doors. To better protect cyclists, the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure is raising the fine for “dooring.” The new fine for anyone who opens a car door when it is not reasonably safe to do so (known as “dooring”) will...