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...
COLUMN: Carbon pricing in the climate crisis is like handwashing in a pandemic
Sometimes we need to be reminded of the basics. During the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials have repeated clear messages about handwashing, physical distancing and mask-wearing. These are relatively simple preventative measures to limit the virus’s spread. Responding to climate change isn’t so simple, yet it’s every...
OP/ED: Landmark decision by BC Supreme Court protects public health care
In today’s landmark ruling in the Cambie Surgery Centre case, Justice Steeves dealt a strong blow to the efforts of Dr. Brian Day and others to undermine Canada’s publicly-funded health care system. The decade-long legal attack launched by one of the largest for-profit surgical centres in Canada sought to invalidate key...
Comment: IPCC -- the dirty tricks climate scientists faced in three decades since first report
By Marc Hudson for The Conversation Thirty years ago, in a small Swedish city called Sundsvall, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its first major report. Even then, the major dilemmas facing those who sought rapid action were clear. An account by Jeremy Leggett, who had thrown in a well-paid job ...
Column: Plastics everywhere; what now?
Almost every product and material we refer to as “plastic” is made from fossil fuels. Most of it hasn’t been around for long — a little over 70 years for the most common products. North American grocery stores didn’t start offering plastic bags until the late 1970s. Over that short time, plastics have become ubiquitous. A...
