Environment, resources & sustainability

826 reasons Kinder Morgan got a green light for its Trans Mountain pipeline expansion

Nov 30, 2016
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Despite sustained opposition to Kinder Morgan’s plan to twin the Trans Mountain pipeline, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Cabinet gave it their blessing yesterday. Reaction from the many people, communities and nations opposed to the pipeline was swift. Twenty one municipalities and over 100 First Nations and Tribes have registered their opposition since the… View Article

Four planks for a bold and progressive BC jobs agenda

Nov 17, 2016
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BC needs a revitalized jobs plan. The provincial government’s narrow focus on Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) hasn’t worked. The government hitched BC’s economic wagon to the elusive investment decisions of foreign transnational corporations, and to the ups and downs of international commodity prices, and the hoped-for investment simply didn’t materialize. And for all the talk… View Article

British Columbians will pay the LNG industry’s power bills

Nov 14, 2016
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In his Tyee article BC’s LNG Fraud, Andrew Nikiforuk pointed out that the government’s new eDrive policy—under which BC Hydro will supply electricity to LNG plants at the standard industrial rate, instead of the much higher rate that government had determined was needed for BC Hydro to recover its costs—will result in a subsidy of $34 million… View Article

A critical juncture for BC’s forest industry

Nov 7, 2016
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When it comes to understanding the risks that BC’s forests and forest-dependent communities face, you’d be hard-pressed to find two more qualified individuals than Anthony Britneff and Martin Watts. Between them, the two have worked a combined 70 years in forestry, Britneff serving four decades in senior positions with the provincial forests ministry and Watts… View Article

Political leadership needed to revitalize BC’s forestry industry

Oct 4, 2016
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During the last provincial election not a day seemed to go by that Premier Christy Clark wasn’t donning a hardhat and promising us a brighter economic future built around a new Liquefied Natural Gas industry. Thousands of new jobs, steadily increasing royalty payments and taxes, and a resurging rural, resource-based economy all awaited us, the… View Article

The abysmal economics of LNG

Sep 26, 2016
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In the lead up to the last provincial election, British Columbians learned about an economic panacea named LNG – Liquefied Natural Gas. This new industrial sector would take vast amounts of fracked gas pipelined from Northeast BC, and convert it to liquid form for shipment to Asia, where high prices would justify multi-billion dollar investments. BC,… View Article

The New Climate Denialism: Time for an intervention

Sep 22, 2016
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For decades, the urgent need for climate action was stymied by what came to be known as “climate denialism” (or its more mild cousin, “climate skepticism”). In an effort to create public confusion and stall political progress, the fossil fuel industry poured tens of millions of dollars into the pockets of foundations, think tanks, lobby… View Article

How the so-called “Clean Energy Plan” still wreaks havoc on BC Hydro’s rates

Aug 22, 2016
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My wife says I hold on to things too long. Still, when I read BC Hydro’s most recent rate application to the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC), I couldn’t help but recall Mark Jaccard’s spirited—if misguided—defence of Premier Gordon Campbell’s Clean Energy Plan in a critique of a paper, Lost in Transmission, that I co-authored in 2007. BC Hydro is seeking approval for… View Article