Environment, resources & sustainability

Another side to STV

Apr 25, 2009
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I will take Marc’s suggestion and provide a bit of information on the other side of STV. No STV recommends on their web site that people watch the video on STV prepared by the Citizens’ Assembly. They suggest that watching this video in support of STV will be enough to convince people it is not… View Article

Green Gods Abandoned by Godless Socialists?

Apr 17, 2009
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So Keith Baldrey thinks the NDP has sold its environmental soul by opposing so-called green run-of-river IPPs. And Mark Jaccard , Tzepora Berman and friends predict economic and environment ruin from the NDP’s plan to abolish the Liberals’ carbon tax. As for run-of-river IPPs, the fact is they are not very green, at least not… View Article

How green are BC’s climate policies?

Apr 16, 2009
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One of the most striking contradictions in BC’s climate action plan is the oil and gas industry. Greg Amos in The Hook, quotes our “green” premier out on the campaign trail in the northeast: “Let me tell you what’s happened in the energy industry in British Columbia in the last eight years: thirteen billion dollars… View Article

BC’s Carbon Tax Clash

Apr 15, 2009
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With the BC election campaign now officially on, the carbon tax debate is back. Since the fall’s federal election, when the Prime Minister dropped in to beat up the carbon tax to solidify his support in BC, the carbon tax has dropped off the public radar, replaced by stories about the economic and financial crisis…. View Article

A whole lotta waste goin’ on

Apr 3, 2009
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Last week, research I completed for the CCPA was released suggesting that in the last five years alone the forest industry in this province has managed to leave 17.5 million cubic metres of usable wood behind at logging operations. Loaded onto logging trucks, you could fill a cross-Canada convoy just about twice with that material…. View Article

The wrong kind of stimulus

Mar 13, 2009
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I am a big fan of stimulus packages for our ailing economy. But my pitch has been that we need to use the occasion to retrofit our economy to be on a more sustainable footing. So it matters a great deal on what we spend those stimulus dollars. If we launch projects that take us… View Article

Following the money in BC communities

Mar 12, 2009
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It is one of those publications that few media outlets will report on, and even fewer British Columbians will read, but BC Stats just released the latest version of its Local Area Economic Dependencies, updated based on 2006 census data. This publication basically asks where the income in various BC communities comes from. In many… View Article

Bioenergy – Catching on like a house on fire or set for slow burn?

Mar 11, 2009
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As the global economic meltdown and in particular the US housing market collapse continues to savage BC lumber producers, government leaders boldly predict that wood-fired energy – “bioenergy” – will ride to the rescue of a shell-shocked industry and brutalized rural, resource towns dealing with soaring unemployment rates. February’s Speech from the Throne is a… View Article

Pining for some straight talk

Mar 6, 2009
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BC Forests Minister Pat Bell grabbed plenty of headlines this week when he said that the threats posed to resource communities by the mountain pine beetle infestation may be overstated. Stories about a rapid deterioration in the quality of trees attacked by the beetles, Bell suggested, are wrong. In fact, the minister said, he expects… View Article