British Columbia

The Young and the Zestless

19/09/21

Author:

Naia Lee

Link:

The Tyee

Vancouver’s Sept. 27 climate strike in 2019 — a great demonstration of what can happen when people organize and act collectively. Photo by Amy Romer.

Sept 17, 2021

Young people are increasingly skeptical of our political system. Here’s how to restore our trust.

[Editor’s note: This is an abridged version of a story that first appeared in our pop-up election newsletter, The Run. Sign up here to get new issues sent directly to your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday until election day.]

Every election, young people get to hear all the latest platitudes about the power of the youth vote.

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Liberal and Conservative climate policies signal to their bases the issue isn’t urgent in any meaningful way

18/09/21

Author:

Aaron Saad

Link:

Ricochet Media

Photo: Firefighter working the Dixie wildfire in California, taken August 2021. (California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection / Flickr)

Pleased with her good fortune, the woman remarked, “We’d planned to go to Mexico this summer, but we didn’t need to. It was hot enough here!”

In a different time, it wouldn’t be such an unsettling comment to have overheard while out and about in Alberta, where summers were short and often cool.

But in the midst of a season marked by climate extremes and disasters, it made me wonder how well it’s understood that what we’re seeing is not some temporary aberration; this new summer heat is the sign of a lasting condition. And it isn’t one we should delight in.

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Time to protect old-growth forests

17/09/21

Author:

Torrance Coste

Link:

Wilderness Committee

Photo top: Nuchatlaht Territory, Nootka Island

September 14, 2021

PROMISES WITHOUT ACTION AREN’T ENOUGH

When journalists interview me about old-growth forests, the hardest question to answer is “what is it like to be in one?” Standing in undergrowth so dense it’s hard to walk through with beams of sunlight piercing the tops of trees that were hundreds of years old before Europeans even arrived on this continent — how do you put this feeling into words?

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Protect the Planet Stop TMX - Treesit at Still Creek

16/09/21

Author:

Protect the Planet Stop TMX

Dear friends,

We need YOUR help with direct support of the treesits that are blocking TMX. Non-Arrestable OR Arrestable - you decide. Both are crucial.

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Letter: Actually, Mr. Trudeau, we can tax the super-rich with 'unlimited zeal'

16/09/21

Author:

Scott Van Denham

Link:

New Westminster Record

Sept. 16, 2021

Writer says Justin Trudeau coined the catchphrase of the federal campaign

Editor:

The prime minister may have inadvertently coined the catchphrase of this federal election, perhaps of the whole year.

Just not in way he probably intended.

He claims we cannot tax the super-rich with “unlimited zeal.”

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Gigatons of carbon dioxide able to be stored in ocean basalt

14/09/21

Author:

University of Victoria

Link:

University of Victoria

Benjamin Tutolo of the Solid Carbon team measuring the pH of water in his laboratory, University of Calgary. Solid Carbon is led by Ocean Networks Canada, an initiative of UVic. Credit: Qin Zhang

[Editors: We don't think ecosocialists should be ignorant of the tech schemes under experimentation but we do need to maintain a sharply critical attitude.

This sounds a lot like carbon sequestration on land - who really knows if it will stay down there, and there is evidence in some cases it does not!

Another obvious question is how much energy would have to be expended to put it down there?

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None of the major parties will cancel TMX, despite heated opposition in B.C.

14/09/21

Author:

Chen Zhou

Link:

Ricochet Media

Sept. 10, 2021

Even the NDP refuses to commit to killing the $16-billion, publicly funded pipeline expansion

The overpass trembled as cars sped past, and the noise of the traffic roared as several protestors stood on the sidewalk with “STOP TMX” banners. They waved them at passing vehicles, and those on the Trans-Canada Highway beneath them.

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Double standard: B.C. requires Indigenous consent for forest conservation but not logging

14/09/21

Author:

Torrance Coste

Link:

Ricochet Media

Sept. 9, 2021

A year after groundbreaking old-growth report, government inaction still drives conflict in B.C.

Every day in B.C., irreplaceable groves filled with the oldest trees in the country are cut down and lost forever. In the year since the province’s strategic review of old-growth management, we’ve seen many promises but very little change in the forest.

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A power struggle at Fairy Creek: Old-growth activists want fewer police powers at Fairy Creek. The RCMP is asking for more

14/09/21

Author:

Rochelle Baker

Link:

National Observer

Close to 1,000 old-growth activists at the Fairy Creek blockades have been arrested, making it the largest civil disobedience movement in Canada. Photo courtesy of Rainforest Flying Squad / Facebook

September 14th 2021

A slew of legal applications involving the contentious Fairy Creek old-growth blockades are moving forward in B.C. Supreme Court this week as the protest becomes one of the largest acts of civil disobedience in Canada.

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