WE WERE JUST TAKING PICTURES. Of the ash, stray bricks, and weeds. Of twisted metal and charred patio furniture. Of the pine trees still standing on the edge of the lots, their towering trunks now charcoal black. Of the lonely white brick fireplace in the middle of it all, the only surviving structure, metal pokers hanging expectantly by the grate.
You’ve probably never even heard of two of Canada’s more effective provincial and city-scale climate policies—and that’s probably not a bad thing.
The BC Energy Step Code and the City of Vancouver’s Zero Emissions Building Plan are both building regulations introduced within the past two years or so by the Province of British Columbia and the City of Vancouver, respectively.
The conference room applause faded as Chief Roy Jones Jr. walked on stage to address the Natural Resource Summit, hosted by the National Coalition of Chiefs.
“I just have one question for anybody. Is there any Liberals out here?” he asked the crowd.
A split second silence gave way to laughter from the crowd — a mix of Indigenous leaders and representatives from Canada’s oil and gas sector.
“Come on, don’t be afraid to show yourself because we’re going to send a message to Trudeau with ya,” he, and the crowd, laughed.
California is burning. This sentence is all too familiar by now, a kind of mantra that is repeated every year with the onset of “fire season,” when live television broadcasts start to show homes threatened by flames and the wails of fire sirens cutting through the sweltering air.
