Coal

A local district attorney in Massachusetts surprised parties on all sides on Monday after he sided with two climate justice activists who employed a "necessity defense" to justify their use of a small lobster boat to block the path of an enormous coal freighter trying to dock at the Brayton Point Power Station in the town of Somerset last year.

“I do believe they’re right, that we’re at a crisis point with climate change.” —Bristol County DA Sam Sutter

In the transition towards a post-carbon future, infrastructure built today for fossil fuels could easily become stranded assets which burden investors and taxpayers with sunk costs. The proposal to build coal shipment facilities at Fraser Surrey Docks and Texada Island for U.S.-mined thermal coal is at risk of becoming B.C.’s version of Mirabel Airport in Quebec ­ underused infrastructure built for a future which never arrived.

Port officials in Prince Rupert are watching a bulk carrier very closely, and the Transportation Board of Canada (TSB) have deployed a team to assess the situation, after the ship ran aground late Monday night near the entrance to the harbour on B.C.'s North Coast.

The 228-metre Amakusa Island was about 15 kilometres from Ridley Island, the coal-loading facility south of Prince Rupert.

The Obama administration’s plan to restrict emissions from coal-burning power plants in the United States is expected to intensify an environmental battle that is already under way over coal-port expansion in British Columbia. “I think it has potentially huge implications, because [Obama’s] rules are going to dramatically shrink the market for coal in the States,” Kevin Washbrook, director of Voters Taking Action on Climate Change (VTACC), said Monday about the U.S.

B.C.'s Ministry of Energy and Mines is dismissing concerns its decision to approve the expansion of a Texada Island quarry's coal storage facility -- a key component of plans to significantly increase exports of U.S. thermal coal to China -- was improper. The allegation was made by a climate change advocacy group in a judicial review petition filed Monday afternoon in B.C. Supreme Court, which asks the court to rule on whether the correct process was followed by the government.

Vancouver Rabbi David Mivasair cites an ancient midrash, or biblical commentary, to explain why he opposes thermal coal exports through B.C.'s Texada Island in a new letter. Roughly two thousand years ago, the author of Ecclesiastes Rabba imagined God's words to Adam after placing him in the Garden of Eden. "Behold my creation how lovely and wonderful it is," reads the Jewish text. "Make sure that you do not spoil or destroy my world, for if you damage it there is no one to repair it after you."

For Immediate Release

Environmental groups in British Columbia are fully mobilized in the fight against Enbridge Inc.'s Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan's TransMountain oil sand pipeline proposals. But it might surprise many here to learn that just across the B.C.-Washington border, plans to move an older and even dirtier kind of fossil fuel are the focus of heated environmental concern, economic lobbying, and rising controversy over Canada’s role. That product is coal -- and active plans would see millions of tons of the black stuff shipped through the Salish Sea from U.S. mines to Asian buyers.

One of the country’s most prestigious universities, with one of the world’s largest endowments, has joined the student-led movement to divest from the fossil fuel industry. Stanford University’s Board of Trustees voted Tuesday to stop investing in coal-mining companies because of climate change concerns. The board said it acted in accordance with guidelines that let them consider whether "corporate policies or practices create substantial social injury" when choosing investments. Stanford’s endowment is valued at $18.7 billion.