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The Environment as a Priority - A Real Opportunity to
Put Canada on Track
An Open Letter to Prime Minister
Harper
BCSEA joined other Canadian energy, environment and sustainability
organizations in detailing to the Conservative government
concrete actions it should take to address the combined challenges
of climate change and peak oil.
"As we believe you are aware, now is
the time for urgent action to protect the environment and
human health; delay is not an option. "
Click
here for a letter to our Prime Minister. ( PDF,
278kb)
B.C.
report paints dire climate picture
Nicholas Read
CanWest News Service
Saturday, July 15, 2006
VANCOUVER--Climate change in B.C. is expected to alter the
province's hydroelectricity supply, affect the productivity
of lakes, rivers and the ocean, change ecosystems and increase
the risk of forest fires, pest outbreaks, flooding and extreme
weather, according to a new government report.
The report, titled British Columbia's Coastal Environment:
2006, focuses on the part of the B.C. extending westward from
the Coast Mountains, and includes the marine area within Canada's
322-kilometre limit. Among its grim conclusions:
- Five per cent of "rare and sensitive ecosystems" on eastern
Vancouver Island have disappeared in the last 10 years,
and could be gone for good in the next 20 years. The study
focused on 412,000 hectares from north of Campbell River
to Sooke and the Gulf Islands. At the beginning of the study
in 1992, sensitive ecosystems made up 7.9 per cent of the
study area. By 2002, that number had been reduced to 4.5
per cent. The report attributes most of this loss to logging
and clearing, which accounted for 1,176 lost hectares of
sensitive ecosystems.
- At least 629 species of alien plants are growing on the
B.C. coast, and 65 per cent of these are firmly established.
- Forty-one species of vertebrates have been intentionally
or accidentally introduced.
- The daily volume of sewage discharged into Georgia Basin
rose more than 60 per cent between 1983 and 1999.
- The sea surface temperature has risen by as much as 1
C along the entire coast.
- Eighty-six B.C. species are listed as locally extinct,
endangered or threatened, and of the 21 species known to
be extinct, 15 used to occur on the coast.
- More than 13 per cent of salmonid populations in B.C.
and the Yukon are either extinct or at high risk of extinction.
- Persistent contaminants, such as PCBs, dioxins and furans,
continue to accumulate in animals near the top of the food
chain. Resident orcas in B.C.'s southern waters are among
the most contaminated marine mammals in the world.
The report was prepared over two years by the Ministry of
the Environment in collaboration with Fisheries and Oceans
Canada, the University of B.C. Fisheries Centre, the University
of Victoria geography department and Environment Canada.
Linda Gilkeson, a ministry official who managed the research
and writing of the report, said there is much to worry about:
"The climate change implications are so big, so expensive
and so here."
But the report also contained some positive news, including:
- Contamination cleanup has been completed at half the
sites listed in the B.C. Contaminated Sites Registry.
- Concentrations of PCBs, dioxins, furans and other pesticides
in the eggs of great blue herons have dropped markedly since
1980.
- Forty-nine per cent of managed salmon stocks are stable,
increasing or well above target abundance.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2006
British
Columbia's Coastal Environment webpages
Executive
Summary [pdf 36 KB]
Full
Report [pdf 5.3 MB]
Send the Premier
a Sustainable Energy message for 2006
Ask him to redefine the "public interest" and support
a Sustainable Energy Policy for BC
For some time now, the BC government has taken a hands-off
approach to energy policy in BC. This has forced BC Hydro
to operate in a vacuum, and the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC)
to become the policy-maker by default.
Unfortunately, after years of pressure from BC's major industries,
who want cheap power and nothing but cheap power, the BCUC
has gotten into the habit of interpreting its mandate "to
serve the public interest" as meaning simply "to provide
cheap power". This is reinforced by the government's current
Energy Plan, which also emphasizes cheap power.
Inexpensive power is ok, but when it becomes the over-riding
goal, it undermines efforts to become more energy efficient,
and pulls the carpet out from under the feet of new technologies
such as wind, tidal and solar energy.
We are on a quest to widen the BCUC's interpretation of "public
interest" to include other energy-related objectives.
We believe that in order to serve the public interest,
BC's energy policies also need to:
- acknowledge and address issues related to global climate
change;
- reduce BC's greenhouse gas emissions;
- prepare for a world where the global supply of oil and
gas is constrained;
- support aggressive energy efficiency programs; and,
- support BC Hydro's need to have a budget for Research
and Development (R&D), which is currently denied. Without
an R&D budget, BC Hydro can't move ahead with support
for such things as tidal energy initiatives and smart metering.
It's not right that a public utility should have its hands
so tied by such a narrow, short-term interpretation of the
"public interest".
Will you join us? Please write a personal letter to:
The Rt. Hon. Gordon Campbell, Premier,
Room 156, Parliament Buildings,
Victoria, BC V8V 1X4
His email address is premier@gov.bc.ca
And please send a copy to:
Robert Hobbs, Chair of the BCUC, and all Commissioners
Box 250, 900 Howe Street, Sixth Floor
Vancouver, V6Z 2N3
His email address is commission.secretary@bcuc.com
Email's free mail, but a letter's better.
A copy to us would be welcome too.
The BC Sustainable Energy Association
Seeking Sustainable Solutions for All B.C.’s Energy
Needs
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