by Pieter Vorster | Feb 9, 2019 | News and Events, Newsletters
Must Reads from Last Week Locally Powell River - Meet-and-greet with NIPR candidate nominees DATE/TIME: Sunday, February 10, 2 pmLOCATION: Powell River Library Go to NIPR’s website and read about the nominees. (On the homepage, just scroll down a bit.) Also read the article in the Powell River Peak from February 8. Kwispaa LNG pipeline Steelhead made a presentation to the Comox Valley Regional District on February 5. LNG, Fracking, and the Comox Valley Connection DATE/TIME: Wednesday, February 27, 2019, 7-9 pmLOCATION: Florence Filberg Centre, Conference HallConfirm attendance on Watershed Sentinel’s Facebook page Coldest Night of the Year walk The NIPR Greens have a team in this year’s CNOY. Go to the website and find Team Green. You can donate, sign up to walk with the team, or just pass on words of encouragement. NIPR Greens have also persuaded St. George’s Church to use compostable cups for the coffee and chili. Greens will be monitoring the recycling to make sure things end up in the right bin. The CVRD is donating recycling bins and a ticket for the compostables to be taken to the composting depot afterwaards. Also see Campbell River and Powell River. In each community, the funds raised go to different organizations but with the theme of helping the homeless. Provincially Sign the petition to ban fracking in BC Read more. The herring roe fishery will go ahead This blog previously told you about the issues around the herring fishery. Now the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has decided it’s fine to fish one of the last viable stocks of herring. Iain McKechnie, a BC...
by Pieter Vorster | Feb 2, 2019 | News and Events, Newsletters
Must Reads from Last Week Locally Powell River - Climate Law in Our Hands: Conversations on local climate action and climate law DATE/TIME: February 8, 2019, 6-9 pmLOCATION: Trinity Hall, United ChurchPotluck: 5:45Public is welcome.Speakers: Andrew Gage, CaroleAnn Leishman, Andrea Hedley DATE/TIME: February 9, 2019, 2-3:30 pmLOCATION: Elm Room, Recreation CentreSpeaker: Andrew Gage: “Legal implications of large-scale emitters and climate change” Campbell River - Meet-and-greet with NIPR candidate nominees DATE/TIME: Monday, February 4, 6 pmLOCATION: Rm 2., Campbell River Community Centre Go to NIPR’s website and read about the nominees. (On the homepage, just scroll down a bit.) Courtenay - Defend old growth forests letter delivery DATE/TIME: Wednesday, February 6, 10-11 a.m.LOCATION: Ronna-Rae Leonard’s office, 437-5th Street, Courtenay “We’ll be delivering letters to MLA offices across the province to send a message to the BC government: immediate, decisive action must be taken to enact a moratorium on old-growth logging in critical hotspots like the Central Walbran. Protection for Vancouver Island’s last ancient rainforests must be combined with strong support for First Nations and good long term forestry jobs.” Events are also happening in Langford, Vancouver, and Nanaimo. Go here for more information. Comox Valley Land Trust protects 27 acres of Father Charles Brandt hermitage Father Charles Brandt has lived in his hermitage on the 27-acres bordering the Oyster River since 1970. Photo submitted This blog has reported on Father Charles Brandt before. Now, “The Comox Valley Land Trust (CVLT) is pleased to announce the establishment of a conservation covenant over 27-acres of wild land on the banks of the Oyster River. The land is currently home to spiritual...
by Pieter Vorster | Jan 26, 2019 | News and Events, Newsletters
Must Reads from Last Week Locally World Community Film Festival The World Community Film Festival is back again, February 1-2, 2019. This is BC’s longest running social justice documentary film festival, and is presented annually in Courtenay. Global Warming: The time has come for a personal carbon cap, overlooking the full costs of alternatives to wood heat, and the feasibility of the woody biomass industry as a climate change solution This week these three issues came together in the Comox Valley Record. A letter to the editor from Fred Fern of Merville spoke eloquently about the need for a personal carbon cap. “Every person on the planet has a carbon footprint and can make that footprint smaller. We are going to have to ration carbon….” In another letter to the editor from Harold Macy, also from Merville, he writes about the carbon footprint problems of alternatives to burning wood for heating. Then, there’s an article announcing the film “Burned,” which was shown at North Island College on January 23. “Burned” is “an unflinching, critical look at the woody biomass industry as a climate change solution.” Reading these three items brings to mind David Brooks, a New York Times writer and PBS commentator, who says that in terms of the catastrophic climate effects of global warming, only technology will save us. But he’s missing the component of restraint that Fern suggests in his letter, while Macy points out that changing one technology for another isn’t carbon footprint-free. So, perhaps, a personal carbon cap needs to underpin any technological measures we try - serious restraint on an individual level. In...
by Pieter Vorster | Jan 19, 2019 | News and Events, Newsletters
Must Reads from Last Week Locally Opportunity to mentor new Valley farmers The New Farmer Mentorship and Loan Program is ready to support more Comox Valley farmers in 2019. This is an opportunity to directly invest in local food security. They are looking for mentors AND lenders, so if you have farming skills to share, great. If you have a bit of money to invest, great. Read more. If you are interested in being a mentor or lender for the 2019 season, please contact Don Munroe at donm203@gmail.com. The New Farmer Mentorship and Loan Program was developed as an offshoot of the Comox Valley Responsible Investing Club. Plastic bag ban proposal presented to Comox Council “Two Comox Valley nurses are hoping the area will follow the lead of other Island municipalities and ban single-use plastic bags. Betty Tate and Helen Boyd asked Comox council Wednesday at its committee of the whole meeting to consider the ban and in its place use reusable bags at a variety of retailers and businesses.” Tate and Boyd are part of the Comox Valley Nurses for Health and the Environment. Read more. Pacific herring: Small fish – Big problem: The importance of the herring The annual herring spawn in the Strait of Georgia around Hornby and Denman Islands is the last of six major herring spawns on the west coast of Canada - the rest were overfished. It’s called a roe fishery, but 90% of the herring biomass caught is ground up into fish food – often for salmon farms. Only 10% of the herring biomass caught actually consists of roe. “If we...
by Pieter Vorster | Jan 12, 2019 | News and Events, Newsletters
Must Reads from Last Week Provincially Kwispaa LNG pipeline This blog has previously reported on this proposed pipeline, which would come through Powell River, undersea to Comox, and overland to Sarita Bay near Port Alberni. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency is open for comments on this pipeline until January 16, 2019. This is the second of four opportunities for the public to comment on theenvironmental assessment of the project. Some points to consider include: Include the supply pipeline construction and operations as part of the Designated Project and include all associated impacts in the Kwispaa Review. Include the shipping area to the 200 mile limit in the Designated Project Area and all associated impacts in the shipping area in the Review. The shipping area to include all SARA Critical Habitat areas the shipping may pass through. Include downstream impacts of GHGs resulting from the combustion of LNG cargoes at their final customer destinations. Include upstream impacts of natural gas supply including GHG emissions from construction, operations, compression, natural gas well drilling and development and fugitive emissions from natural gas production of the supply wells and supply pipeline network. Include all effects listed in the Kwispaa Project Description Table 5-8 Potential Project Related Effects. Include a Human Health Impact Study. Include a Socio-Economics Impact study that includes the pipeline impacts, the project area impacts including shipping, and construction and operations. Include loss of forestry production values for the pipeline right of way. Include signed contractual undertakings that bind customers to use the LNG to replace coal combustion. Include a Federal Review of the supply pipeline by the National Energy Board...
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