Response to Canada’s Changing Climate Report
In response to the recently leaked Canada’s Changing Climate Report,our caucus issued the following media statement today.
Media Release
BC Green Caucus: Response to Canada’s Changing Climate Report
For immediate release
April 2, 2019
VICTORIA, B.C. – “This report continues to tell the same story of our planet’s warming that science has demonstrated consistently and invariantly for the last 30 years, and our politicians continue to be as willfully blind to the evidence before them now as they were then,” said Dr. Andrew Weaver, leader of the BC Greens and award-winning lead author of four United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. “Now more than ever it is critical that politicians advance policies that are informed by this evidence and chart a path forward. Progressive parties don’t rely on increased investments in fossil fuel infrastructure for their economic vision.
“The time for using major natural gas developments as a ‘transition fuel’ has passed. If we’d gotten our act together in the ‘90s it could have worked, but we didn’t. Now we need to pull the emergency brake and reduce our emissions starting immediately. Investing in major fossil fuel infrastructure that will pollute from 2023 through 2063, in light of all the evidence, is indefensible.”
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Media contact
Macon McGinley, Press Secretary
+1 250-882-6187 |macon.mcginley@leg.bc.ca
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6 Comments
So many people are disgusted with the NDP -voting Green they say. Well I hope so. I do agree with better forest management and chipping forest material instead of burning -too much smoke and carbon. I am concerned about not leaving anything to rot under the trees to add to the nutrition of the soil. Ramiel wood, chipped wood waste, contributes huge fertility to my garden, worms love it, and it is the best mulch. I would love to leave some of that in the forest. I know it is so flammable, but the forest ecosystem needs the nutrients as well. We have private logged land here that we need to guerilla plant trees on, we need a source of trees to plant during the rains. We need to build cisterns and reservoirs to capture the water when we get rains, last year we went 3 months without rain. We need to have solutions discussions asap. If the NDP gov is going to subsidize fossil-fuels, then it should subsidize greening carbon capture, as well. thanks!
I second Saul Arbess’s comment. BC can learn from the way forests are managed in Sweden, which has forests of similar size. Sweden has tripled its harvestable wood supply since the 1950’s. Their sustainable annual allowable cut exceeds BC’s. Despite similar hot, dry conditions in recent summers, Sweden’s losses due to wildfires were one fortiethof ours. Sweden clears the brush and deadfall fuel from its forest floors and uses it as a renewable energy source. By learning from Sweden, BC could expand its forestry industry without the destruction of clear-cutting, and without disturbing our few remaining old-growth stands.
I am very concerned about bringing in ride hailing, which is something Andrew Weaver has favoured. It has been shown to increase traffic congestion and vehicle pollution. It is shown to replace transit ridership. How is that a green policy?
Proper management of BC’s forests would yield hugely beneficial results for climate change mitigation, species protection AND economic benefits in terms of more and sustainable employment to restore the forests and repair the immense harm created by industrial forestry.
Once we take into account the not now counted emissions from forestry-related activities, including exploitation and forest fires, not calculated in the BC Climate Plan, BC’s emissions up to 3 times the figure used there and makes the plan highly questionable or even void.
Misspelling: emergency brake
Corrected. Thank you.