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Flat earth attitude leads to flat line future

When are we going leave the climate change deniers behind, and start taking serious action on what should be the most urgent file on the desk of every government on earth?

When, to put it another way, can we put commentary from the folks who don’t think there’s a problem in the same category as we would arguments from the Flat Earth Society?

I say this after having read a CBC post under the heading, Recent warming over the past 100 years is not part of a natural process, studies find. Thanks for that, but I don’t need any more proof that climate change is a real and present threat, it’s happening as I type, it’s human caused, and it requires urgent action at every level.

That local governments, including The City of Duncan and The Municipality of North Cowichan, are responding to the crisis is a good sign (as reported in onecowichan.ca). We need more good signs at a higher level, and to insist on clear commitments from federal politicians vying for our votes Oct. 21.

The International Panel on Climate Change has given us 12 years to effect the massive transformations that need to be made to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of global warming; that global warming is already happening, and that it’s due to human activity is not a question that can seriously be asked.

Says the IPCC report, in its level headed language: Human activities are estimated to have caused approximately 1.0°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels, with a likely range of 0.8°C to 1.2°C. Global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate. (high confidence)

Here’s the graph:

Leave the climate change deniers to their convoluted, dangerous logic, and let’s get on with concerted action to stop global warming – as has been agreed to in the 2016 Paris Climate Accord. We can’t afford to squabble anymore about the urgency of the situation.

The flat earther’s can go around proving their theories from now to eternity, and nobody’s really going to get hurt. No matter how far they wander in their zany speculations, no-one is going to actually fall off the edge. Climate change deniers, on the other hand, are preventing us from facing up to the greatest crisis that has ever faced civilization, and being innovators in the new economy that has to emerge, if we are going to avoid disaster.

Craig Spence, Editor

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Looking up to young voters

We’ve got an election coming on in three months time, and like every other election, it’s the most important in our history… only this time I really mean it.

The people we put in power will likely be governing for the next three to five years. That’s a quarter to third the time the International Panel on Climate Change and a long list of organizations, scientists and environmentalists have allowed for the world in general, developed economies in particular, to get their acts together and treat climate change as the crisis it’s become.

There will be lots of issues to think about as October 21 approaches, but I ask you to give the parties’ leadership on climate change the most weight when you mark your ballot, and to spend time between now and then getting up to speed on the complex issues involved.

As a certified senior, I fear for the futures of my children and grandchildren – global warming is an unacceptable threat. But I won’t be around to experience the worst catastrophes that will result, if we continue in the profligate lifestyles my generation has brought into vogue. If you’re a young voter, you will be.

It’s your future we’re talking about here. So by all means, blame my cohort for the place we’re at; but take full responsibility for the direction we’re going to take as the second quarter of the 21st Century approaches, before it’s too later that it already is.

MiF will be doing federal election coverage from a Mid-Island perspective between now and Oct. 21. If you have suggestions about what we should cover, or questions you would like candidates to respond to, please get in touch…

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Cowichan River level critical, says watershed board


The Cowichan River, near Stutz Falls. Photo by One Cowichan

(Due to its urgent nature, Mid-Island Focus is printing this release from the Cowichan Watershed Board in its entirety. If you have questions about this report, please contact or subscribe to MiF, and we will look for more answers in a followup story. Craig Spence, Editor)

(Duncan BC) Concerns are rising in the Cowichan Valley as the iconic Cowichan River faces a strong likelihood of running out of water by August unless there is heavy and sustained rainfall. The Cowichan is major salmon producing river, including Chinook which are a critical food source for the endangered Southern Resident orca population. Located on Eastern Vancouver Island, adjacent to the Salish Sea, this river is the heart of the Cowichan Tribes First Nation’s territory, and a favourite recreational destination. It also supports major employment for the region, through fishing, tourism, and the Catalyst Paper mill.

“We’ve been on the knife’s edge several times in the past fifteen years,” says Tom Rutherford, Cowichan Watershed Board Executive Director, “but this is the worst forecast in living memory. Unless we get a lot of rain, there is simply not enough water stored in Cowichan Lake to keep the river flowing to the end of August. Our salmon and the whole ecosystem depend on that water and it’s not there. We are all losing sleep thinking about what lies ahead.”

This is primarily a climate change impact. For sixty years, a meter-high, seasonally-operated weir at Cowichan Lake has been used successfully to hold back enough winter and spring run-off to feed the river through the dry summer and fall seasons. A schedule of minimum water flow rates, set by the Province of BC, has been maintained by the water license holder, Catalyst Paper, in return for rights to extract a portion of that water downriver to supply its pulp mill at Crofton. Over the past fifteen years, however, much drier spring and summer weather combined with lower snowpack has left insufficient water supplies in Cowichan Lake to meet those minimal flows in most years. This impacts fish survival, First Nations constitutional rights, recreation, tourism, the 600 workers of PPWC Local 2 at the Catalyst mill, and more.

This year an emergency measure is in place allowing Catalyst to pump water out of the lake into the river when the lake storage is depleted, but this is an expensive stop-gap response. While it could help keep the river flowing at minimal levels, it would result in drawing down the lake below historic levels. This could impact other fish, riparian habitats, and lakeshore residents, and is only viable as a short term remedy. Often the fall rains don’t return until October.

“It’s all hands on deck,” says Rutherford. “Local organizations are doing everything we can here.” A partnership of Cowichan Valley Regional District, Cowichan Tribes, Catalyst Paper and the Cowichan Watershed Board were recently invited to apply for major funding to begin the next phase to replace the weir. If successful, engineering and impact analysis will begin this year to build a structure capable of storing more water.

More info at cowichanwatershedboard.ca

 

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Routley, old-growth protestors engage in heated debate at MLA’s office

Nanaimo – North Cowichan New Democrat MLA Doug Routley said it’s going to take time, consultation and public support to stop the logging of B.C.’s remaining unprotected old-growth forests, and he urged a gathering of about 30 protestors at his constituency office in Southgate Mall to work with the NDP, getting legislation in place that will give government the controls it needs to implement sustainable practices.

Sierra Club Conservation and Climate Campaigner Mark Worthing said a halt to old-growth logging is well overdue, that he and other spokespersons for environmental groups have been put at the ‘kid table’ when it comes to negotiating an end to what he sees as destructive logging practices in B.C.’s ecologically vital old-growth forests, and that he’ll believe the government’s commitment to ending old-growth logging when he sees incremental signs of action.

“I feel deeply violated, I feel deeply disappointed, and I feel that I have been lied to,” Worthing said to supporters, just before Routley arrived to listen to their concerns and speak to them on behalf of his party. “I feel that I have been tricked, I feel that I have been swindled, by this illusion of government management or mismanagement of the forests.”

Routley cautioned the protestors about simplifying a complex issue, and assuming everyone on Vancouver Island feels the same as they do about harvesting old-growth. Unless people ‘buy-in’ to a process for protecting trees, and shifting to other sources of timber, passionate advocates for ancient forests could end up driving voters whose livings are derived from forestry, to supporting organizations and parties that don’t want to see any constraints on logging.

“What we need to do is collaborate,” he urged. “This is a complex problem. Communities up and down this coast do not support your position, and they have a right as well.” That drew an angry response from the protestors, but Routley insisted. “That is true. There are many different views on this issue.”

Worthing said he is not convinced the NDP is doing all it can to end old-growth logging and challenged the government to take interim measures to save what forests can be protected now. When Routley pointed out that a moratorium on old-growth logging – which some of the protestors called for – would be challenged legally, and that some First Nations do not want to see a ban, Worthing argued the government should end the practice in areas where there is a strong consensus.

It’s not difficult to figure out how quickly B.C.’s remaining old-growth is vanishing Worthing argued. “Twenty-two years – at the current rate of cut, all the old-growth is gone,” he said. “So, there’s your deadline. So, you just basically work backwards from that, and figure out: How much do we want left? What’s the line?”

Routley empathized with the protestors demand to end old-growth logging, but said the government has been hamstrung by changes to legislation and regulation that were put in place by the previous Liberal government during its tenure. “They had 16 years… to disarm the ability of government to intervene in the industry; we have had a year and a half to restore all that.”

Progress on issues like forest management is frustrating, because passing legislation is a grindingly slow process, Routley reminded. “If any of you was elected as a government, say all of you were cabinet ministers, you would not be able to go in and very simply do what you’re saying. It would be a complex, difficult task that takes a long time.”

He pointed out that the risk of throwing B.C. back into the control of a less progressive government is real and immanent, and asked again the protestors to work with the NDP despite their impatience. “As Jason Kenny gets elected to the east of us, as we have Trump to the south, as we may have conservatives federally, we have conservative governments all over Canada, we are the only government of this kind. So, while we’re not perfect, I would ask you to take the spirit here of: what do we do to make this happen?”

June Ross, Chairwoman of the Vancouver Island Water Watch Coalition, said she takes “partial hope” from the dialogue that took place during the protest. “I hope that he hears that we need to sit down collaboratively. I want First Nations at the table, I want the Sierra Club, the Ancient Forest Alliance, the Wilderness Committee, and some community groups, like the one I head up. We all need to be at the table to talk to them.”

In an interview after the protest was winding-down, Routley and Worthing committed to further dialogue. “I’m here to let the B.C. government know that they’re need in this solution to old-growth logging,” Worthing said. “It’s really encouraging to hear MLA Routley say that he’s willing to be part of that solution.”

Routley repeated: “…the only way that a solution will be sustainable, is if people buy-in.”

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Beez Pleazzz! What’s the buzz on helping our buzy pollinating friends?


Art by Diana Durrand from her Bees exhibit.

MiF is looking to do a story on what works, and what doesn’t, attracting bees into our yards and gardens. If you’ve got information to share, please contact Editor Craig Spence. we’d like to know:

  • How you can attract bees to your garden?
  • What kind of homes bees like?
  • What not to do that will either be harmful to bees or keep them away?
  • What the benefits of bees are to gardeners and to our environment?
  • Why people are afraid of bees, and what can be done to limit any risks attracting bees might pose?
  • What it takes to be a bee-keeper?

And any other question you think we should be asking.

Post a comment here or contact the editor of MiF

If you’re interested in this story, and want to keep up, subscribe to MiF Updates…

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Are we really doomed?

In a recent Tyee article, Who, or What, Will Stop the Battle against Biodiversity?, Andrew Nikiforuk laments the failure of the environmental movement to prevent the onslaught of rapacious humanity against nature.

“You can’t read the UN’s recent biodiversity report on the imminent destruction of one million creatures by human economies and not conclude that the environmental movement has failed, and spectacularly so,” he begins.

Not too many people would quibble with that statement. Perhaps there are some who still believe the environmental movement may gain traction as the pending catastrophes of unabated consumerism and industrialism become more obvious, but two mindsets are taking hold that gainsay that desperate hope:

  • increasingly the conversation around climate change is about how we, as a species (and to hell with every other living creature on the planet), can adapt to the unstoppable rise in temperature;
  • there is an almost palpable sense that no amount of protesting, letter writing, recycling and electric biking is going to stop the juggernaut of ‘progress’ in the consumerist genre, and as more and more people on the planet demand their slice of American pie, we will continue to race toward the tipping point of catastrophe at an ever accelerating rate.

Nikiforuk goes farther than saying enviros have failed, though. By some circuitous trail of deduction I can’t fathom, he actually blames the environmental movement for the mess we’re getting ourselves into.

Citing the ‘brilliant Austrian cleric’ Ivan Illich, who said the environmental movement might not amount to much, Nikiforuk says: “In many respects environmentalism has allowed a civilization intent on hacking off its limbs one by one to properly record the loss of each appendage and then pretend the amputation isn’t all that consequential.”

Hardly a rallying cry for the exhausted troops under their green banners to keep up the good fight, despite the odds!

I’m still not convinced it’s a case of sloppy writing; or confounded logic that has led to this gloomy impression of environmentalism as a worse-than-ineffectual movement, but whatever the cause, I think Nikiforuk has weighed in on the wrong side of the balance… there has never been a greater need to muster green sentiments then right now.

What are the enviros up against? Reading the comments to Nikiforuk’s article will give you an idea of the kinds of attitudes that are prevalent, and which the Green movement has to be mindful of. Here’s a culling of thoughts taken from more than a hundred comments to his article:

  • Humans are a pernicious species, separate from nature.
  • The only solution to impending global catastrophe would be extermination of the human species.
  • A knowing intelligencia is manipulating the economic and political process to perpetuate the capitalist, consumerist thrust of human growth and development.
  • The motive for planetary pillaging is profit.
  • Corporate entities have an overwhelming advantage when it comes to influencing public attitudes and opinion.
  • The environmental movement has failed.
  • We are doomed to a dark age of civil and social collapse which will entail unspeakable devastation and suffering.
  • Science, which has brought us the standard of living we enjoy, will not be able to come up with solutions to prevent the planetary collapse our standard of living entails.
  • Population growth combined with the ever increasing demands of consumerist modes of living are unsustainable factors that inevitably lead to disaster.
  • Humanity cannot survive if the intricate web of biodiversity is degraded.
  • The pre-industrial mode of living was more in tune with nature than the post-industrial.
  • We could have achieved a higher standard of living without the kind of environmental plundering and social disruption that occurred.
  • The democratic process can’t lead to the type of change that’s needed to prevent global catastrophe.
  • Individuals, when it comes down to making the ‘right’ choices, will always choose the ‘wrong’ things: more consumer products that make life easier and more fun.
  • There will be winners and losers no matter how the future unfolds: change, to harmonize our behaviour with nature, entails dislocations such as job loss, divestment and so on; the status quo will lead to untold suffering for many, new forms of consolidated power for a few.
  • If people shared, we could attain a high standard of living without destroying the planet… but human beings are by nature greedy, self-centred, rapacious and destructive.

Knowing the mindset of thine opponents, and thine allies is fundamental to any sort of political success. Opponents words can (and must) be turned in your favour; supporters’ views can (and almost always will) be used against you. Nikiforuk has penned a strange sort of logic in his article about ‘the battle against biodiversity’, but he’s touched some important nerves in the process.

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Point of Departure

Sometimes, when we come across a magical place, we want to keep it secret – like a gem, cushioned inside a velvet-lined case. And sometimes these secret places are in plain view, thousands of people passing them by without ever imagining their hidden wonders.

Jesse Island is like that. It’s part of the rocky outcroppings that ring the northern curve of Departure Bay. Millions of people have steamed past them on the BC Ferries route from Nanaimo to Horseshoe Bay, but – like me, until recently – few suspect the inner secrets of these seemingly typical, coastal islets of the Salish Sea.

My partner Di and I set out from the popular kayak launch near the Kin Hut, just off Departure Bay Road at Loat Street. A leisurely 5 kilometre paddle took us by the Brandon Islands, Inskip Rock, around Jesse Island and back. We’d discovered in the BC Coastal Recreational Kayaking and Small Boat Atlas that there were ‘caves’ you could paddle through on Jesse Island, so off we went.

As we skirted the shoreline, we pulled away from the traffic sounds, and the people enjoying a beautiful summer day on the beach. It wasn’t long before we were immersed in a quiet zone of marine wonders. A flock of cormorants sunning on a rocky outcropping; geese, to lazy to fly away as we approached; a pack of seals watching our every move, cautious, but too curious to dive for safety.

The first hint of the inner spaces of Jesse was a basking seal, protected by the ramparts of a rocky formation. Just round the corner from there, we found the entrance to one of the ‘caves’. This isn’t the Grande Canyon we’re talking about; the channels are little spaces, perhaps twenty metres long, that kayakers can explore. But these niches offer their own sense of wonder – a convergence of geology and marine biology that makes you feel connected to the natural world.

On the return paddle we discovered a few more passageways and caves to poke our bows into and squeeze through… a delightful way to spend a sunny, summer afternoon, all within sight of the Island’s second largest city!

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Gas price increase in context

Next time I’m grumbling about the cost of pumping gas into my tank, and blaming –falsely – the darn gas tax, I might want to picture the analysis submitted in a letter to the editor of the Times Colonist by Thomas Martin of Victoria (depicted above). In the May 6 edition, Martin says, in reference to a TC article, New Alberta refinery could help with squeezed gas supply: Horgan, April 27:

High gas prices have made the news (again). I sat down, did the math and found the increase will cost me only $120 annually.

My car, if you account for maintenance, depreciation, financing and insurance, costs about $8,000 a year. Rent, utilities, phone and internet for my one-bedroom cost $22,200.

If we have the infrastructure, I can choose to drive my car less, but I will always choose to have a roof over my head. I hate driving to work. However, our government’s choices make us dependent on the automobile for daily life, and thus forced to spend absurd amounts on what should be a luxury item.

If politicians actually cared about the ordinary person, they would give us options to reduce car dependency (more bike lanes, better transit, etc.) and work to reduce the cost of necessities such as housing.

Makes dollars and sense to me!