Topic
Journalists wishing to be relevant this provincial election must zero in on environment.
Climate change booster: coal train in Burnaby, B.C. Photo by Jason Gallant via Your BC: The Tyee's Photo Pool.
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This will be, at long last, the year of the environment in B.C. For the first time in my memory, leaders debating in the upcoming election will have to answer questions about the environment.
It will be a strange feeling for those who have slugged it out in the trenches since the 1960s only to be ignored by the media who think that the only issues are those they have acknowledged to be so, and no others.
For decades the media's agenda has refused to reflect the demonstrable public concern that spawned Greenpeace, the Sea Shepherd Society and may others including the Wilderness Committee, the Living Oceans Society, the Georgia Strait Alliance... I'm already getting into trouble because I can't possibly name them all. I especially must mention the great work at sea by Paul Watson, on whose board of advisors I have sat on for some 20 years, and Joe Foy and his colleagues at the Wilderness Committee with whom I have shared many a podium.
For decades the media has had the benefit of the hard information and well-grounded alarms provided by such organizations, and have regularly treated them as "special interests" rather than guardians of all our interests.
Now, however, the environment is so obviously a pressing issue at the heart of nearly all key election issues in British Columbia that any news person worth their salt must take notice. Let me be of help, then. I will make the media's job easier by providing a handy reference of questions that should be posed to every candidate who comes near a reporter's pad or microphone.
Ask about global warming. Connected to and overarching all I'm going to discuss in the rest of this column is the horrible reality we call climate change. This is a civilization threatening problem to which our federal and provincial governments pay little more than lip service. We, like the United States and China, seem to think that whatever must be done can come tomorrow.
Ask about coal. A provincial government can make no claim to care about climate change while enabling the increased extraction and burning of coal. Yet B.C. ships several hundred thousand tonnes per annum of coal at Deltaport and is increasing our capacity to do so. That puts us in the camp of Mitt Romney. In the past presidential election the Republican candidate was calling for expansion of coal production and he was accompanied by millions of dollars of ads by the coal companies.
Ask about pipelines, bitumen and fracking. There are, at this writing, nine proposed pipelines scheduled to cross our province and more than 600 tankers per year will then be slated to deliver toxic, high emissions tar sands crude and dangerously fracked, high emissions gas to overseas customers. Our provincial politicans seem overwhelmed by this and seem to be saying, "We can't be against everything." But they fail to consider that if they are for any of the projects they will be forced to approve others.
Ask about fish farms. Justice Bruce Cohen has now recommended no further licenses in the path of migrating sockeye, an injunction both governments seem ready to ignore. But it's more than that. The provincial government has the power to license all fish farms and this government seems quite unwilling to do this. Moreover -- and this is a critical point -- it refuses to apply the precautionary rule which would require that applicants prove the safety of their proposal, not leave it to doughty warriors like Alexandra Morton to prove them unsafe.
Ask about ruin of river power projects. We have the private power issue where large corporations (Independent Power Producers or IPPs) can literally destroy our rivers to make power for BC Hydro that doesn't need it but must buy it anyway at hugely inflated prices. As a result, BC Hydro, if it wasn't in the public sector, would be bankrupt. The only reason it isn't is that it can simply continue to raise rates to the public to cover their losses. At this point, by some estimates, BC Hydro owes $50 billion dollars to IPPs for future sales.*
Ask about the Deltaport expansion. It is not needed. It is obliterating agricultural land. It threatens migratory birds and Burns Bog.
Ask about the B.C. Utilities Commission. With respect to water licenses and IPPs in general, the commission must be re-constituted and have its powers reinstated.
Ask about the environmental assessment process. It is so badly flawed in British Columbia that it can in truth be called fraudulent. Those in charge do not allow the public any input as to whether or not the project should proceed in the first place; the exception, perhaps, being the BC Hydro process for Site C.
These projects, by the time they have reached the environmental assessment process, are done deals. To attend these meetings is the acme of frustration. As I have said in the past, I would rather have a root canal with no freezing than attend another. To see proof of what I'm saying, remember that with respect to the Enbridge proposed line, Minister Joe Oliver and the prime minister have stated that whatever the EAO (Environmental Assessment Office) decides, the project is going ahead anyway.
Question the media
This election in May will tell us whether or not we will preserve British Columbia for those to come or simply be a conduit by which large corporations can destroy us in pursuit of profit -- profit that leaves the province incidentally.
We, the long suffering public must demonstrate that, contrary to media expectations, we do in fact regard our environment as the number one issue. That we do care about caribou, bears and animals of all descriptions, birds and the fauna under threat.
When you scan your newspaper or listen to a news broadcast and find it devoid of critical questions you wish had been put to politicians, here is a question that you, as a citizen, should put to that media enterprise: What the hell is wrong with you?
*Typo fixed Jan. 7 at 2:08 p.m. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
Read more: Politics, Environment, BC Election 2013
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Story
19 weeks ago
Rafe, I am concerned that
Rafe, I am concerned that you still rely on the outmoded concept of AGW to bolster your environmental arguments. Indeed, I agree with most of your environmental writings until you come to AGW or whatever current acronym climate alarmists choose to hide behind.
Don't fall into this trap . . .
“In my 35 years of experience in journalism, I have found that most readers read in order to confirm what they already think and believe. It is the same for the right-wing and the left-wing. They cannot escape their ideological boxes and are creatures of their biases. They want their prejudices vindicated and their beliefs supported. A writer who tells them something that they do not want to hear receives abuse. These readers cannot benefit from facts and new information and change their minds. They already know everything and only want information that supports their beliefs and advances their agendas." Paul Craig Roberts, January 03, 2013.
. . . as you appear to be doing with . . .
"global warming. Connected to and overarching all I'm going to discuss in the rest of this column is the horrible reality we call climate change. This is a civilization threatening problem to which our federal and provincial governments pay little more than lip service." Assuming, of course, we are the problem!
We have been there a long time now!
Earth's climate changes all the time without anthropogenic assistance . . . evidence in ice cores, Medieval Warming etc. . . . bin changing for eons without our puny assistance . . .
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/11/29/open-climate-letter-to-un-secretary-general-current-scientific-knowledge-does-not-substantiate-ban-ki-moon-assertions-on-weather-and-climate-say-125-scientists/
. . . many climate scientists have come around to that way of thinquing now.
If you persist much of your excellent observations, tar sands exploitation, over development and calling it greening the city, port activity overwhelming our ALR, Sea Shepard's efforts to save the whales, Alexander's efforts to save the wild salmon (despite) et. al., will be discredited.
Mr. Justice Cohen has described one part of the problem and he only, peripherally, mentions warming. It remains for government and industry to come up to the plate.
The real problem we face, the real problem the whales and the salmon face is the way we dole out money as debt.
If you love the environment, and obviously you do, tackle the real crooks, tackle the banksters, who are strangling every thing we try to do!
Lawrence
19 weeks ago
Yep
The biggest threat to the world's climate are right wing governments.In May we get to throw a Krispy fair well party, then what. The NDP better get as green as they can, as fast as they can and stop the pipelines.
I would set up an advisory panel and include the likes of Rafe and other BC environmentalists.The NDP can absorb the Green party as it will need their votes in the election after next.After all the NDP created the Green party after all that foolishness at Claoquot sound.
And something else, I keep getting all these requests for money from the NDP, but I'll tell you what, you'll get money from me and no doubt others, when you tell the membership to look at this site, and other progressive sites around the net.It wouldn't be too hard to guess that one reason The Tyee was created in the first place was to try and get some good ideas presented to the good folks that run the NDP, which was considered very difficult to do 7 years ago
Hugh
19 weeks ago
Rafe's questions are all
Rafe's questions are all excellent.
Also they should ask about that BC Rail thing.
And why $millions of public money is taken out of the BC Public Sector and given to private companies through the Pacific Carbon Trust.
And what was that shady flim-flam deal they pulled at BC Ferries.
pianosaurus rex
19 weeks ago
The reality of what Rafe states
Every life system on Earth is in decline.
Every life supporting system on Earth is in decline. These two things make up our biosphere.
Governments have convinced themselves that the environment is to be “managed” when in actual fact a healthy environment comes before any other decision.
Without a healthy biosphere first, every other matter is a moot point as we will not be around to ask any of the questions posed.
We require a government that is willing to address this fact.
rosesandthorns
19 weeks ago
priorities
I agree that the environment is very important and must be kept as a top priority. However this takes money. If there is no money in government then it will not be put first. History shows that the environment is exploited when there is no money.
Since 2001 the provincial treasury has been hollowed out, robbed and the future exploited of revenue. We cannot fight for the environment because there is no money and the corruption must be dealt with. Crony capitalist contracts must be shredded along with other generous agreements that must be reduced. The topic in the upcoming election must be around the corruption that has been going on all around us. It will be a mistake to ignore it.
Dannyboy
19 weeks ago
Editorial alert!
Qoute: "As a result, BC Hydro, if in the public sector, would be bankrupt"
You meant private sector of course
Bruno96
19 weeks ago
Journalism Past
It used to be when imparting information for the public good so citizens can participate effectively in a democratic society has given way to audience-building, giving the customer what he or she wants, and constant competition in a world of markets.
Information is a commodity, and private TV networks are supposed to make money. All stations, publicly funded or not, want to maintain or expand their viewership. Simply put, you can tell less truth and make more money... there is an underlying tension between 'what the people want to see' and 'the important stories that should be presented to people.'
The "old" journalism is about keeping citizens informed for the public good, where information, which wasn't a commodity, allowed citizens to hold their democratic leaders accountable.
The "new" journalism is about using whatever attracts eyeballs (the "news" loosely defined, which then allows for stories about cute pets, scandalous affairs and shocking violence) as a means to an end of building the biggest audience, increasing revenue streams and showing sustained corporate growth.
igbymac
19 weeks ago
Ask if there is a single one of them ...
that can explain to you grade school maths like the exponential function and understand its effect on the environment.
Good luck, because if people did grasp this simple concept there is no way we'd be marching in the direction we are at this late hour.
igbymac
19 weeks ago
Story, keep telling yourself these stories
and continue to omit the time factor, and you will remain comfortable in your nest of self delusion.
What previously took thousands of years to accomplish through natural climate change is now being done in a century. And there's the rub. Except the bad news is that the destruction and the growth of our global needs is speeding up.
David Beers
19 weeks ago
thanks Dannyboy
We'll fix that typo and appreciate your close reading and alerting us
fleming65
19 weeks ago
Questions to ask
In total agreement with Rafe, we need to ask the right questions, and then not put up with regular party line answers
I believe this may be one of the first elections where MSM will not dictate the agenda, its time bloggers and social media set the tone, and direct the questions.
With that in mind, if we all attend all candidate meetings in your riding, go there with the intent of asking each candidate tough questions, take an air horn and every time they give some stupid party line answer blow the horn. You vote for the individual and not the party, so you want to know there personal opinion on such matters. Plus you want to know what they are going to do with the whole sale selling out to corporations that do not care about you or me.
We have to get involved in this election now more than ever if you think you live in a true democracy.
igbymac
19 weeks ago
if you think you live in a true democracy???
Only the bewlidered herd thinks that.
Hilarious that we are still talking about it though, despite the overwhelming evidence that the people's needs are collateral, at best, to the state.
pianosaurus rex
19 weeks ago
Same old same old
“We have to get involved in this election now more than ever if you think you live in a true democracy.”
Be as involved as you want to be. But remember still to this day we are voting inside an outdated outmoded, political party system in which all parties are complicit of the same nonsense;
First get into power, then abandon your constituents, along with any mandate promised, and spend all of the time attempting to remain in power at all costs.
Every political party in this country is guilty of this fact. FPTP is over and has been for a long time.
When you have 23% of the total population that puts the federal government we have at the moment in place, then it is painfully obvious that Canadians are voting with their feet as per usual and refuse to get involved in a process that yields the same unsatisfactory results over and over.
Canadians need to wake up, stand up, and actually fight for this country…what is left of it anyways.
And please don’t come back with some syrupy platitude like “oh it is the only system we have”
By the time Canadians actually wake up the country will belong to someone else.
Bloody unbelievable that every single Canadian sits on their ass waiting for the next guy to do something….
Walk like and Egyptian….
Dundee
19 weeks ago
Questions to ask Everyone"s Land Claim
The management of public forests in BC is gradually being turned over to forest corporations. It is a form of stealth privatization. Public forests should be managed independently for the public, rather than privately for the benefit of corporations. Everyone in BC should be making a land claim to return public forests and lands to local public control. Read more at:
http://www.greenbccommunities.com/2012/09/converting-to-area-based-forest.html
lynn
19 weeks ago
We have a lazy, lamestream media
that doesn't research, it regurgitates:
Case in point, big story today on Chief Spence and conveniently-timed release of audit by the Harper Cons:
Yet not one journalist seemed to notice that the audit just released by the Harper Cons was for the years 2005-2010....and that....
Chief Spence was elected in 2010.
If they had also actually read the report they would find that there were many constraints put on the reservations as to how and where the funds could be spent, with funding for housing limited by these same constraints and a pathetically meagre amount of the total funding designated to address the dire flood and sewage conditions....and thus greatly restricting the potential to actually remedy the situation.
The media has failed to see the constraints put on this funding to First Nations and the complications of this very complex issue. Their superficial reporting has done a great disservice to First Nations and to Chief Spence.
Cool Hand
19 weeks ago
Rafe
Not really. The issues of top concern for BC'ers have always generally been in this order:
1. Economy;
2. Gov't/Taxes;
3. Health;
4. Education;
5. Environment;
http://www.mustelgroup.com/images/top_issue.jpg
Considerably much more than that.
a. Westshore Terminals (Roberts Bank Superport) - 27+ MILLION tons/annum in 2011
b. Ridley Island (Prince Rupert)
9 MILLION tons/annum in 2011 currently expanding to double capacity
Coal
Now Rafe, the Elk Valley in SE BC and NE BC coal operations are the largest in Canada. What about the thousands of high-paying unionized jobs?
What about the high-paying unionized jobs with CP Rail/CN Rail delivering this metallurgical coal to port?
What about the high-paying unionized longshoremen jobs in North Vancouver, Delta, and Prince Rupert?
Natural Gas, Fraccing, LNG
Post-2017, LNG will be a game changer for BC's economy, in terms of a high-paying and higher employment levels, corporate taxes, and royalties to the BC treasury.
In fact, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Petronas, and the BG Group alone have ~90 million tons/annum of build-out lng capacity planned. Based upon new Australian lng capacity capital costs at between $1.5 - $3 billion/million tons, BC is looking at between $180 billion - $270 billion in lng terminal investment alone.
Add $10's of billion for additional pipeline capacity as well as NE BC field development and this opportunity is huge for BC.
Again, the unionized BC Building Trades support such development inclusive of the Northern Gateway pipeline.
That said, in BC the environment can be an emotional rather than a rational issue for many. And the only BC political party that opposes:
1. Fraccing;
2. LNG export;
3. Kinder Morgan Pipeline Twinning;
4. Coal field development;
is the BC Green Party.
I've said it once and I will say it again... the BC Green Party currently looks like the "sleeper" of the May provincial election campaign. They certainly have their emotional environmental "wedge cards/issues" to play with the public during the campaign.
lynn
19 weeks ago
Cool Hand wrote:
QUOTE:
"Not really. The issues of top concern for BC'ers have always generally been in this order:
1. Economy;
2. Gov't/Taxes;
3. Health;
4. Education;
5. Environment;" END OF QUOTE
You can't separate them, Cool Hand....
What isn't part of the environment in which we live?
Rafe's right - it's at the heart of everything.
cariboocooper
19 weeks ago
question 6
how much of the media is compromised or partisan such as the black Press group under the will of a complete Liberal schill and supporter?
Skywalker
19 weeks ago
Agreed Rafe!
is all in the paragraph, "This election in May will tell us whether or not we will preserve British Columbia for those to come or simply be a conduit by which large corporations can destroy us in pursuit of profit -- profit that leaves the province incidentally."
Frank
19 weeks ago
Luke
The Mustel poll you cite deals with numbers so low, such as 7% versus 8% etc, that its meaningless.
The top "priority" has only 20%.
Fact is, the electorate is not made up of single issue voters, people consider lots of subjects.
Coal?
Previously Luke declared Canada didn't have coal miners and therefore importing temporary Chinese workers was the best option. Looks like he just remembered some.
Cool Hand
19 weeks ago
Frank
Woahhhhhh. Hold on kimosabe! All major metallurgical coal operations in NE/SE BC are "open-pit" operations. And major expansion going on in NE BC - all unionized operations.
You are referring to the 250,000 ton test sample at a mine that doesn't exist, has no BC EAO approval, etc. You know, the Chinese miner thingy regarding "underground" "long-wall" mining. Ain't relevent in my above spiel.
Ummm.... I just heard the ref blow his whistle. Looks like ya got yourself 4 minutes in the penalty box.
pambee
19 weeks ago
Media
You're going to make most of our news and public affairs media members do a lot of homework Rafe. To quote one of my gurus in media.. "Answers are easy. The questions are tough" as you have well pointed out.
igbymac
19 weeks ago
Cold Hand
I don't need a jackass report to tell me the fcuking environment is THE most important issue in our world. Everything converges on the dinner table.
And if 34 million Canadians stand in unison and disagree, they are still dead wrong.
No wonder democratic Canada loves the retards it produces in its compulsory school system. My gosh!, you'd think nothing could be more obvious.
Story
19 weeks ago
No place for condescension in the warming . .
"What previously took thousands of years to accomplish through natural climate change is now being done in a century." Huh! Really.
What on earth are you talking about igbymac?
The last ice age was 10,000 years ago, the Medieval Warming period took place about 1100 years ago and the little ice age occurred about 400 year ago. The earth's climate has been up and down before and ever since.
Now tell me, what "is now being done in a century?"
I remember Typhoon Freda in 1962. Other than that Hurricanes have been forming on a usual basis of about three or four a year: only those that make land fall get the headlines.
Whether you and Rafe like it or not responsible climate data has been registering an earth cooling for about the last sixteen years (and watch out cooling may be worse than warming!).
The earth warms and the earth cools and since I am fully aware of its natural cycles, to which you and Rafe obviously are oblivious, I do not ". . . continue to omit the time factor . . .
When the little boys line up in unison its time to take a second look!
Perhaps, igbymac, you and Rafe, are the ones who "remain comfortable in your nest of self delusion." There's nothing like smell of fear mongering in the morning.
And take it easy on the condescension, igypop, it may turn back and bite you in the butt!
Keeping the Peace
18 weeks ago
Consultation on Site C dam
I would like to clarify that while the BC government is undertaking ‘public consultation’ on Site C, it is clear, from the perspective of those who have participated, that this is merely an exercise in due diligence and not a sincere attempt to consider public input. You can ask anyone who has participated in these processes whether they feel that their concerns are genuinely acknowledged and addressed and they will tell you ‘no’. Additionally, the EA process itself has been designed such that ‘alternatives to’ the project shall be determined and submitted by the proponent, BC Hydro. From a public policy perspective, allowing BC Hydro to set its own parameters for consideration of alternatives undermines the public participation aspect of the process as well as the joint panel’s ability to undertake a thorough and comprehensive evaluation of alternatives.
One more thing, how thorough is the public participation process on Site C, when consultation has only occurred in the northern part of the province, while the economic effects of this $8 billion+ project will be shared by all BC citizens?
igbymac
18 weeks ago
Story...hmmm, very apropos.
Here's the tip of what I am talking about:
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/causes.html
And not exactly from an alarmist source.