By Sarah Boon from Watershed Moments. In the days following the U.S. election, two former Canadian ambassadors to the U.S. had some advice for Canadians worried about the future of Canada-U.S. relations. “Calm down,” they said. “Change the channel and watch some hockey.” This paternalistic statement not only played on the worn cultural stereotype
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One Alberta Ranching Family’s Three-Generation Fight for Cleanup of Contaminated Well Site
By Tony Bruder For three generations, my family has lived on our ranch near Twin Butte, Alberta, where the mountains meet the prairies. Against a backdrop of towering rock there is an abundance of wildlife, and immensely rich grazing land. In the midst of all this beauty lies an all too
Continue readingOne Alberta Ranching Family’s Three-Generation Fight for Cleanup of Contaminated Well Site
By Tony Bruder For three generations, my family has lived on our ranch near Twin Butte, Alberta, where the mountains meet the prairies. Against a backdrop of towering rock there is an abundance of wildlife, and immensely rich grazing land. In the midst of all this beauty lies an all too
Continue readingB.C.’s First LNG Plant Gets Investment Green Light
This article originally appeared on The Climate Examiner at the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions. British Columbia’s first major liquefied natural gas project is set to go ahead with Woodfibre LNG’s announcement last week of funding to build a $1.6 billion processing and export plant in Squamish. The project, which promises some 650 construction jobs
Continue readingB.C.’s First LNG Plant Gets Investment Green Light
This article originally appeared on The Climate Examiner at the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions. British Columbia’s first major liquefied natural gas project is set to go ahead with Woodfibre LNG’s announcement last week of funding to build a $1.6 billion processing and export plant in Squamish. The project, which promises some 650 construction jobs
Continue readingOntario Cancels Nearly $4 Billion in Clean Energy Projects
Originally published on The Climate Examiner. The fingerpointing continues on the Ontario government’s decision to cancel $3.8 billion in planned wind and solar projects, as part of its struggle to keep a lid on soaring electricity prices that are being attributed to multiple factors. The cancelled schemes could have offered up to 1000
Continue readingIan Gill: Fearless Journalism Essential to Democracy
Canada’s media industries are in a tailspin. As many as 10,000 journalists have lost their jobs in the past decade and newsroom closures or contractions are an almost weekly fact of life across the country. In a new book, No News Is Bad News: Canada’s Media Collapse — And What Comes
Continue readingBC Hydro Repeating Painful History with First Nations
Fifty-five years ago, construction crews started one of the tallest earth dams in the world 22 kilometres west of Hudson’s Hope, B.C. It was to flood a valley shaped by the Parsnip and Finlay Rivers. This secluded paradise had been home to the Tsay Keh Dene for millennia. It was where
Continue readingThe New Climate Denialism: Time for an Intervention
For decades, the urgent need for climate action was stymied by what came to be known as “climate denialism” (or its more mild cousin, “climate skepticism”).
In an effort to create public confusion and stall political progress, the fossil fuel industry poured tens of millions of dollars into the pockets of foundations, think tanks, lobby groups, politicians and academics who relentlessly questioned the overwhelming scientific evidence that human-caused climate change is real and requires urgent action.
Thankfully, the climate deniers have now mostly been exposed and repudiated. Relatively few politicians now express misgivings about the reality or science of climate change (the current Republican nominee for U.S. president being a notable exception, along with some other conservative bright lights like Sarah Palin and Canadian MP Cheryl Gallant).
That’s the good news.
The bad news is we face a new form of climate denialism — more nuanced and insidious, but just as dangerous.
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Divide and Conquer: The Threatened Community at the Heart of the PNW LNG Project
By Ash Kelly and Brielle Morgan for Discourse Media. For a full, interactive version of this investigative piece, visit Discourse Media.
For more than 5,000 years, First Nations people have collected plants and harvested red cedar on Lelu Island, wh…
Continue readingWhy the Site C Dam is an Economic Disaster: NDP Critic
This is a guest piece by Adrian Dix, the MLA for Vancouver-Kingsway and the NDP critic for BC Hydro and ICBC.
BC Hydro and the provincial Liberal government are playing a reckless game with British Columbians. They are building the Site C dam even tho…
Continue readingWhat I Learned From Being in a Focus Group Led by Bruce Anderson
By Laura Bouchard for CANADALAND.
A few weeks ago, Bruce Anderson, a popular pundit and pollster, wrote an opinion piece criticizing the NDP’s Leap Manifesto as a clumsy political misstep. Canadians, Anderson argues, would never go for bold acti…
Continue readingWhat I Learned From Being in a Focus Group Led by Bruce Anderson
By Laura Bouchard for CANADALAND.
A few weeks ago, Bruce Anderson, a popular pundit and pollster, wrote an opinion piece criticizing the NDP’s Leap Manifesto as a clumsy political misstep. Canadians, Anderson argues, would never go for bold acti…
Continue readingA Brief History of Fossil-Fuelled Climate Denial
By John Cook, The University of Queensland
The fossil fuel industry has spent many millions of dollars on confusing the public about climate change. But the role of vested interests in climate science denial is only half the picture.
Interest in t…
Continue readingA Brief History of Fossil-Fuelled Climate Denial
By John Cook, The University of Queensland
The fossil fuel industry has spent many millions of dollars on confusing the public about climate change. But the role of vested interests in climate science denial is only half the picture.
Interest in t…
Continue readingCanadian Climate Denial Group, Friends of Science, Named as Creditor in Coal Giant’s Bankruptcy Files
By Charles Mandel for the National Observer.
A Canadian climate change denial group has popped up in a U.S. coal giant’s bankruptcy proceedings that have lifted the curtain on the funding of a sophisticated continent-wide marketing campaign designed …
Continue readingCanadian Climate Denial Group, Friends of Science, Named as Creditor in Coal Giant’s Bankruptcy Files
By Charles Mandel for the National Observer.
A Canadian climate change denial group has popped up in a U.S. coal giant’s bankruptcy proceedings that have lifted the curtain on the funding of a sophisticated continent-wide marketing campaign designed …
Continue readingUnprecedented Wildfires in Western Canada Call For Serious Climate Action
This is a guest post by Jens Wieting, forest and climate campaigner with Sierra Club B.C.
The wildfires currently raging uncontrolled in Alberta are not within the range of what’s normal.
As of May 29, 854,984 hectares have burned this year in Can…
Continue readingUnprecedented Wildfires in Western Canada Call For Serious Climate Action
This is a guest post by Jens Wieting, forest and climate campaigner with Sierra Club B.C.
The wildfires currently raging uncontrolled in Alberta are not within the range of what’s normal.
As of May 29, 854,984 hectares have burned this year in Can…
Continue readingBlack Press Keeps Buying and then Closing Small B.C. Papers. Why?
By Megan Devlin for J-Source, the Canadian Journalism Project.
Eric Plummer, editor of the Alberni Valley Times, remembers the day last September when two representatives from Black Press told him his paper was closing.
“They came in, I think i…