I began to distrust the province’s wildfire statistics after noticing the reported size of the Donnie Creek fire, the province’s largest ever, was not altered from mid-July to mid-September. Yet throughout this time, BC Wildfire Service stated that Donnie Creek was burning out of control. Now at the end of
Continue readingAuthor: Norman Farrell
IN-SIGHTS: Comparing BC Hydro June 2023 to BC Hydro June 2007.
BC Hydro recently released its first quarter results for the fiscal year ending March 2024. The report covered three months in 2023: April, May and June. It is worth looking at the changes at British Columbia’s public utility since June 2007.
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Organized hate groups on our streets
Gonzaga University is often recognized for basketball, but the 135-year-old Spokane institution is also known for academic initiatives. One is the Journal of Hate Studies, an annual peer-reviewed publication by Gonzaga’s Center for the Study of Hate. Fomenting prejudice or hostility against others is worth attention today after organized hate groups
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Wildfires — deadly for some, unhealthy for hundreds of millions
Stanford research reveals the rapidly growing influence of wildfire smoke on air quality trends across much of North America. Wildfire smoke in recent years has slowed or reversed progress toward cleaner air. Tens of millions of people suffer degraded health, thousands die…
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Western Canada’s plans for fossil fuel expansion are the second largest in the world
2023 is the worst ever year for areas burned by wildfires in British Columbia, Alberta and the entire nation of Canada. For years before 2023, despite huge sums invested by the public to improve firefighting responses, areas burned were trending upward. So what is the response by Canada’s federal and
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Strategic misrepresentation, aka as lying
Bent Flyvbjerg of Oxford University is the most cited scholar in the world in megaproject management. One of his studies included this: “Underestimation cannot be explained by error and is best explained by strategic misrepresentation, that is, lying. The policy implications are clear: legislators, administrators, investors, media representatives, and members
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: American attitudes toward climate change
A 2022 study1 by investigators from Yale and George Mason universities reported survey results after Americans were questioned about climate change. I suspect ignorance would be lower and expressions of concern would be higher in Canada since this country is not bombarded with reckless disinformation to the extent experienced by
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Precarious times
If we paid more attention to impacts of climate change, we would demand our governments take immediate and effective action, not offer promises that solutions will somehow be in place by 2050. Warning signs are plentiful in 2023. NASA reports that current warming is happening at a rate not seen
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Police-involved deaths involving force
Data collected by Tracking (In)Justice shows disturbingly high police-involved deaths Canada’s northern region and reports police-involved fatalities in four western provinces (2.69 per 100,000) are much higher the six provinces to the east (1.44 per 100,000).
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Harperism operates in right-wing shadows
Stephen Harper is today’s éminence grise behind the Conservative Party of Canada. Since leaving the University of Calgary in 1985, Harper has been a resolute right-wing activist. After being turned out of office by Justin Trudeau in 2015, the former Prime Minister has worked internationally to promote right-wing objectives and
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Circumscribed freedom
The emphasis of individual liberty has always been entangled with white supremacy, settler colonialism, climate destruction, economic exploitation, and patriarchy. These “ugly freedoms” legitimate the right to exploit and subjugate others.
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Protect the unborn, not the already born
Some who favour right wing politics believe in protecting the unborn, but vehemently oppose protection of children already born. This is largely an American problem, where guns overtook car crashes to become the leading cause of death for US children and teenagers in 2020. But this is something that Poilievre’s
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Wildfires
Wildfires are clearly a major problem for Canadians in 2023. Primary causes are known but solutions conflict with policies of governments that prefer to eliminate forest diversity and promote fossil fuel production with no regard for long-term costs to the planet. Failure to change forest management practices and moderate greenhouse
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Canada, land of vanishing wonders
Mike Hanafin, “Brilliant doesn’t do this justice. @thejuicemedia usually skewers Australian (Australien!) govts/politicians for kissing up to Big Oil, Fossil Fuel extractors, & monopolist billionaires. But they noticed it was happening here too. Great cameos from Galen Weston, Jimmy Pattison, and John Horgan.
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: BC Hydro’s credibility gap
When BC Hydro said that growing demand required asset additions worth billions of dollars and contractual commitments of $50+ billion owed to independent power producers, should we have believed what they said? The record clearly states the answer was NO.
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Oversight? No! Undersight? Yes!
Lew Edwardson wrote the following as a comment on the post Lack of transparency at BC Hydro may conceal massive fraud. It deserves to be repeated in this separate post. WARNING: this will not build confidence in elected officials and senior public servants.
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: BC’s contractual obligations worth tens of billions of dollars
BC’s government seems determined to continue the present model for private power in the intended 2024 call for additional electricity. The difference in 2024 will be that large contracts for wind power will be issued. Government knows that citizens would not, and should not, tolerate privatization of the public utility.
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Efficiency of BC Hydro dams slowly dropping – Site C may produce 1/4 less than promised
Site C was conceived when output per MW of capacity was higher than it has been in recent years. BC Hydro has regularly claimed that 1,100 MW capacity at Site C will annually produce 5,100 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity. That would be 4.64 GWh per MW of capacity, almost
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Lack of transparency at BC Hydro may conceal massive fraud
Economist Dr. Jetson Leder-Luis of Boston University studies fraud in public spending. He estimates that fraud in large projects may divert five percent of spending. On the Site C power project, that suggests fraud worth hundred of millions of dollars might be involved.
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: BC revenues from fossil gas
An examination of revenue the Province of British Columbia has taken in from production of fossil methane gas in the fiscal years 2000 to 2023.
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