Vacation home in south of France
Many years ago, our valued friends Jacquie and Lorne began searching for a vacation home. They explored possibilities in several parts of North America and Europe before deciding that the…
Norman Farrell
Buying unsellable luxury condos better than building affordable housing for just-plain-folks
A comment on my last article is too good to not feature as a separate post. It was submitted by Loopholes Uber Alles, which I suspect just might be a…
Government housing policy wrong again
Erick Villagomez teaches architecture and urban design at UBC's School of Community and Regional Planning. His work examines how cities are shaped by often-invisible systems that influence power, equity, and…
LNG: unclean energy
The following was published as a letter in Victoria’s Times Colonist newspaper Re: “B.C. premier visiting China to pitch LNG project as province’s ‘really big fish,’ ” June 27. While…
An intractable problem
I recently read several Facebook comments that trivialized the indiscriminate violence inflicted on innocent people in Gaza and Lebanon. Some commenters suggested that the deaths and disruption experienced by Israeli…
Will Electronic Monsters Rule Mankind?
During the past half-century, I have watched computing power increase beyond anything most of us could have imagined. My old Digital Equipment DS310 attracted attention from other business people, but…
Discouraging solar to subsidize LNG
By Jeremy Valeriote, BC Green Party MLA: On July 1 BC Hydro is changing the way it pays for power generated from household solar, and we’re not happy about it.…
Damn the climate science, full speed ahead! – UPDATED
During the 1864 American Civil War Battle of Mobile Bay, Rear Admiral Farragut ordered his fleet forward after the vessel Tecumseh struck a torpedo—and sank. The admiral said something like,…
Decarbonizing energy
By making ordinary hills suitable for energy storage, the technology could dramatically expand the number of viable pumped-hydro sites. RheEnergise promises that its system is cost-effective and able to integrate…
Can politicians sympathetic to unions be climate-conscious?
A strong labour movement can make climate policy more durable and socially just—but only when it represents workers rather than becoming the political defender of multinational, carbon-intensive industries.
Goodbye Premier Eby
As dissatisfaction spreads within the NDP, doubts about Eby’s political judgment and electoral appeal will deepen. Unless he reverses the government’s decline, pressure for a leadership change will not merely…
LNG carbon footprint is “worse than coal”
To promote natural gas, British Columbia has foregone billions of dollars that once flowed into the public treasury. In 2005-2008, monthly auctions of natural gas rights brought in the 2026…
Why not geothermal?
Los Angeles-based Critical Energy is developing modular power plants that can be mass-produced in factories, transported in sections by 18-wheelers, and installed in as little as two weeks to meet…
ICYMI
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy has continuously held elected offices since 1999. He was first voted into the Connecticut House of Representatives and then into the State Senate. Murphy entered the…
A toxic cocktail of air pollutants
Having committed itself to promoting and subsidizing British Columbia’s fossil-fuel industry, David Eby’s government will not restrain a company planning to release substantially greater quantities of harmful air pollutants. Nitrogen…
Tax breaks for billionaires instead of public housing
The Tyee and Canada's National Observer consistently produce independent journalism worth our attention. While browsing recent stories at The Tyee, one stood out. It's an account of a billionaire family…
Day after day
People with rust in their arteries (like me) probably remember a song that was briefly popular in 1969...
Nincompoops turned out to be correct
After more than 15 years of BC Hydro insisting demand was rising for electricity, Adrian Dix has now admitted what I documented repeatedly at IN-SIGHTS. CTV quoted the minister responsible…
Underwater data centres, part 2
The explosive growth of artificial intelligence may force us to choose between imperfect alternatives. If demand for computing power continues to rise, policymakers have to weigh the environmental and social…
Underwater data centres
China is the first country in the world to operate an underwater data center. It is part of a strategy to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and reduce the environmental…