Good Sunday Morning!
Yesterday was a grand time with the Salt Spring Island Greens, and the whole community for the annual celebration of Pride. Salt Spring has been celebrating the LGBTQ2S+ community since 2007! It was, as ever, a joyful event.
Still it was a tough week, dominated by out-of-control wildfires, record breaking hot days, including two days in a row breaking the record for global average heat, and the loss of much of the beautiful township of Jasper, Alberta.
Breaking records for global average temperatures occurred in summer 2023, and twice again in the last week. New record daily global average temperature reached in July 2024. As in all matters, averages contain and mask extremes. So as we experience scorching temperatures above 40 degrees and even into the 50s around the world, a new average high of 17.16 degrees C may not seem like a lot, but that is a record-breaking new global daily average.
“The Earth has just experienced its warmest day in recent history, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) data. On 22 July 2024, the daily global average temperature reached a new record high in the ERA5 dataset*, at 17.16°C. This exceeds the previous records of 17.09°C, set just one day before on 21 July 2024, and 17.08°C, set a year earlier on 6 July 2023.” from Copernicus.
Climate crisis evidence is overwhelming. Yet, for the most part, we live in a state of cognitive dissonance. We know burning fossil fuels is the number one driver of irreversible global warming, with loss of forest cover and industrial agriculture vying for second place. And yet we continue to expand fossil fuel production with the NDP government of BC ignoring the science as it pursues fracking and LNG just as surely as the Conservatives of Alberta expand the oil sands and the federal Liberals subsidize their efforts and help with green-washing through subsidies to fake solutions like Carbon capture and storage. The irony of the Jasper wildfires threatening the TMX pipeline, the project you and I own and financed without any say in the matter, is deeply ironic yet hardly noted by our national media.
With about 400 wildfires burning in BC, most of Canada was absorbed by the devastating news from Jasper. John was back to Ashcroft to deal with the threat there. He really appreciated hearing from so many Good Sunday Morning readers, concerned for his place. Shifting voices again this week to this update from John:
Ashcroft update
John here for a bit. I told you all I was going up to my family place in Ashcroft for emergency fire preparations forced by the fire in the Venables Valley just north and west of Spences Bridge.
People have asked how things turned out–thanks for asking. My place in Ashcroft will be fine. The real risk is not from the fire advancing toward my place and consuming it, as it has burned up the homes of friends up Venables or at the Krishna Sarangati community. My risk is from possible strong winds arousing the fire and blowing embers toward Ashcroft. So I have sprinklers up on all the roofs, cleared out lots of flammable debris and grasses, and shielded the structures. Neighbours know where the valves are for the sprinklers and a fire hose is at the ready. We need an “ember alert” system to warn each other if fire starts to fall from the skies. The larger risk is if the fire manages to make its way over into Upper Hat Creek, where it would have a clear path to the Cariboo.
My neighbour Ermes Culos has lived here for sixty years. He’s never seen the Bonaparte river this low–we decided authorities must be holding water back at the dam on Bonaparte Lake to keep some streamflow for the salmon later in the summer and fall. I’ve been dreading for years the possibility that my precious river will become a “wadi”, a riverbed that contains water during runoff period and rainy seasons and is otherwise dry. That would/will be just a hell of a thing.
The fire started along Teit and Shetland creeks. Teit Creek is named after James Teit. He came from the Shetland Islands and became a now-renowned guide and ethnographer, married into and became a fierce ally of the Nlaka’pamux and the Nicola people of that hot dry country along the rivers. Wendy Wickwire from Saanich has written a wonderful book, “At the Bridge” about him. He lived up Twaal Creek which I assume is all burned out now. I had a profoundly moving experience up there a few years ago, dancing with elders around a gorgeous ponderosa pine tree that their grandparents had danced around, and theirs too. People have been dancing around that tree for hundreds of years–a groove is worn around the base. At the end of the day, Jean Yorke from Lower Nicola gave me a short sharp lecture on the responsibilities of elders, and then honoured me with the medicine bundle that had been hanging on the tree. Changed forever my view of myself as an elder, with a different sense of inter-generational responsibility than I’d been accustomed to. Now I presume that tree is gone– another reminder of impermanence, and a refresher on the human responsibility for these fires.
Little sense of that human responsibility was evident in the Premier of Alberta getting all emotionally cut up at Jasper. Crocodile tears, seems to me. Her political work is all about selling fossil fuels, and they are heating up the world. She’s not dumb–she knows full well how that makes fires like the one in Jasper hotter and faster and more dangerous than ever. She knows that some of her citizens lost their homes because of the products she peddles. And she’ll go back to Edmonton after the interviews and work hard to sell more. Bah.
But thanks for asking, my home is safe. Back to Elizabeth and more news:
Yet in all of this bleak news there was a development that should all give us hope. And strangely, unexpectedly. it came from the Peoples Republic of China. The data is in and it seems that China has done what Canada cannot yet claimed to have done–hit the peak in use of fossil fuels and started the decline. China appears to have peaked in 2023.
Top Polluter China’s Shrinking Emissions Put Carbon Peak in Play
- Use of coal for power generation tumbled in second quarter
- Nation’s emissions seen on track to begin decline this year
If China’s rapid deployment of solar and wind continues, the country’s carbon emissions are “likely to continue falling, making 2023 the peak year,” Lauri Myllyvirta, senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said in a report last week.
Meanwhile, Canada is applying tariffs on Chinese solar panels making them more expensive for Canadians, just when we need to be moving aggressively to democratize access to cheap electricity from non-fossil sources. Only the Green Party has challenged this policy.” The Green Party has consistently pressured Canada not to place tariffs on Chinese solar panels … Canada’s minimal solar panel industry means that imposing tariffs only serves to raise the domestic cost of solar energy. We should be embracing the global shift towards renewables, not hindering it.”
I did want to share with you the Youtube we only just received this week from the good folks at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities of my speech on June 8th. I know it is a bit long but in this keynote address I cover a lot of what I fear is a Canadian governance crisis in failure to even think like a country. Our different orders of government–federal, provincial, territorial, municipal and indigenous fail to coordinate. The fellow introducing me was not identified but is Halifax’s current Mayor Mike Savage. His was a very generous confirmation that the work of the Green party is appreciated by those in local government. (I also did get in another attempt at stand up comedy so there are a few laughs here!)
And lastly a reminder for those of you on southern Vancouver Island to please join us August 10 for the annual Saanich Gulf Islands Green picnic.
INVITATION TO PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE MEMBERS:
You are warmly invited to the SGI Summer Picnic on Saturday, August 10 at 12:30 at the Central Saanich Centennial Picnic Shelter #2. All members, friends and guests are welcome. A plate and cutlery and cup would be helpful, however, there will be some of those available for those who don’t bring those. There has been a tradition of wonderful picnic food donations in the past and they will not be turned back, but rest assured your presence is the most important and we will supplement with food offerings also, so feel free to do as you wish re the “food department”. We supply beverages.
Election years tend to bring folks out, but motivation can fade in the years between elections. Given that an election could be called at any time between now and October 2025, our SGI Summer Picnic is a great opportunity to re-connect or connect for the first time in a relaxed atmosphere with Elizabeth and friends.
We will be presenting some of our wonderful scholarship winners from our first SGI Scholarship Contest where students were invited to write an essay on one of the green party values and their involvement in the community around that value. We chose one from each of the 7 secondary schools in our SGi riding. The submissions and students were excellent and are worthy of our accolades and encouragement as they move on from here.
We are hoping to have one or two volunteers for children (after they eat) this year. Please consider bringing one or more possible new members, so they can check out what a friendly group we are. We are eager to reconnect with and honour our volunteers from past years as we look ahead to adding some new folks in time for the next election.
Volunteers are needed for the Summer Picnic to set up and serve food and to help with clean up. We are hoping someone will step up to help organize events such as the SGI Summer Picnic, Fall Fair and AGM in preparation for more full-on involvement if they wish and feel able. We are also hoping for someone to help coordinate our volunteers. These volunteers will then have some experience by the time our new SGI Executive is elected on October 26th and can then join the Executive and participate in all its decisions. If not you, who else will make things happen?
Please contact Mary Leslie ([email protected]) if you would like to help volunteer or have a youth and/or face painter you can “contribute” or bring along for the children.
An RSVP to [email protected] will help us plan for food and the beverages.
For all of you not living near by, let’s find a way to get together. I am convinced that to succeed and win many new seats in the 2025 election Greens need to meet in person for a proper General Meeting. We are the only federal party not to have held an in-person convention since before COVID. Our last convention was September 2018, nearly six years ago! In the meantime, we need the Special General Meeting on co-leadership to be scheduled. It has been decided by council that such a meeting would take place, only to be postponed… Jonathan’s decision to resign his position, while heart-breaking, does not remove the need to make a decision. I hope to be able to persuade the rest of council at our next scheduled meeting on July 31 to schedule both the virtual Special General Meeting this fall and a spring 2025 hybrid GM, allowing in person and virtual participation.
Please check if your Green membership in the federal party is up to date and feel free to share your views with council ([email protected])
Much love to all, watch out for each other and redouble efforts to fight for climate justice and for our Mother Earth.
Love,
Elizabeth
Saanich-Gulf Islands Greens
Please send your feedback on this newsletter to [email protected].
Saanich-Gulf Island Greens publish two newsletters:
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