BC Green Party Archives | Elizabeth May

Good Sunday Morning – September 20

Elizabeth May — Mon, 21 Sep 2020 19:07:23 +0000

“Our house is on fire” (September 20. 2020)

Good Sunday Morning!

I keep hearing Greta Thunberg’s voice in my head: “Our house is on fire.”

When I first heard her words, I internalized them as metaphorical. They increasingly feel literal.

We have been breathing smoke. Here on southern Vancouver Island, we have been in a pea-soup thick fog of smoke. The fires in California, Oregon and Washington are our house on fire in real time. Yesterday, for the first time in days, I could see Haro Strait and the near reach of sand called Sidney Spit. A friend in Nova Scotia sent me pictures of the skies above her home. The smoke has reached our east coast.

The raging house on fire was evident this spring with fires in Siberia in the Arctic Circle. Now the Amazon is on fire, but so too is Brazil’s extraordinary wetland, the Pantanal. The Pantanal is one of the world’s treasures. Due to its extraordinary biodiversity, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And, to emphasize the obvious- it is a wetland. It should never be so dry it can burn. But an area four times the size of the California fires has now been lost – 25,000 square kilometres. Usually, it is the moisture from the Amazon rainforest that keeps the Pantanal well-watered. But that is no longer the case. The Amazon is too dry. The Pantanal burns.

The Guardian maintains a page, updated regularly on fires around the world.

When I had a video conference meeting with the prime minister this week – part of his round of meetings with Opposition Parties before the Speech from the Throne – I reminded him of exactly where I live. “Remember where you were that time you fell out of the kayak with cameras rolling?” It was on Sidney Spit. He laughed. He knows our part of the world well. And then I told him that living on the waterfront in Sidney, I could not see all the way to Sidney Spit for the smoke. From the change in his face, I would say he was shocked. Then I told him, I couldn’t see the water at all. Hearing about bad air quality on the news is a little different from visualizing a familiar place. Our house is on fire.

This is not a time to delay action on the climate emergency.

But somehow (and not drawing this conclusion from speaking with the PM) the media messaging seems to be that climate action is not on the cards for this week’s Speech from the Throne.

Here is the Prime Minister’s Office phone number. 613-992-4211

If you feel like it, please call and leave (clearly and respectfully) a message about the imperative that the Speech from the Throne commit to real climate action. At least, it must commit to living up to the Paris Agreement commitment that Canada will table a significantly improved target within 2020; one that meets our fair share of the IPCC requirement that globally carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced by 45% below 2010 levels by 2030. The Green Party’s best estimate is that that requires a doubling of the current target – from 30% to 60% below 2005 levels by 2030.

Just like COVID 19, this is about doing what is required. Science dictates action on the pandemic and science dictates action on the climate emergency.

Fortunately, for climate, unlike for COVID, we already have our prescription. For climate, we do not have to hunt for a vaccine or a cure. We have a wide range of measures that are economically smart, socially helpful, and commercially available to build a resilient, equitable and healthy society. We need to invest in renewable energy, energy efficiency retro-fits for buildings, an enhanced electricity grid and a major push in tree planting. We called it “Reimagining Our Future.”

As the fires circle the globe, I know many of us feel a gnawing sense of despair. PLEASE, do not give in to it. Buck up! Chin up! We have work to do! Keep Calm, Stay Green, and Carry On!

Really missing so many friends and the chance to have group hugs!

Love.

Elizabeth

Important article on the fake NDP Old Growth announcement

https://www.focusonvictoria.ca/forests/27/

And my recent article in Policy on what to expect in parliament this week:

https://policymagazine.ca/the-throne-speech-matters-now-more-than-ever/

This weekly newsletter is published by Elizabeth’s EDA in Saanich-Gulf Islands. You can sign up for it here.

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400 ppm: A Dangerous Pollution Milestone Has Been Passed

Craig Cantin — Fri, 10 May 2013 19:08:15 +0000

The concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere has reached the 400 parts per million (ppm) milestone today according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Over the last million years, CO2 never exceeded 280 ppm (based on actual readings of atmospheric chemistry from Antarctic ice core data.) Concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHG) are a very different measurement than emission rates. Concentrations have a very long lag time and will not be able to be decreased except over centuries, while emission rates can go down overnight. It is critical to start reducing emissions, because existing concentrations mean that we will see warming over the next 100 years from today’s emissions.

Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May and Dr. Andrew Weaver, a BC Green Party candidate running in the upcoming provincial election, believe that this unwanted milestone in the climate saga could be a turning point towards clean technology to reverse this trend.

“We are in a danger zone as we hit 400 ppm. We must move to immediate reductions in GHG, and shift to new clean technologies,” said Green Leader Elizabeth May, Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands.

May recently tabled a private member’s bill to cap the carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired plants.

“It’s clear that emissions from these plants are some of the most dangerous for the planet. Using clean technologies that exist today can help us move into the 21st century,” said May.

There is a consensus in the scientific community that greenhouse gases should be limited to levels that would avoid allowing global average temperatures to rise by 2 degrees Celsius. Scientists have marked that wide red line in a band from 425-450 ppm.

Climate scientist and Deputy Green Party Leader of British Columbia, Dr. Andrew Weaver, says this moment can bring a new economic reality to BC.

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Press conference – Three Green Leaders Prioritize Women’s Equity and Leadership Issues

Craig Cantin — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 22:05:45 +0000

Public event for Green Party of Canada Leader Elizabeth May for Friday, March 8^th is:

11:00 a.m. – Elizabeth May will participate in a press conference with Jane Sterk, Leader of the Green Party of BC and Adriane Carr, Vancouver’s first Green Party City Councilor, on International Women’s Day to outline their current priorities to support women’s equity and leadership.

East of Main Café
223 East Georgia Street
Vancouver, BC

NOTES:

Green Party of Canada’s release for International Women’s Day.
The three Green leaders will be will be joined by Carrie Serwetnyk, the first woman inductee into the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame and founder of Why the Women’s World Cup Matters.

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Kinder Morgan takes issue with facts as Greens urge other parties to oppose pipeline expansion

Craig Cantin — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 17:57:05 +0000

Publication Source: Vancouver Observer
Source Link: View the full original article >>
Author: Beth Hong

While Green party leaders called for all political parties in Canada to come out against the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion project on Wednesday, a representative from the company took issue with their facts.

Federal Green Party MP Elizabeth May, BC Green Party leader Jane Sterk and Vancouver City Councillor and federal Green Party deputy leader Adriane Carr joined first nations leaders to state their opposition to the company’s plan to expand their capcity for transporting oil from Alberta to Metro Vancouver and beyond.

“We would end up with as many as 300 to 360 super tankers a year trying to get out from under the Second Narrows, under Railway Bridge and under Lions Gate Bridge,” May said.

View the full original article >>

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No Benefits to BC in Risky Pipeline and Tanker Scheme

Craig Cantin — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:05:30 +0000

BC Greens together with their federal counterparts in the Green Party of Canada are solidly opposed to the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline and the associated increase in tanker traffic. “There is no benefit to BC, the risks are simply too great and it punts real action on climate change several decades out – to beyond the point at which we need to cap and start reducing emissions and transition to a low carbon economy,” said BC Green Leader Jane Sterk.

“The BC government is presumably too knowledgeable to fall for any spin that promises economic benefit. If a spill were to happen, the economic fallout would be devastating. The vast majority, more than 80% of BC citizens, support the 40-year ban on supertankers on our coast and oppose Enbrige’s demands to put hundreds of tankers a year in some of the most dangerous waters on earth. They will not be fooled by a slick sales pitch,” said Federal Green Leader Elizabeth May, Member of Parliament for the BC seat of Saanich-Gulf Islands.

“We saw the same strategy with the so-called climate change prosperity propaganda. Instead of having a real conversation about whether these short-term unsustainable projects are in the national interest, the risks are simply glossed over,” said May. “This cynical strategy of promising jobs and riches is particularly insulting to First Nations who should not have to yet again face the choice of trading away their rights for empty promises.”

“The assumption is that Alberta has the right to pipe bitumen across BC. While Alberta reaps short term benefits, our province would carry the environmental risk, and we are not willing to do that. Instead what we need is a national policy to determine what is right for the country as a whole,” said Sterk.

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