Dogwood News This Week: looking for help

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Published on Sunday, 29 November -0001 16:00

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Email Template r1 Your place for news and action This week organizers from the BC Climate Emergency Campaign visited public housing buildings that were hit hard by last year’s deadly heat wave.

Residents described being trapped in their rooms with no air conditioning as the sun turned their concrete apartment towers into ovens. In two buildings in Surrey and New Westminster, some of their neighbours died.

It’s the same story we’ve been hearing across B.C. — elderly, isolated, vulnerable people, many... in low income neighbourhoods, were scared and looking for help. Help that in many cases never arrived.

Nearly everyone in B.C. has a heat dome story: a tragedy, a close call, or just the horrifying feeling of your body and brain shutting down. With the one-year anniversary coming up this week, we’re asking people to share their experience in a letter to local news outlets. If you haven’t already, you can send one too.

The heat we felt last year could just be the beginning unless B.C. makes critical changes to both climate policy and building standards. As the BC Coroners Service said earlier this month, our government must treat air conditioning as a medical necessity for vulnerable people. We need to accelerate retrofits, like heat pumps that also work as AC units, to keep people safe.

But those efforts are undermined every time our government approves new projects that make climate change worse. To avoid even bigger disasters in the future, we need to rein in corporate power and stop building new fracking projects, pipelines and gas terminals.

It’s time to connect the dots between B.C.’s deadly heat dome and the political decisions that left so many people in danger, and you can help. Putting a human face on these problems is the best way to get the media and politicians to treat them with the urgency they deserve. Add your voice today.

• It's official: the Trans Mountain pipeline will result in gigantic financial losses for Canada. We are now in a surreal place where the government is violating Indigenous rights and torching the climate not to 'pay for climate action' or even make any money at all -- but to lose billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars. -The Toronto Star
  
  
• A secret report prepared by TD & BMO reveals how the federal government is trying to claim that Trans Mountain will be profitable, despite its ballooning cost. It assumes that TMX will pump oil for A HUNDRED YEARS. Never mind that the standard pipeline lifespan is 40 years, and government ministers have said TMX will only operate for 40. Never mind that the energy regulator says TMX capacity is not needed in the first place. Not to mention the planet will be toast if we're still pumping oil in 100 years. This is a win only for the banks who, even if the project isn’t completed, are guaranteed to have any losses covered by us taxpayers. -National Observer
  
  
• Despite the landslide of infuriating news about Trans Mountain costs this week, tiny birds have given us a big win. With the flick of a wing, Trans Mountain construction in Chilliwack was shut down. -The Progress
  
  
• How the oil and gas industry took advantage of pandemic lockdowns to impose their will on Indigenous communities already under duress. -The Tyee
  
  
• After two decades of inaction by the provincial and federal governments to establish a marine protected area network along B.C.’s coast, the Kitasoo-Xai’xais have said enough already, and created a marine protected area on their own. 16 other coastal nations are considering similar steps. -National Observer
  
  
• Horgan’s NDP has managed to score some decent wins in the past, but his report card this year is full of F’s. Will the premier step down before the wheels really start to come off? - The Georgia Straight
  

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Take action

We need to focus attention on the heat dome anniversary to push for changes that will save lives and help avoid even worse climate disasters. Letters in the local paper are a great way to keep this front-of-mind for government officials. If you haven’t already, use our easy letter to the editor tool to share your heat dome experience and help keep the pressure on.

We have a variety of roles for volunteers this summer! If you're anywhere from curious to ready-to-go, please fill out this short survey and an organizer will be in touch. Or if you want to jump right in, RSVP for an upcoming event in your region! Head to our organizer hub and click on Events.

Events

End climate delay! day of action. On Wednesday, June 29, communities across Canada will hold a Day of Action to mark the one-year anniversary of the heat dome in B.C. and demand our leaders stop expanding fossil fuels, invest in a Just Transition, and do what it takes to keep people safe from future climate disasters. Join an action on June 29 or host your own!

Fracking the Peace upcoming film screenings: Surrey on Sunday, June 26 at 2:30 p.m. and in Esquimalt Tuesday, June 28 at 7 p.m.

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