The Threatened Community at the Heart of the PNW LNG Project
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- Published on Thursday, 07 July 2016 13:00
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Divide and Conquer: The Threatened Community at the Heart of the PNW LNG Project
For more than 5,000 years, First Nations people have collected plants and harvested red cedar on Lelu Island, which sits where the Skeena River meets the Pacific Ocean near Prince Rupert. Adjacent to some of the most critical salmon habitat on the West Coast, Lelu Island is considered so valuable that, according to local Indigenous oral histories, Indigenous tribes have long battled to control it.
Not much has changed today — except that the battleground has shifted to Victoria and Ottawa. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is set to make a decision about Pacific NorthWest LNG (PNW LNG)’s proposed $36-billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, which is majority-owned by the Malaysian energy company Petronas. Read more.
Why the 'We're All Responsible' Line is a Climate Change Cop-Out
To no one’s surprise, there’s been an awfully wide range of responses to what caused the catastrophic Fort McMurray wildfires.
Some blame climate change. Others peg it on the El Niño and forest management techniques. Still more suggest that now’s simply not the time to be having such a conversation.
But the one thing that appears to unite all sides is “our” alleged complicity in it as North American consumers.
The National Post’s Jen Gerson argued in a May 5 piece: “We are all responsible for climate change. Fort McMurray simply produces some of the products we all consume.” Read more.
The Grizzly Bear Trophy Hunt is B.C.’s Great Shame: Martyn Brown
“Harvest.” Such a beautiful, bucolic word.
Imagery abounds.
Golden fields of swaying wheat. Lush green vineyards of plump, perfect grapes. Acres of apples, all red and delicious.
Harvest: so suggestive of humans in harmony with the Earth.
So redolent of life.
So much more super and natural than, I don’t know — slaughter? — the word that more accurately describes British Columbia’s annual grizzly bear trophy hunt. Actually, even that word isn’t quite accurate, for it connotes the killing of animals for food. Read more.
Why is the Mining Industry on a Federal Lobbying Spree?
Canadian mining companies are desperate.
That’s about the only possible conclusion to be drawn after monitoring the federal lobbying database for more than eight months.
Since the election in October, companies such as Teck Resources, Rio Tinto Canada and Iamgold — mining the likes of gold, copper, uranium, coal and diamonds — have racked up 164 “registered communications.”
Such meetings have involved MPs 78 times, ministers 16 times and chiefs of staffs another 20 times. Even those impressive efforts pale in comparison to the Mining Association of Canada, which has met with federal officials in 123 separate meetings. Read more.
Site C Dam Already Cost $314 Million More than Expected, Behind Schedule, New Documents Show
In only its earliest phases of construction, the Site C dam project has already spent more money than projected and missed key benchmarks, threatening to undermine Premier Christy Clark’s commitment to taxpayers to keep the project on budget and on time.
BC Hydro documents filed June 10 with the province’s independent public utility watchdog, the B.C. Utilities Commission (BCUC), show that that Site C expenditures totalled $314 million more at the end of March than was originally budgeted for that date.
The same documents, reviewed by DeSmog, also flag the potential for cost overruns if interest rates climb, taxes increase or the Canadian dollar continues to depreciate over the projected eight remaining years the dam is under construction.r0
