20/20 Vision BC: Activism for Busy People

Protect the Agricultural Land Reserve!

visionbc — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 23:22:47 +0000

Living in a province as large as BC it is easy to forget what a precious commodity our farmland is. Only 5% of BC’s land is suitable for farming and only 1% of that has the best soil with the highest capability for growing crops. Worse still, the majority of high quality soils are found in the Lower Mainland, Southern Vancouver Island, and the Okanagan: areas that have experienced extreme demand for new development. Seventy-nine percent of BC residents currently live next to land responsible for 78% of BC’s farm revenues, resulting in pressure to convert agricultural land to other uses.

Local food production reduces our dependence on imported foods and associated costs and impacts, yet BC’s agricultural sector currently supplies less than 50% of the province’s food requirements. read more >>

Keep BC’s Power Public and Green!

visionbc — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:52:36 +0000

For over 45 years, BC Hydro has generated reliable electricity for residential, commercial, and industrial customers. However, the 2002 BC Government’s Energy Plan restricted BC Hydro from developing its own new generation facilities. Instead, the Plan instructed BC Hydro to acquire new energy supplies from private sector independent power producers (IPPs) at rates much higher than it costs BC Hydro to generate power from its traditional sources.

“Run of the river ” (ROR) power projects are one example. These are projects run by IPPs that have emerged gold rush style to seize this opportunity. The Provincial Government has dramatically increased the sale of water power licenses on BC’s rivers. These licenses cost as little as $5,000 to $10, 000 and last for 20 to 40 years. IPPs are claiming their run of the river hydro projects to be sources of “green” power — an appealing but misleading description. Invariably these projects require logging, access road construction, transmission lines and rock blasting: all have significant environmental impact on forests, wildlife, fish and other aquatic species. In fact, due to the size and impact of many of these projects, BC ROR projects were recently judged unfit to meet California’s criteria for green energy. read more >>

Canada’s Oil Sands: Clean ‘em up or shut ‘em down

visionbc — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:46:13 +0000

Canadians’ desire to protect the environment and tackle global warming is being held hostage to the Alberta Oil Sands. If you live downstream, your water is being polluted and fish may be dangerous to eat. The resulting a cid rain affects those in Alberta and Saskatchewan. In BC, super-tankers may soon be routinely traversing the coastline carrying oil to Asia, while residents of Ontario suffer the continuing harmful emissions from refineries.

Our governments have no substantial plan to mitigate the environmental harm of oil sands production — production that is likely to accelerate in an era of dwindling world supply and increased demand from the USA (for “friendly” oil) and developing economies. Current oil prices now make the oil sands more lucrative. Tacking on the additional cost of environmental technologies may thus be negligible, but nevertheless necessary. Meanwhile, emission caps on other industries remain less severe than they should be so as to not appear unfair compared to the lenient caps on oil sands production.

The scale of oil sands development and its environmental impact are truly staggering.
read more >>

Transforming the Gateway Project: More Important Now than Ever

visionbc — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:25:37 +0000

The BC Government’s Gateway Project was announced in 2004 with claims it would reduce congestion and enhance travel for people and goods around the lower mainland. It includes widening Highway 1 from the Second Narrows Bridge in Vancouver to Langley, twinning the Port Mann Bridge, and building a four-lane truck highway called the South Fraser Perimeter Road (SFPR) around Burn’s Bog to allow a tripling of container truck traffic from Deltaport at Roberts Bank.

Since the introduction of the project, costs of gas and construction have increased so much the budget for the project is now completely inaccurate. As well, the BC government just introduced a carbon tax and committed to a Climate Action Plan calling for reducing the number of kilometres traveled in vehicles. Yet the government still plans to spend billions of dollars to promote vehicle traffic with the Gateway Project. Building freeways and bridges has proven to always attract more cars and with them more pollution and gridlock. Now, more than ever, the Gateway Project has become illogical, contradictory and economically unfeasible. read more >>

20/20 Vision BC takes the Big Wild Challenge!

visionbc — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:21:18 +0000

What is the Big Wild Challenge?

The Big Wild refers to the part of Canada that is still in its natural state, where rivers flow free, big lakes and oceans lap against wild shores and animals roam. Its vision is to keep at least half of Canada’s public land and water wild forever. The Big Wild is you and me, and every person across Canada who cares about conserving our environment.
Some amazing Big Wild Challenges include:
• a 3,100 km canoe trip through the Boreal forest of Manitoba and Ontario
• a back-packing trip in the spectacular Flathead Valley
• a trip to the Cirque of the Unclimbables in NWT’s incredible Nahanni National Park

And for 20/20 Vision BC volunteer, Pru Moore, it was a weeklong trail-building birthday party for 18 people in the Special Management Zone on the periphery of Walbran Provincial Park on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. A unique coastal ecosystem, the Walbran is one of the few remaining old-growth valleys left on Vancouver Island and a precious place on earth. Trail-building programmes are a strategy to create accessibility to these special ecological wilderness areas to increase public awareness, education, and create further arguments for protecting these most precious areas for generations to come. While building a bridge over a river to extend the trail through the deep woods, Pru and her group were calmed and refreshed by the sparkling clean water.
A fabulous and rewarding time was had by everyone!

Protect Vancouver Island’s Ancient Forests

visionbc — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:45:46 +0000

Vancouver Island is home to some of the Earth’s most spectacular, ancient temperate forests. Old-growth forests harbour trees that can grow to be 1800 years old and are home to many species that can’t live in younger forests. They also sequester more atmospheric carbon to counteract climate change than second-growth forests do. In addition, old-growth forests are fundamental pillars of BC’s multi-billion dollar tourism industry and are of great cultural importance to coastal First Nations people. Yet the British Columbia Government has made no efforts to protect this invaluable natural heritage. read more >>>

Making the Transition to Sustainability

visionbc — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:01:59 +0000

Canada is one of the world’s most highly educated and economically successful nations. We have the knowledge, means, opportunity, responsibility and customarily the influence to address the unprecedented environmental challenges that threaten human civilization in this, the climate century. But Canada is not leading. A recent study of OECD countries that examined 25 key environmental indicators ranked Canada 28th out of the 29 nations. Our federal government must take action now to mobilize our resources and become leaders in developing a truly sustainable world.

We have needed a roadmap, a template for restoring a sense of direction to our environmental protection efforts, and now we have it. Tomorrow Today Canada reflects the best thinking of today’s leaders in sustainability. A coalition project of Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, David Suzuki Foundation, Ecojustice, Environmental Defence, Equiterre, Greenpeace Canada, Nature Canada, the Pembina Institute, Pollution Probe, and World Wildlife Fund, the report lists over 30 immediate policy actions that can steer our society toward sustainability. >>read more>>>

20/20 Vision BC: Activism for Busy People!

visionbc — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 20:01:47 +0000

Welcome to 20/20 Vision BC’s blogsite!

We hope that you enjoy using this blogsite to communicate with each other about the environmental and peace issues currently affecting us as British Columbians, Canadians, and global citizens. Each month we research and publish an environmental or peace issue we, and other affiliate groups, feel is in most urgent need of public attention. If you have not already visited our website, go to http://www.2020vision.bc.ca to check out this month’s current issue. Our mandate is to get as many people contacting the policy makers on these featured issues in order to make positive changes toward peace and environmental sustainability.

Happy blogging!

kim, web manager for 20/20 Vision BC