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Following a last-minute outpouring of support from around the world, the crowd funding drive for Fractured Land achieved and surpassed its target late yesterday. The campaign surged past its $50,000 goal around 6 pm January 18, finishing with $52,520 by the midnight deadline. Remarkably, close to two thirds of those funds came within the final 3 days of the campaign. Fractured Land, a feature documentary film-in-production, co-directed by Vancouver filmmaker Fiona Rayher and myself, examines our key energy challenges through the eyes of a compelling, young First Nations law student from northeast BC.
For the past two years I've been privileged to co-direct a forthcoming documentary film, Fractured Land, which examines our key energy challenges through the eyes of a compelling, young First Nations law student from northeast BC. In a recent Globe and Mail story, reporter Mark Hume described Caleb Behn as "one of B.C.’s bright, emerging native political leaders", working to "move the debate over oil and gas development away from the confrontational front lines and into the living rooms of the nation." We hope you'll check out our new trailer and help us finish Fractured Land by supporting our crowd funding drive, now in it final week.
While I have no insight into all the considerations of BC First Nations,
I do pretend to know something about politics. Let me tell you what I would feel if I was in Grand Chief Phillip’s mind or that of any BC chief’s position. I would refuse any part of a meeting with the Feds until that part of the past budget that took away from protection of fish habitat is repealed. There would be no parley until both the provincial and federal governments stopped approving of fish farms and mandated a removal to land of all existing farms. I would demand an immediate moratorium of all proposed pipelines until all Native claims are settled.
Ray Grigg on the logging of Cortes Island's old growth forests. "These are the business forces allied against Cortes and the people of Wildstands Alliance who are trying to mitigate the impact of logging in one of their island's rare and cherished forests — a forest now 'owned' and 'managed' by a network of business connections so far removed from the ecological reality of trees and the local community that loves them, that the investors might as well come from another planet."
When Josh Fox received a letter offering him nearly $100,000 for the natural gas extraction rights on his Pennsylvania property, his first reaction was: nice chunk of change. Then he started wondering what was involved in the hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) process proposed.Fracking, as Fox discovered, involves blasting huge volumes of water, laced with a cocktail of often carcinogenic or neurotoxic chemicals, into drilled wells to fracture the shale and release captured deposits of oil and gas. Up to 50% of this toxic water stays in the ground (where it can contaminate groundwater), while much of the rest comes back as toxic wastewater.
Damien Gillis hosts a google web video chat discussing how indigenous and non-indigenous peoples can work together through the growing Idle No More movement to address historical injustices and build a sustainable energy future. Featuring Squamish and Nisga'a First Nations member and protocol specialist Amanda Nahanee and Ben West, Tar Sands campaigner for ForestEthics.
Throughout his time serving the province, John Doyle has been a bloodhound hot on the trail of myriad multi-billion dollar scandals emanating from behind the closed doors of the Campbell-Clark government. From failed forestry policies and bogus accounting at BC Hydro, to uncovering runaway MLA expenses and tens of billions of dollars of hidden taxpayer liabilities, Mr. Doyle has had the public's back from day one. His imminent departure, following a secretive ouster this past week, is less surprising than it is disappointing - and a tremendous loss for the BC taxpayer.
Politicians who almost universally claim to be so well-informed that they can run countries, cannot also claim to be so ill-informed that they do not appreciate the gravity of the unfolding environmental crisis threatening the safety, security and economy of every nation on the planet. This is a contradiction that lies at the heart of politics. Few politicians, it seems, are willing to confront this contradiction. Of the over 500 international agreements relating to the environment signed over that past half century, only a small percentage see any measure of real progress.
Watch this 10 min web chat, in which two young, indigenous men discuss their different experiences across the country with the growing Idle No More Movement.
On January 2, 2013, hundreds of First Nations and non-indigenous people converged on Vancouver's Waterfront Station for the latest Idle No More rally. The beating of drums and singing of traditional songs signaled this crowd's solidarity with the movement that is building across the country and beyond its borders.
New York may be the environmental story of the year, not because of the 80 fatalities and the $50 billion in damages caused by so-called Superstorm Sandy, but because the city's misfortune has triggered a dawning awareness. In Norfolk, Virginia, where areas of the city of 250,000 now regularly flood from a combination of heavy rain storms and small tidal surges, the local Republican Tea Party activists are the brunt of jokes because they still refuse to use “sea level” and “climate change” in any discussions about their problem. Denial, of course, doesn't change reality. But other low-lying cities along America's coast — Maryland, North Carolina, Florida, and the Gulf and Pacific states — are anxiously watching Norfolk's unfolding misfortune because they are all confronting the same inevitability.
Is BC careening towards the edge of its own 'fiscal cliff'? Independent economist Erik Andersen believes that may be the case. Here, he adds up a number of troubling financial trends drawing on reports from BC's Auditor General John Doyle to expose the secret accounting methods and poor financial decisions from the BC Liberal Government that have put the province on a path to serious financial woes. A ballooning provincial debt is the least of our worries, with long-term liabilities for P3 infrastructure projects and private power contracts now totaling tens of billions of dollars.
The deeper meaning of giving is easily hidden in the hectic festive celebrations and frenzied gift buying that have become the habit of the Christmas season. Indeed, giving's essential function usually gets lost in the glitz and glitter of lights and commercialization that tries to brighten the darkest and coldest time of year — the time when we are most in need of the warmth and comfort of family and fellowship. So the tradition of giving invites an inquiry that goes beyond the simplicity of a thoughtless reflex...Consider Good King Wenceslas. Why is the “Good King” struggling through the deep snow and “bitter weather” with his faithful page? Because he has spied a “yonder peasant” gathering “winter fuel” in the cruel frost of winter.
2012 was a year that began with Conservative Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver dismissing opponents of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines as "radicals" and ends with the Idle No More rallies sweeping the nation. It was a year when two very different visions for the future of Canada and its place in the world collided headlong with each other. One seeking to curb the Tar Sands and new arteries essential to its growth, the other striving to make Canada into a new Saudi Arabia - provider of oil, gas and coal to emerging Asian markets. Each policy piece from the Harper Government was part of a bigger puzzle, designed to bring this new vision to fruition.
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Eco-Footprint Founder Dr. Bill Rees on Resources, the 7 Billion and You
With human population exploding and demand for resources fast outstripping supply, Dr. Bill Rees, founder of the "eco-footprint" concept, calls for "a new cultural narrative that shifts the values of society from growth (getting bigger) to development (getting better) - from competitive individualism, greed and narrow self-interest toward community, cooperation and our collective interests in repairing the earth for survival."
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Five Oil Spills in One Week: 'Accidents' or Business as Usual?
What do ExxonMobil, Enbridge, Suncor, CP Rail and a Michigan Utility have in common? They've all spilled oil within the past week. This latest round of disasters should give Canadian and US lawmakers pause as they contemplate new pipelines.
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All Candidates Dialogue Wednesday Promises "Real Talk on Climate Change"
An all candidates dialogue on April 3 at the Rio Theatre in Vancouver - featuring representatives from four different political parties and one independent candidate vying for office in the May 14 provincial election - will focus on solutions to climate change.
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Salmon Confidential
Anyone who has been following the sorry saga of inexplicable diseases and unusual mortality in BC's wild salmon will not be surprised that the information in Twyla Roscovich's documentary, Salmon Confidential, links the source of this trouble to the salmon farming industry. The surprise, however, is the impact of such information when its complexity is condensed to an intense 70 minutes.
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Mother Nature, US Govt Chase Shell Out of Arctic
Shell Oil, the first energy company granted coveted Arctic drilling permits by the US Government, is shutting down operations for all of 2013, nearly as quickly as they began. Shell's hand is being forced by the Interior Department, following a scathing report which castigated the company for a series of misadventures in 2012 and early 2013.
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Paul Simon Lends Song to Coastal First Nations' Anti-Tanker Video
A 2-minute video produced by Coastal First Nations - a group representing nine different aboriginal communities on BC's north and central coast - is underscored by the famous Simon and Garfunkel song, "The Sound of Silence." The video, which harkens back to the Exxon Valdez oil spill in nearby Alaskan waters, was released around the 24th anniversary of that disaster, in order to voice opposition to the new threat from proposed tanker traffic on BC's coast.
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'Heartwood' Explores Clash Between Different Visions for Future of Forestry
"Cortes is not just a bunch of crazy tree-huggers...We want to log our lands. We want a community forest," one of the subjects of the forthcoming documentary film Heartwood tells Vancouver-based director Daniel Pierce. The film explores the conflict over logging practices on a remote island on BC's south coast, which encapsulates a larger debate currently shaping the future of forestry in the province.
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Why the NDP Can and Should Say No to Site C Dam
The BC NDP may finally coming to their senses on Site C Dam. On the heels of the release of new documents from BC Hydro in recent weeks, the Official Opposition is calling into question the crown corporation's proposed 1,100 Megawatt hydropower project. And so it should...With BC Hydro in virtual bankruptcy, skyrocketing hydro bills for consumers and businesses, a massive and escalating provincial debt and $80 Billion in additional contractual obligations for which taxpayers are on the hook, pushing ahead with Site C would be the height of fiscal recklessness for BC.
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Working Together Through Idle No More - Ben West, Mandy Nahanee, Damien Gillis Web Chat
Damien Gillis hosts a google web video chat discussing how indigenous and non-indigenous peoples can work together through the growing Idle No More movement to address historical injustices and build a sustainable energy future. Featuring Squamish and Nisga'a First Nations member and protocol specialist Amanda Nahanee and Ben West, Tar Sands campaigner for ForestEthics.
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The Different Faces of Idle No More - Web Chat
Watch this 10 min web chat, in which two young, indigenous men discuss their different experiences across the country with the growing Idle No More Movement.
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Idle No More - Scenes from a Vancouver Train Station
On January 2, 2013, hundreds of First Nations and non-indigenous people converged on Vancouver's Waterfront Station for the latest Idle No More rally. The beating of drums and singing of traditional songs signaled this crowd's solidarity with the movement that is building across the country and beyond its borders.
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Travelling Canada's Carbon Corridor - the Making of Fractured Land
Watch this presentation by Damien Gillis, co-director of Fractured Land - a documentary in production which examines the industrialization of northern Canada through the eyes of a young indigenous man named Caleb Behn - at the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival.
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Kinder Morgan Vancouver Pipeline, Tanker Debate
On Oct 30, the Board of Change hosted a debate in Vancouver on American energy pipeline giant Kinder Morgan's plans to turn Vancouver into a shipping port to access new foreign markets with Alberta Tar Sands bitumen. Hear both sides of the story as representatives of Kinder Morgan and the shipping industry square off against an environmental activist, lawyer and filmmaker over the future of the world's "Greenest City", the province of BC and the planet.
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Justice Cohen Gets Tough on Fish Farms - Inquiry Report Released
Video from the press conference on the release of the final report from the Cohen Commission into disappearing sockeye. Justice Bruce Cohen highlighted several key recommendations to protect wild salmon from open net pen aquaculture operations, including: removing the promotion of aquaculture from DFO's mandate, prioritizing the health of wild salmon over suitability for aquaculture when siting farms, and even removing some farms if more research into diseases shows they cannot safely coexist with wild fish.
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Video: Pipelines "Job Killers" - Energy Workers Union Leader @ Defend Our Coast
Watch this powerhouse speech from Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union at the Defend Our Coast rally in Victoria explaining why his members are "diametrically opposed" to Tar Sands pipelines to BC's coast.
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Video: Rafe Mair Honoured with Wilderness Committee's Eugene Rogers Award
The Wilderness Committee, Canada's largest member-based environmental organization, honoured hall of fame broadcaster and co-founder of The Common Sense Canadian Rafe Mair with its annual Eugene Rogers Award for outstanding contribution to environmental protection in BC at its AGM this past weekend.
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Video: Rafe Mair and Economist Erik Andersen, Pt. 2 - LNG, Site C Dam and the Global Economy
In Part 2 of Rafe Mair's July 2012 interview of economist Erik Andersen, the two cover the plan to build Liquefied Natural Gas plants on BC's west coast - to sell natural gas to Asia - and the proposed Site C Dam. Andersen raises real concerns about investing in new dams and electrical infrastructure to supply industries like mines and LNG.
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Video: Rafe Mair and Economist Erik Andersen, Pt. 1 - The 'Enronization' of BC Hydro
Part 1 of Rafe Mair's July 2012 interview with economist Andersen, delving deep into BC's troubled energy situation, including Hydro's broken forecasting model, rip-off private power projects, and massive debt and Enron-style accounting practices at our public utility - all driven by the shadowy private American corporation to which we've unwittingly handed over our energy sovereignty.
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