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British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell speaks with CTV’s Question Period on Sunday, July 6, 2008.
Yukon Premier Dennis Fentie speaks with CTV’s Question Period on Sunday, July 6, 2008.
Updated: Sun Jul. 06 2008 16:53:34
CTV.ca News Staff
One week into B.C.’s contentious carbon tax plan, Premier Gordon Campbell said he’s willing to pay a political price at the polls to lower the province’s future greenhouse gas output.
“We felt it was important for us to think as a generation . . . to reduce the (carbon) burdens of future generations,” he said on CTV’s Question Period Sunday. Early polls show that a majority of British Columbians oppose his carbon tax plan.
The plan added about 2.4 cents per litre to the price of gas. B.C. already had the highest gas prices in the country.
Campbell says that over his five-year plan, three million tonnes of carbon will be taken out of B.C.’s environment, the equivalent of taking 750,000 cars off the road.
He named a number of environmental problems that are already hitting British Columbians in the pocketbook, such as flooding, the pine beetle infestation and drinking water problems.
Still, Campbell promotes his carbon tax plan not only as revenue neutral, but as beneficial to B.C’s economy.
He has promised that B.C. residents will actually have more money in their pockets at the end of the year because of new income tax cuts. He also says the economy will be more competitive and productive because of business tax cuts.
B.C. became the first province to implement a carbon tax July 1. The new tax cuts went into effect the same day.
Liberal Leader Stephane Dion has pinned his prime ministerial hopes on the back of his party’s carbon tax plan with the introduction of his “Green Shift” plan.
Campbell said Dion and himself have spoken of their respective tax plans, and that B.C. would not be double-taxed under the federal Liberal plan.
“Mr. Dion actually called me and said there would not be a double tax situation,” Campbell said. “He does not want to impose something that will not work (for) British Columbians.”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has spoken out vehemently about the Liberal’s proposal, saying it will “screw Canadians.”
But Campbell said that Harper has been supportive of B.C’s plan.
“Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been very clear that he wants us to pursue the goals that we want to pursue as long as we don’t undermine the federal program,” the premier said.
Carbon tax and the North
Critics of both Campbell and Dion’s plans say that a carbon tax disproportionately affects those living in the North, who require more fuel to heat their homes and do not have extensive public transportation systems.
The northern premiers have already criticized Dion’s plans. But on CTV’s Question Period, Yukon Premier Dennis Fentie said he has “no issue” with the B.C. plan but said that a carbon tax was not right for his terroritory.
Campbell echoed the Yukon premier’s concerns.
“I certainly understand what the northern premiers are saying, my point is that we have to help them meet their needs by . . . providing additional options to diesel,” Campbell said, adding that B.C. has invested heavily in research and innovation.
But Fentie rejected Dion’s plan outright, saying there will be an increased cost burden on northerners.
“If a carbon tax intended outcome is to change the habits of Canadians, I have to point out that heating our homes and having access to electricity is not a habit, it’s a necessity,” he said.
Fentie called for a global plan for climate change, saying that while the North emits minuscule amounts of carbon it is facing the biggest environmental problems, such as species migration and the melting of the ice cap.
Source: http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20080706/carbon_debate_080706?hub=BritishColumbia
A mountain pine beetle is shown here in this handout photo from an electron microscope. (CP)
Updated: Tue Mar. 25 2008 13:30:26
The Canadian Press
VANCOUVER — British Columbia’s epidemic of the mountain pine beetle is nearing an end after the voracious pest has destroyed nearly half of British Columbia’s marketable pine forest.
The voracious beetle has infested 13.5 million hectares of lodgepole pine in the province – an area more than four times the size of Vancouver Island.
While the beetle continues its push east past the Rocky Mountains and into B.C.’s southern interior region, there is little left for it to survive on in the province’s central interior area where it’s been thriving for decades.
“The pine beetle populations have moved on. The epidemic is fundamentally over,” said Doug Routledge, vice-president of forestry with the Council of Forest Industries. “The pine stands in the core part of the province… have collapsed.”
The latest figures from the B.C. government and the council estimate the beetle has consumed more than half of B.C.’s marketable pine forest.
About 710 million cubic metres of timber is in either the green, red or grey stages of attack by the beetle, which bores into the trees to lay eggs and attract mates.
The beetles infect the tree with a fungus and the hatched larvae then feed off the fungus before the tree dies and they move on to another.
Trees are “green” in the first year of infestation. Red refers to the rusty colour of the pine’s needles when the beetles and the fungus they carry kill the tree. Grey describes the last stage when the tree is dead and the needles have fallen off.
There are about 1.35 billion cubic meters of merchantable pine on the provincial harvesting land base.
Routledge said the beetle’s rate of spread is slowing because the rice-sized bugs have to go to higher elevations to reach new trees and two cold snaps in two years in the northeast have slowed their progress.
“Now that’s not to say they’re not still at epidemic levels. They are,” he said.
Routledge said the collapse of the industry will be hard on some forest-dependent communities, but new technology has extended the life of the beetle-killed wood and the province has many other species of trees to cut.
“While it does represent a significant impact to the province, of course we have other species out there, conifer species, that we can harvest.”
Routledge said new technology and harvesting techniques are extending the life and use of beetle-killed trees by several years.
B.C. Forest Minister Rich Coleman said there is a shift coming in the industry towards more bioenergy.
“There’s no question it’s way overdue. It was probably overdue before the pine beetle kill,” he said, noting the heavy waste left in the forest after trees were cut.
The minister said the slowdown in the U.S. is a factor in the amount of wood being processed through B.C. mills.
“The ironic thing is today when you have a fiber supply that you can really run through your sawmills with a high capacity. The unfortunate part of it is you have no where you can sell it.”
The high Canadian dollar, rising fuel prices and low demand from the U.S. housing market offer little incentive for companies to cut wood of questionable value.
“We’re facing a lot of negative factors in terms of trying to address the mountain pine beetle,” said Rick Publicover, executive director of the Central Interior Logging Association.
Publicover’s group, based in Prince George, B.C., represents independent logging contractors, haulers, road builders, equipment suppliers and some workers.
He said many association members are pinning their hopes on continuing work on bioenergy, which would see wood pellets made out of the dead wood to burn for heat and electricity.
“The hope is the quicker we can get on to the bioenergy front and then (we can) figure out how to make that work,” Publicover said.
He said there could be two-decades worth of work just pulling dead wood out of the forest.
Joe Foy, of the environmental group Wilderness Committee, said studies show a dead forest creates less wetland if it’s left standing and is healthier than a cut block three decades later.
Foy is against using federal or provincial government money to subsidize a bioenergy industry for the trees.
“Even though it’s called green power, it still puts a hell of a lot of CO2 in the air. What they’re saying is we shouldn’t count the CO2 because it would have burned in a forest fire anyway,” he said.
Foy said those communities that will be hurt by the loss of their industry should get help just as though they were hit by a tsunami or bad storm. But workers there shouldn’t be paid to cut dead trees, he said.
“It seems kind of goofy to me,” he said of paying corporations to cut down dead trees when studies show the forest is better off being left alone.
“If we went that way, what you would see is basically welfare corporations that were siphoning money that could be used for any number of things.”
Source: http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20080325/BC_Pine_Beetle_080325?hub=BritishColumbia
Support is growing among Metro Vancouver’s elected officials for a GVRD-wide plastic bag ban.
Plastic bags fill landfill sites.Updated: Tue Apr. 22 2008 14:56:05
ctvbc.ca
British Columbians are doing their part to go green for Earth Day.
The big push this year is for individuals to change their habits to fight climate change – an idea Premier Gordon Campbell supported at an environmental conference yesterday.
“Just as this is a human problem, it’s been created by a lot of human activity, we can solve this problem with a lot of human activity,” said Premier Campbell.
“We can solve this problem when each of us decides we’re going to take some steps to change how we live, how we interact with the environment, what we are doing,” said Campbell.
Following this commitment, Campbell announced legislation this morning to designate 11 new provincial parks.
He said the decision will build on existing safeguards to B.C.’s wilderness.
“Just last week, we planted the six billionth tree since reforestation programs began in B.C. over 70 years ago,” Premier Campbell said.
The parks will add nearly 985,000 hectares to B.C.’s parks and protected areas.
Events are also being held across the Lower Mainland today to support green causes.
A ‘Walk for Water’ kicked off at nine o’clock this morning on Robson Street.
The goal of the nationwide event is to raise $150,000 to provide clean water to East Africans — $12,000 coming from British Columbia.
The spirit of green continued at Leigh Elementary in Coquitlam, where students did their part to become carbon neutral.
To offset the logging from the nearby Burke Mountain development, children and parents raised funds to plant large trees to help reduce their environmental footprint.
Corporations are also making a push for green. Home Depot has announced all 166 of its Canadian locations will voluntarily remove traditional pesticides and herbicides from its shelves by the end of the year.
The company says it will replace the products with more environmentally friendly alternatives.
Other companies are making it easier to reduce your environmental footprint, starting right at breakfast.
Vancouver-based Ethical Bean opened its first carbon neutral café this morning at the Commercial Drive Skytrain station.
In honour of Earth Day, the company is offering 100% carbon neutral, fair trade, organic coffee – for free – to Skytrain riders.
The company only uses compostable to-go cups, and biodegradable cutlery. Bags and serviettes are made from recyclable materials as well.
But the move for green in B.C. isn’t just limited to one day.
Many B.C. retailers are jumping on the green “bag-wagon” of giving their customers the option of going green all year round.
At Save-On-Foods stores, customers can bring in any plastic bag and exchange it for a reusable cloth bag at no extra cost.
It’s part of a larger move to remove plastic bags all together. San Francisco has already banned them outright, and Ireland has a bag tax to limit their use.
Here in B.C., most representatives on the board of Metro Vancouver support some kind of restriction on bags.
With a report from CTV British Columbia’s Dag Sharman
Comments are now closed for this story
Shary Lee
Back in the late 50’s early 60’s when I was a youngster in Vancouver, we used to purchase our milk in bottles. We washed and reused plastic bags and tin foil. And paper bags seemed to last forever. We didn’t call it green, it’s just the way it was.
John Lee
?’s
Why do people choose plastic bags over paper?
What do people do with the Plastic or Paper bags once they unload their groceries?
We use the Plastic Bags to use as Garbage bags.
If we did not use them we would have to buy “Glad Plastic Garbage bags”
Are they practical alternatives are there for people who live in condos etc.
I can’t use a paper bag for garbage as they just get wet.
Are there any other more environmentally friendly and practical alternatives to replace the plastic garbage bags and plastic glad etc. garbage bags?
I would love to see a story on this. It might help more then simply saying Plastic is bad.
Show us and teach us how to get around not using plastic bags.
CTV Viewer
Vancouver
Source: http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20080422/BC_Earth_Day_Festivities_20080422?hub=BritishColumbia
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