Environment, resources & sustainability

The extra-long logging haul

Apr 12, 2023

As forests shrink, drivers work 16-hour days to deliver single loads of logs to BC sawmills When Eugene Wilson started driving a logging truck 24 years ago, he worked out of the Bulkley valley community of Houston three hours west of Prince George. He recalls the trips as if they were yesterday. He’d begin the… View Article

Raising emissions while pledging to lower them — British Columbia’s Orwellian LNG gambit

Mar 23, 2023

By J David Hughes

In 2007, then-BC premier Gordon Campbell passed the “Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act” committing BC to a 33 per cent reduction in emissions from 2007 levels by 2020. Despite premier Campbell’s good intentions, emissions in 2020 were down just 1.6 per cent. In 2016, in lieu of increasing the carbon tax implemented in Campbell’s greenhouse… View Article

Houston Falling: Super-sized mills lead to super-sized problems for BC forests and workers

Mar 2, 2023

By Ben Parfitt

When the world’s biggest sawmill opened its doors, then-premier Gordon Campbell enthused that it could shoot out enough lumber to build all of British Columbia’s new annual housing stock, which was then averaging 26,000 units per year. After the ribbon was cut and the first logs passed through its computerized scanners and whirring sawblades on… View Article

Greenlighting fracking while protecting treaty rights?

Feb 13, 2023

By Ben Parfitt

Agreement with BC aside, 1000s of gas wells await Blueberry River First Nations When the Blueberry River First Nations took the provincial government to court in March 2015, arguing that cumulative industrial developments had robbed them of their ability to hunt and fish, oil and gas companies could see trouble lay ahead. So what did… View Article

Counting the Costs and Contradictions of the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion

Jan 23, 2023

By Marc Lee

Canada’s uneasy relationship between climate change and fossil fuel development was illustrated in November 2021 when seven atmospheric rivers hit southern BC. The “big one” starting on Nov. 13 led to massive flooding and landslides that crippled infrastructure and isolated the south coast from the rest of Canada. Among the shutdowns was the Trans Mountain… View Article

Running on Empty

Jan 18, 2023

By Ben Parfitt

Closure of Prince George pulp mill all about running out of forest The pending closure of a pulp mill in Prince George and the loss of 300 high-paying jobs in the community is just the beginning of what promises to be a new and painful chapter in the province’s beleaguered forest industry, which has already… View Article

Severe climate events cost BC economy billions more than reported estimates

Nov 30, 2022

By Marc Lee and Ben Parfitt

Caroline and Paul Mosterman have seen their share of unusual weather in four-plus decades of farming. But nothing comes remotely close to what they experienced in November 2021 when their Sumas Prairie farm was inundated by floodwater. Because the couple farmed on a floodplain, they had no flood insurance. So, when their farm buildings, blueberry… View Article

Soft rock and a soft touch

Nov 16, 2022

By Ben Parfitt

Trove of FOI documents sheds new light on lax regulation of troubled Site C dam It was the bureaucratic equivalent of waiting for a box of Timbits and a Double-Double at the Tim Hortons’ drive thru. In the space of just hours on a single day in June 2020, the provincial government office in charge… View Article

A burning question

Oct 19, 2022

By Ben Parfitt and Michelle Connolly

BC government needs to say how many trees are falling to wood pellet industry Recently, two respected news organizations aired investigative documentaries showing how trees in BC’s drastically over-cut primary forests are chopped down only to be turned into wood pellets that are burned by the millions of tons to make electricity in the United… View Article

Will Drax’s claim that burning Canadian wood pellets is green go up in smoke?

Aug 30, 2022

By Ben Parfitt

OECD investigates UK power company’s sustainability claims as Drax becomes the largest pellet-maker in Canada In April 2021, the United Kingdom’s Drax Group purchased Pinnacle Renewable Energy, becoming the largest wood pellet-maker in British Columbia and Canada. The acquisition gave Drax control of the majority of pellet mills in the province, locking up a vital… View Article

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A progressive take on BC issues

A progressive take on BC issues

Environment, resources & sustainability

The extra-long logging haul

Raising emissions while pledging to lower them — British Columbia’s Orwellian LNG gambit

Houston Falling: Super-sized mills lead to super-sized problems for BC forests and workers

Greenlighting fracking while protecting treaty rights?

Counting the Costs and Contradictions of the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion

Running on Empty

Severe climate events cost BC economy billions more than reported estimates

Soft rock and a soft touch

A burning question

Will Drax’s claim that burning Canadian wood pellets is green go up in smoke?