'Mysterious' mass found on moon's dark side

Researchers discovered something underneath the far side of the moon and say it's absolutely massive.

2001: A Space Odyssey - Deliberately Buried

Dr. Heywood Floyd is told the Monolith is believed to have been deliberately buried.

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   2001: Space Odyssey Best Scenes - The Monolith At The Moon

   VideoSiesta

   • 4 years ago
   • 69,899 views

   The astronauts go to the moon to check on the monolith. I almost shit my pants the frist time I saw this. Eerie music.

WATCHED

Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd - full album hd 2018

Música en mí

• 10 months ago
• 1,396,427 views

Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd - full album hd 2018 link:https:/

Weird 'Anomaly' at the Moon's South Pole May Be a Metal Asteroid's ...

https://www.space.com/moon-south-pole-anomaly-metal-asteroid-impact.html

1200 × 675 - 3 days ago - Researchers may have found the dense remains of a massive asteroid buried under the surface of the moon.

An 'Anomaly' the Size of Hawaii Is Buried Beneath the Moon's Biggest ...

https://www.livescience.com › Space

660 × 371 - 3 days ago - Earth's moon is hiding an enormous secret on its storied dark side. Deep below the moon's South Pole-Aitken basin (the largest preserved ...

Canada’s failure to fight climate change ‘disturbing,’ environment watchdog says

Canada is not on track to hit its 2030 target

Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand says Canada is not doing enough to combat climate change.

Gelfand delivered her final audits  before her five-year term expires, looking at fossil-fuel subsidies, invasive aquatic species and mining pollution

But her final conclusions as the country’s environmental watchdog say it is Canada’s slow action to deal with the warming planet that is most ”disturbing” to her.

“For decades, successive federal governments have failed to reach their targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, and the government is not ready to adapt to a changing climate,” she said in a statement Tuesday morning. “This must change.”

Gelfand’s rebuke came a day after Environment Canada scientists sounded an alarm that Canada is warming up twice as fast as the rest of the world, causing irreversible changes to our climate.
Gelfand said neither Liberal nor Conservative governments have hit their own targets to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

Canada is not on track to hit its 2030 target, despite policies like the national price on carbon that took effect this week.

Gelfand’s audit says the Liberals are not keeping a promise to get rid of “inefficient” fossil-fuel subsidies, which are undermining efforts to combat climate change, encouraging wasteful consumption of fossil fuels and discouraging investments in cleaner energy sources.
Canada has pledged to eliminate inefficient subsidies by 2025 as part of both the G20 and G7 economic groups of nations, and the Liberals also campaigned on a promise to get rid of them.

Gelfand concludes that both Finance Canada and Environment Canada have defined “inefficient” so broadly they can’t decide what subsidies fall into that category.

Finance Canada’s work on the subsidies focused exclusively on fiscal and economic considerations without giving any attention to the social and environmental issues at play. For its part, Environment and Climate Change Canada only looked at 23 out of more than 200 federal organizations when it compiled an inventory of potential subsidies for the fossil-fuel industry, Gelfand found.

Last year Canada began a peer review with Argentina that sees each investigate and report on the other’s fossil-fuel subsidies. Last week Environment Minister Catherine McKenna started a public consultation on the subsidies to aid that peer review.

The draft regulations she released last week say her department has concluded that none of the federal non-tax subsidies for fossil fuels actually is “inefficient.”

The regulations identified just four subsidies at all, including support to help Indigenous communities keep electricity prices down; funding for electric and alternative-fuel vehicle infrastructure, such as charging stations; and funding for research on clean technologies for the oil-and-gas sector.

Philip Gass, a senior energy researcher for the International Institute for Sustainable Development, said Tuesday using the World Trade Organization definition of subsidies, his organization found several that could or should be phased out.

The IISD list shows more than $1.2 billion in fossil-fuel subsidies from the federal government, and an even greater amount from provincial governments. Gelfand’s audit looked only at federal subsidies.

Gass said the government’s report on fossil-fuel subsidies is a good step toward transparency but that the reasoning behind the conclusion there are no inefficient subsidies is still confusing.

“We need a more ambitious approach and (to) have a better plan,” he said.

Gelfand’s audit is the second attempt to audit Finance Canada’s fossil-fuel subsidy programs. In 2017, the auditor general made an attempt but was blocked when the department refused to cough up the needed documents. Eventually the department gave in, resulting in the audits released Tuesday.

Gelfand also looked at the current impact of invasive aquatic species, most of which are accidentally introduced to Canadian waters on the hulls of ships coming from international waters and many of which harm native marine life after arrival.
She found that although Canada has made commitments to prevent invasive species from taking hold in Canadian waters, neither Fisheries and Oceans Canada nor the Canada Border Services Agency did what they promised to do. She says a lack of understanding of whether provincial or federal authorities are responsible is interfering with efforts to prevent invasive species from getting established.

Mia Rabson, The Canadian Press

Bank of Canada identifies climate change as important economic weak spot

Climate-change risks include the consequences of extreme weather events, like flooding and severe droughts.

The Bank of Canada is highlighting its expanding concerns about climate change and, for the first time, is listing it among the top weak spots for the economy and the financial system.

The central bank’s financial system health report Thursday included climate change as an important vulnerability, elevating it to a category alongside its long-running worries about household debt and apprehension about the housing market.

The assessment is part of the Bank of Canada’s annual report card that explores key weaknesses and risks surrounding the stability of the financial system.

“Economic activity and the environment are intertwined,” said the bank, which, like its international peers, is starting to make climate-change factors part of its financial stability research.

“Most experts agree that the global climate is changing and that this has growing implications for the economy. But the range of possible outcomes is large.”

Climate-change risks include the consequences of extreme weather events, such as flooding, hurricanes and severe droughts.

In Canada, the bank said insured damage to property and infrastructure averaged about $1.7 billion per year between 2008 to 2017 — 8.5 times higher than the annual average of $200 million from 1983 to 1992.

Beyond the physical damage, the bank said the shift to a lower-carbon economy will be complicated and could be costly for some.

The transition will likely lead to complicated structural adjustments for carbon-intensive sectors, such as oil and gas, and could leave insurance companies, banks and asset managers more exposed, the report said. In some cases, the bank said fossil fuel reserves could be left in the ground, which could drain the value of important assets.

The bank said the transformation to a lower-carbon economy also will likely provide a boost to sectors like green technology and alternative energy.

“Both physical and transition risks are likely to have broad impacts on the economy,” the report said.

In addition to climate change, the report also underlined the emerging vulnerability of rising corporate debt levels in the non-financial sector — a growing concern seen in other advanced economies. Some of the borrowing is of lower quality and the situation needs to be monitored closely, the bank said.
Last year, non-financial corporate debt relative to income was at 315 per cent, which the bank said was “well above its historical average.”

The bank said vulnerabilities linked to high household debt and the once-hot housing market have “declined modestly but remain significant.”

Both have been persistent weak spots in recent years and the improvements are due to a slowdown in credit growth since 2017 that coincided with stricter mortgage-lending policies and past interest-rate hikes.
The share of Canadians falling behind their debt payments remains “low and relatively steady,” the bank said. It noted, however, that since 2015 — after the oil-price slump — it’s seen a “small but steady increase” in the number of households in Alberta and Saskatchewan that have fallen behind by 60 days or more on at least one loan payment.

Housing prices in key markets of Toronto and Vancouver have cooled in recent years, but imbalances in real-estate markets are still an important vulnerability, the bank said.

“New measures have curbed borrowing, reduced speculative behaviour in housing markets and made the financial system more resilient,” Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz said Thursday in a statement.

“While the fundamentals in the housing sector remain solid overall and the sector should return to growth later this year, we continue to monitor these vulnerabilities closely.”

Overall, the bank said Canada’s financial system is resilient, but the risk has edged up since its last report in June 2018, due in part to factors such as slower economic growth and uncertainty around global trade.

The most-important threats to the financial system are a severe Canada-wide recession, a big house-price correction and a sharp re-pricing of risk in markets, the bank said.



Andy Blatchford, The Canadian Press

‘Climate change in action:’ Scientist says fires in Alberta linked to climate change

Alberta Wildfire data shows that, as of Friday, there were 569 wildfires in the province

PREMIER JASON KENNEY IN DENIAL 


A helicopter battles a wildfire in Fort McMurray, Alta., on Wednesday May 4, 2016.

Jason Franson
THE CANADIAN PRESS
Jun. 9, 2019

In May 2016, a wildfire near Fort McMurray forced more than 80,000 people to flee the northern Alberta city, destroyed 2,400 buildings and burned nearly 6,000 square kilometres of forest.

A year later, the fire season in British Columbia broke records as 2,117 blazes consumed more than 12,000 square kilometres of bush.

Both have been connected to climate change in two separate research papers published earlier this year by scientists with Environment and Climate Change Canada.

As another extreme fire season starts with more people on the run, scientists say they are already seeing signs that climate change is playing a role again.

“We are seeing climate change in action,” says University of Alberta wildland fire Prof. Mike Flannigan.

“The Fort McMurray fire was 1 1/2 to six times more likely because of climate change. The 2017 record-breaking B.C. fire season was seven to 11 times more likely because of climate change.”

The largest community evacuated in Alberta so far this year has been High Level. The vast Chuckegg Creek fire still churns in the woods south of town. It grew to 2,660 square kilometres in the first few weeks and remains one of several blazes currently burning out-of-control in the province.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has repeatedly said the cause of the fires is complex.

“I accept the science on anthropogenic climate change,” he said at a news conference last month. “But, in this particular instance, I can tell you we are on the five-year average for forest fires in Alberta.

“The large one right now is happening in an area where there has not been a fire for 80 years and so, regardless of other factors, it was due eventually for a large wildfire.”

Kenney’s comments aren’t wrong, but fire scientists say they don’t tell the whole story.

“Northern Alberta is covered by the boreal forest,” says Flannigan. “The boreal forest burns. It survives and thrives in a regime of semi-regular stand-replacing, stand-renewing high-intensity fire.”

It takes time for scientists to research and connect individual events to climate change, but Flannigan says it has become a major factor in Canadian fire seasons.

“We burn about 2.5 million hectares a year on average — that’s using about a 10-year average,” he says. “It’s more than doubled since the late ’60s and early ’70s.

“Colleagues and I attribute this to human-caused climate change. I can’t be any more clear than that.”

Most fire experts use a 10-year average for comparisons but, even using a five-year model, the number of fires in Alberta so far this year is already closing in on that number.

Alberta Wildfire data shows that, as of Friday, there were 569 wildfires in the province. The five-year average is 616. But they have already burned nearly 6,692 square kilometres, much higher than the five-year average of 1,387 square kilometres.

“There’s been a lot of research that’s shown as we warm, we get more fire,” says Flannigan.

He says there are three reasons: longer fire seasons; drier fuels and more lightning, which research has shown is increasing by 10 to 12 per cent with every degree of warming.

“Increasing temperatures, like those observed across Canada, will lead to drier fuels, and thus increased fire potential, as well as longer fire seasons,” says a federal report that looked into the Fort McMurray fire.

“The study demonstrated that the extreme Alberta wildfire of 2016 occurred in a world where anthropogenic warming has increased fire risk, fire spread potential, and the length of fire seasons across parts of Alberta and Saskatchewan.”

A study by federal scientists into British Columbia’s 2017 wildfire season found the area burned was seven to 11 times larger than it would have been without human influences on the climate.

Extreme high temperatures combined with dry conditions increased the likelihood of wildfire ignition and spread, the report says.

There’s already one sign that climate change is playing a role on the Chuckegg Creek fire near High Level, says Flannigan.

“Getting May fires up there is really early for that part of the province,” he says, explaining the area would normally start seeing fires in July. “Same with the Fort McMurray fire — that fire started May 1.

“The 2017 fire season in British Columbia — their busiest month is August — it started July 7 and that was really, really early for extreme fire weather for them.”


Colette Derworiz, The Canadian Press

Canada may need higher carbon taxes to meet its Paris targets, PBO says

Under current projections, Canada will reduce its emissions to 592 megatonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

THE CANADIAN PRESS

Jun. 13, 2019 7:55 a.m.

Canada’s parliamentary budget watchdog says a higher price on carbon will be needed if Canada is to meet its Paris Agreement targets for greenhouse-gas emissions.

A Parliamentary Budget Office report today says an extra price on carbon will be needed past 2023 to meet Canada’s targets, starting at $6 a tonne and rising to $52 by 2030.

Combined with the current federal fuel charge, that would add up to $102 per tonne.

Under current projections, Canada will reduce its emissions to 592 megatonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030, but the target is 513 megatonnes — a gap of 79 megatonnes.

The PBO estimated an additional price on carbon after 2023 would cut emissions more and at a lower cost to the economy than the current fuel charge.

The office notes that the estimates were made based on existing policies, and Environment and Climate Change Canada has said the effects of some new clean technologies have not yet been modelled.

ALSO READ: ‘Climate change in action:’ Scientist says fires in Alberta linked to climate change

ALSO READ: Bank of Canada identifies climate change as important economic weak spot

Salal die-off on Vancouver Island a sign of climate stress, says forester
Others blame logging practices for declining health of coastal forest


A hiker walks past a patch of dead salal on a path at Rebecca Spit Provincial 

Park on Quadra Island in May. SUSAN QUINN PHOTO

Jun. 13, 2019 9:30 a.m.
NEWS

MIKE YOUDS SPECIAL TO THE NEWS

Salal dieback seen across the Island this spring is caused by multiple factors, including a coastal forest ecosystem stressed by climate change, says the chief forester of Mosaic.

Domenico Iannidinardo, vice-president forest and sustainability with Mosaic Forest Management — which now oversees the operations of TimberWest and Island Timberlands — said the phenomenon is an indicator of forest health in general.

“It’s all the way up the Island as far north as Port Hardy on the east side,” Iannidinardo said, confirming that he’s also seen the dieback in Port Alberni. “Basically, you have freeze-dried salal.”

Salal dieback means more fuel on the forest floor as the province heads into its third consecutive wildfire season, having already weathered a prolonged drought. Dried-out debris left by last fall’s severe windstorm adds to the forest fuel load in some areas.

A common evergreen shrub, salal thrives in the forest understory. The dieback, more substantial than anyone can recall, is hard to miss along forest roads and trails. Reports started appearing on web posts earlier this spring. Some scientists theorize the trend is caused by weather and that it is quite possibly climate related.

From a forest health perspective, the dieback means ecosystems are stressed in their adaptation, “showing their perception of climate change,” Iannidinardo said.

“It was clearly the unusually cold temperature, low precipitation and humidity, a confluence of events in 2019,” he added.

In a sense, it was a perfect storm. Cold and dry in particular caused desiccation of parts of the common shrub at a time of year when it normally springs to life.

“It will come back. It will certainly recover, but it’s concerning.”

Iannidinardo said the salal dieback is instructive.

“From a forest health perspective, when we see something like this, it’s a reminder that we have to prepare in forest planning for more and drier periods. Planting has to take into account longer drought stretches … perhaps plant a little more Douglas fir and a little less cedar.”

Others feel the vine-like shrub — which has supported a boutique industry on the Island, supplying florists all over for 50 years — is telling a different story.

“We’ve had a few impacts on the industry,” said Albert Folster, owner of Ladysmith Evergreens. Folster has commercially harvested salal for 30 years, one of 30 or 40 contractors on the Island. He said the cause of dieback is varied and depends on location. Salal is reliant on moisture retention in the soil, affected by removal of the forest cover, he said.

“That could be due to deforestation as well,” Folster said, blaming some of the dieback on an accelerated pace of logging that leaves too little time for the forest ecosystem to recover.

Bob Brown of Port Alberni began harvesting salal more than 50 years ago. Dieback this spring is the result of successively dry seasons, not cold temperatures last winter, he believes. Last year was especially taxing.

“That salal was already brown last winter. The damage was done when the water got sucked out of the soil in spring and summer,” Brown said.

He also feels intensive logging on privately held lands — compounded by the impact of weather events and climate change — is to blame for the compromised state of forest health. A recent drive to Victoria was an eye opener, revealing extensive dieback among western red cedar.

“I’ve never seen it quite that bad,” Brown said.

Dieback presents another challenge for salal contractors on the south Island. They remain in a dispute with Mosaic, which has not renewed their contracts.

“The southern half of the Island has been locked up,” Folster said, explaining that they have to go north to harvest. While his business has doubled recently, some are struggling as a result.

Mosaic said the dispute is a matter of safety. Contractors need to have certification from the B.C. Forest Safety Council and comply with WorkSafe BC regulations, Iannidinardo said.

“We had four contractors four years ago and we have zero now, and it’s all for safety reasons,” he said. “We remain open to harvesting. We’ll look at qualified proposals,” he added.

Mary Ann Shievink of Flowers Unlimited, who uses salal for floral arrangements, said her local harvester couldn’t find any when he went looking the other day.

She agrees that climate change seems to be a culprit and notes that cedar boughs used in Christmas arrangements are showing more rust, a fungus.

More research labs are retiring monkeys when studies finish

By CARRIE ANTLFINGER


1 of 6
In this May 13, 2019, photo, Bella the vervet monkey looks at the camera at Primates Inc., in Westfield, Wis. Besides Bella, previously a pet, the sanctuary has five rhesus macaque monkeys that were previously used in medical research. More research labs are retiring primates to sanctuaries like Primates Inc., a 17-acre rural compound in central Wisconsin, where they can live their remaining years after research studies are done, according to sanctuaries and researchers. (AP Photo/Carrie Antlfinger)

WESTFIELD, Wis. (AP) — Izzle, Timon, Batman, River and Mars spent years confined inside a lab, their lives devoted to being tested for the benefit of human health.

But these rhesus macaques have paid their dues and are now living in retirement — in larger enclosures that let them venture outside, eat lettuce and carrots, dip their fingers in colorful plastic pools, paint, and hang from pipes and tires — in relative quiet.

More research labs are retiring primates to sanctuaries like Primates Inc., a 17-acre (7-hectare) rural compound in central Wisconsin, where they can live their remaining years, according to the sanctuaries and researchers. For some monkeys, it’s their first time hanging out in the fresh air.

“Just to see them look around in amazement. You know it was all very calm and peaceful,” said Amy Kerwin, who worked for 15 years to get the Westfield, Wisconsin, sanctuary off the ground after being employed in a University of Wisconsin research lab.

There were approximately 110,000 primates in research facilities in 2017, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

While most research facilities need primates to be euthanized to examine their tissues, technological advances, such as brain scans, mean fewer monkeys need to be put down. Plus, researchers who become close with the animals are making more efforts to give the ones who can survive a retirement, rather than euthanization.

In 2015, a group of researchers, graduate students and an ethicist created the Research Animal Retirement Foundation. It raises funds for labs to pay the sanctuaries to retire them. So far they have given $33,000 in funding for three monkeys who went to the Wisconsin sanctuary.

A visit to the Peaceable Primate Sanctuary in Indiana helped convince Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., to author a bill introduced last month, along with Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Penn., that requires federal agencies to develop a policy allowing animals no longer needed for research to be adopted out or put in sanctuaries. Currently, no federal regulations dictate what happens to them. Some are sold to other studies when one study is done.

The bill doesn’t address funding, one of the main hurdles to get primates into retirement sanctuaries.

Currently, grants through the National Institutes of Health, which is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world, don’t include money for retirement. That leaves the labs and sanctuaries to find the tens of thousands of dollars per monkey, per year needed to care for them.


Monkeys are finished with studies at different ages and some can live for decades. Some can also leave with lingering issues, like compulsive behaviors caused by boredom.

That’s why many sanctuaries require the labs to send some funding, often between $10,000 and $20,000, to help care and create space for monkeys. Since many of the primates have only lived in labs, they don’t have the skills needed to live in the wild.

Most primates in accredited sanctuaries are chimpanzees, capuchins, and squirrel monkeys, according to Erika Fleury, program director for the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance, or NAPSA, an advocacy group for captive primates. They come from research, the entertainment industry or private homes.

Chimpanzees are no longer used in most research. The NIH announced in 2013 it would stop supporting them in research and that they should be moved to sanctuaries, with funding. It pointed to a report from the Institute of Medicine in 2011 that concluded the use of chimpanzees in biomedical research was unnecessary.

Cindy Buckmaster, chair of the Americans for Medical Progress, which represents research universities and medical research companies, said that besides funding, researchers are concerned about sanctuaries standards, their financial viability and whether some sanctuaries’ ties to animal rights groups will cause them to badmouth the institution.

“We really feel very grateful to them and we want them to have wonderful lives after,” Buckmaster said. “They certainly deserve it. But it has to be done well and it has to be done properly because we’re not going to put our animals in harm’s way.”

Some animal rights groups, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, don’t support research but do agree with retiring monkeys to sanctuaries rather than having them euthanized.

Sanctuaries have been around for decades but, in 2010, more than a half-dozen came together to create NAPSA.

Currently, there are eight member sanctuaries, with about 775 primates. Membership requires the sanctuaries be USDA licensed, accredited by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries or certified by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums, among many guidelines. There are 31 other, nonmember sanctuaries in the U.S. and Canada that have primates but have a variety of standards, according to NAPSA.

Besides requiring high standards for sanctuaries, NAPSA is also upping efforts with researchers to encourage them to ask for retirement funding upfront.

An NIH spokeswoman wouldn’t respond to whether the agency would consider adding money to grants for monkey retirement care, only saying in a statement that the animals’ owners are responsible for ongoing care.

Kerwin, who started the Wisconsin sanctuary, said she’s seen monkeys become calmer in retirement. Her goal is to have 100 monkeys over the next 20 years.

“Just knowing that these little individual personalities are in the thousands and largely no one knows about them and even the need to help them. That’s why I feel it’s important,” she said.

In this May 13, 2019, photo, Amy Kerwin holds a mirror up to Izzle, a rhesus macaque at Primates Inc., in Westfield, Wis. Izzle loves to watch people in mirrors, according to Kerwin. The sanctuary now has five rhesus macaque monkeys that were previously used in medical research and one vervet monkey that used to be a pet. (AP Photo/Carrie Antlfinger)

In this May 13, 2019, photo, River, left, and Timon, both rhesus macaques, sit in an outdoor enclosure at Primates Inc., in Westfield, Wis. It's a sanctuary that so far has five rhesus macaque monkeys that were previously used in medical research and one vervet monkey that used to be a pet. More research labs are retiring primates to sanctuaries like Primates Inc., a 17-acre rural compound in central Wisconsin, where they can live their remaining years when their studies are done, according to sanctuaries and researchers. (AP Photo/Carrie Antlfinger)

Langley rose honouring Bette Midler not for sale in B.C.

Though Langley bred, The Divine Miss M will be used for fundraising to restore New York City

Brad Jalbert of Select Roses developed The Divine Miss M. He has gained international recognition his Langley roses over the past 30 years.

By Bob Groeneveld/Langley Advance Times

Although created in Langley, The Divine Miss M won’t be available for B.C. rose gardens for “a few years,” according to the rose’s creator, Brad Jalbert of Select Roses.

The Divine Miss M is named for singer, songwriter, actress, comedian, film producer Bette Midler, in honour of her founding and work with the New York Restoration Society.

Internationally recognized rose breeder Jalbert was approached by the New York Botanical Gardens to see if he had a rose suitable for honouring “someone special.”

The rose would have to be “bawdy, brass, and bold, but it also had to be divine,” Jalbert was told.

They liked the rose he picked for them – “a big white rose that looks like it has a dollop of whipped cream on top,” said Jalbert.

“When they saw the rose,” said Jalbert, “it was everything they hoped it to be.”

And so they acquired the naming rights for the creamy white rose with a light vanilla scent, and it became The Divine Miss M.

READ ALSO: Langley rose The Divine Miss M named in honour of Bette Midler

Jalbert said that, because of the time and cost involved in developing a new rose, groups and organizations that want to name a special rose, usually to honour a person or a place, are normally charged anywhere from $7,500 to $15,000 for the naming rights.

Buying the naming rights in this case included the right to use it for fundraising, to further Midler’s work in developing green spaces and better environment in New York for people across the social and economic spectra.

So Jalbert won’t be marketing the rose at least until Midler’s people have met their fundraising goal with it.

“It will be a few years before The Divine Miss M will be available locally,” Jalbert said.

BC HELPS GREEN THE LNG INDUSTRY

This is our generation’s opportunity to create an industry for B.C.: LNG Alliance

CEO says much of the work has already been awarded to First Nations

• Jun. 13, 2019  
• COLUMNISTS 
• OPINION
• Bryan Cox is the President and CEO of BC LNG Alliance

In 1867 an entrepreneur named John “Gassy Jack” Deighton opened a saloon near a newly built sawmill on Burrard Inlet. In doing so, he started “Gastown,” the small village that would grow up around the lumber industry to become Vancouver.

This was a few years after gold was discovered on the Fraser River, sparking a gold rush and boom towns throughout B.C., and as coal mining was beginning on Vancouver Island.

The arrival of the first train in Vancouver in 1887 allowed the city to emerge as a global shipping port, cementing our province’s position as a resource developer and exporter.

From the very beginning, primary industries built the growth and prosperity of B.C., and importantly, they continue to provide significant employment and revenues.

Now, our generation has the opportunity to build a new natural resource industry in B.C. from the ground up. By cooling B.C. natural gas until it becomes a liquid, we are able to add value to our resource before exporting it as liquefied natural gas (LNG).

We are the generation that learned to reduce, reuse and recycle, and to be conscious of the state of our environment. We were raised to care about our planet.

LNG is our generation’s opportunity to build a modern industry that provides the world with a resource it needs, with the fewest emissions possible.

We have the knowledge and values to build a sustainable resource that benefits all British Columbians.

For example, First Nations are partners in two natural gas pipelines that would deliver natural gas that will be cooled into LNG in Kitimat. Much of the contract work that has been awarded so far for those pipelines has gone to First Nations businesses or joint-ventures. Through consultation, the Haisla Nation negotiated benefit agreements to allow the LNG Canada project and Kitimat LNG project in their traditional territory. The Squamish Nation developed its own environmental review process – the first of its kind anywhere in Canada – for the Woodfibre LNG project.

Our generation is tackling challenging social problems, like poverty and affordability. The well-paying jobs and careers in the LNG industry have the potential to transform many lives, and the revenue the industry contributes to government will be invested in schools, hospitals, roads, and services across the province.

We are developing the LNG industry to help address some of the world’s greatest challenges. According to the World Health Organization, there are seven million deaths each year attributed to breathing polluted air. With a fraction of the particulate matter of fuels such as coal and biomass, LNG can help the world breathe cleaner air.


ALSO READ: New power line needed for LNG project


ALSO READ: B.C. court to mull continuing order against Coastal Gaslink pipeline


Our LNG facilities are designed to produce the lowest emission LNG anywhere in the world in order to meet strong provincial regulations. This means that B.C. LNG will have at least half and for some facilities – far less than half – of the emissions compared to LNG produced in other countries.


For example, when used to displace coal-fired electricity in China, B.C.’s LNG could reduce global emissions equal to British Columbia’s annual emissions. LNG helps countries electrify by providing firm, reliable backup power for renewables. It is also displacing marine bunker oil in the global shipping industry improving both the marine environment and safety.


Our generation is changing how natural gas is developed. B.C.’s natural gas industry has been recognized for having far fewer emissions than natural gas produced in the U.S, and we are constantly looking for ways to reduce emissions even further.


We have a huge opportunity to build an industry our way, benefitting British Columbians, Canadians and the world. We can share our knowledge with the world to help build a better industry globally. It is clear that if we do not produce LNG in B.C., it will be produced by other jurisdictions, with more lenient regulatory standards and much higher greenhouse gas emissions. British Columbians and Canadians would also miss out on the prosperity these projects could bring. For the sake of our citizens, and the health of the world, we cannot let this happen.


With LNG, our generation can help build sustainable prosperity for B.C.

IRAN CALLS THIS A FALSE FLAG TO JUSTIFY WAR

Pompeo: Iran responsible for attacks on two tankers, intelligence shows

The petrochemical tankers, including a Japanese-owned ship, were attacked in broad daylight in the Gulf of Oman as Japan’s prime minister wrapped up a high-stakes visit to Tehran to help cool hostilities in the region.

• By Erin Cunningham, Simon Denyer and Carol Morello
• 1 hour ago
• • 
    
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Pompeo: Attacks ‘an unacceptable campaign of escalating tension by Iran’

Analysis: Why the suspected attacks could provoke a full-blown conflict

APNEWS.COM

US Navy assisting 2 tankers targeted in Gulf of Oman
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, were reportedly attacked on Thursday, the U.S. Navy said, with one adrift and on fire...

Two oil tankers evacuated after reported attack in Gulf of Oman
The crews of two oil tankers were evacuated off the coast of Iran on Thursday after they were reportedly attacked and caught fire in the Gulf of Oman, sending world oil prices soaring. The mystery incident, the second involving shipping in the strategic sea lane in only a few weeks, came amid spiral...

#FALSEFLAG FOR POMPEO'S SPEECH TODAY AGAINST #IRAN
#NOWARONIRAN
#ENDIRANSANCTIONS
#NOWARWITHIRAN

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2006/09/us-war-on-capitalism-in-iran.html

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=IRAN

First School Board in Canada to officially acknowledge the global climate emergency:

WILL YOUR SCHOOL BOARD BE NEXT

Parents, teachers and citizens alike united to march from Uptown shopping centre to the Greater Victoria School Board office on Boleskine Road on Monday to support trustee Jordan Watters’ climate emergency motion. (Parents 4 Climate/Facebook)
Victoria School Board latest to recognize climate emergency


‘Kids are hungry for adults to show action,’ trustee says

TRAVIS PATERSON
Jun. 11, 2019 12:15 p.m.
LOCAL NEWS
NEWS

Members of the Parents 4 Climate group walked from Uptown shopping centre to the Greater Victoria School Board head office on Boleskine Road to support Monday night’s climate emergency motion.

The Parents 4 Climate group emerged earlier this year in support of the youth climate strikes happening in front of the legislature. They’ve also supported SD61 board chair Jordan Watters’ advance motion that the district develop a Climate Action Plan. That motion came before the district’s Operations Policy and Planning committee on Monday and will next come before the school board for final approval at the June 24 meeting.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently found limiting global warming to 1.5 C is still possible if there is a 45 per cent reduction of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and net zero by 2050.

SD61 is believed to be the first school district in the province to adopt a climate emergency recognition and in doing so, will join the Capital Regional District, Victoria, View Royal, Esquimalt, Saanich, Sidney, Highlands, Oak Bay, Sooke and Colwood.

READ MORE: Victoria youth head to B.C. legislature for climate strike

“Kids are hungry for adults to show leadership around this,” Watters said. “It can’t just be lip service, it has to be action. We are truly called to act. It’s an emergency and the youth know that.”

Watters’ comment is also a claim that the Climate Action Plan needs to “have teeth” to ensure it is effective.

“We’re asking for an action plan, with targets, so that there can be some accountability built in.”

Once approved, SD61’s facilities department would be directed to create a plan with targets and strategies to see the line of greenhouse gas emissions decline, Watters said. SD61’s facilities department already files a carbon neutrality report with the province. This would take it one step further, though Watters’ can’t speculate on exactly what types of changes could be implemented. As an organization most of SD61’s emissions are from buildings and transportation.

READ ALSO: CRD endorses climate emergency declaratio

Examples of similar efforts made in this area are Saanich’s installation of low-emission boilers at Saanich Commonwealth Place, reducing its carbon footprint by 90 per cent. The district could also develop an expedited plan to electrify its fleet of vehicles and buses.

However, it’s more than just physical options, Watters said.

“Any action is better than no action,” Watters said. “We already are taking steps towards this but not communicating it out, need to add to the conversation. The climate crisis has a communications problem.

“We need climate literacy. For how significant its impact is, [humans] don’t fully understand the climate crisis.”

SD61 already has champions, Watters pointed out, with teachers at every school engaging students about climate action.

“I would hope the plan amplifies these ways of sharing climate literacy, Watters said. “I hope it will have strategies big and small.”