BC Creek Protection Society

MEDIA RELEASE For Immediate Release Environmental Groups Recommend New Approaches to Clean Electricity in BC Vancouver, December 17 — Several environmental organizations today released a blueprint for improving the planning and development of renewable electricity projects in British Columbia. The recommendations, authored by the David Suzuki Foundation, the Pembina Institute, Watershed Watch Salmon Society and West Coast Environmental Law, have been endorsed by 25 environmental organizations across the province. British Columbians are deeply concerned about climate change, and while they support clean electricity to address climate change, many harbour concerns about how clean electricity is currently developed. Government energy and climate policies have stimulated a rapid increase in the rate of development of renewable electricity projects, but public support has not kept pace in many cases. Projects have frequently been opposed due to concerns about social, environmental and economic costs. The blueprint released today, “Recommendations for Responsible Clean Electricity Development in British Columbia,” outlines how planning and development can proceed in a way that is more transparent, strategic and inclusive of and beneficial to all British Columbians — First Nations and the public alike — while limiting environmental impacts. The groups recommend that British Columbia’s progress on clean electricity policy and development can be dramatically improved by: 1. Ensuring that energy conservation and efficiency is the highest priority. 2. Making British Columbia’s electricity supply as clean, renewable and low-impact as possible. 3. Adopting a renewable electricity planning framework that limits environmental, social and economic impacts and maximizes public benefit. 4. Reforming water licensing, land leasing decisions and governance. 5. Strengthening the environmental assessment process, addressing and managing cumulative effects, and improving monitoring and compliance performance. 6. Developing an informed consensus about the conditions whereby renewable electricity could be exported from British Columbia, if at all. -30- Organizations endorsing the Recommendations for Responsible Clean Electricity Development in British Columbia: BC Spaces for Nature BC Sustainable Energy Association Cassiar Watch David Suzuki Foundation Forest Ethics Friends of Clayoquot Sound Friends of Wild Salmon Georgia Straight Alliance Living Oceans Society Northwest Watch Outdoor Recreation Council Pacific Wild Pembina Institute Raincoast Conservation Foundation Sierra Club of Canada, BC Chapter Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition SkeenaWild Conservation Trust Steelhead Society of British Columbia Sunshine Coast Conservation Association T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation Watershed Watch Salmon Society West Coast Environmental Law West Kootenay EcoSociety Wilderness Tourism Association Wildsight For more information, contact: Karen Campbell, Pembina Institute, cell: 604-928-2258 Craig Orr, Watershed Watch Salmon Society, cell: 604-809-2799 Josh Paterson, West Coast Environmental Law, phone: 604-601-2512 The full recommendations are available at: http://bc.pembina.org/pub/1951

Urgent: Take Action Now for BC Rivers At the power producers’ industry convention in November, BC Premier Gordon Campbell announced four ‘Green Energy Advisory Task Force’ groups and a mid-January deadline for their recommendations about nearly everything related to energy in BC. Task Force members are hand-picked: some are high-profile individuals with little experience, many have ties to energy industry profits, and most support existing government policies. The Task Force quietly offered just 4 weeks for public comments – until December 31, 2009. It is time to tell the Liberal government their methods are insincere and autocratic. Energy issues are some of the most critical questions facing BC and we need real opportunities for public participation. We need an energy-planning process that’s transparent and accountable – not what’s happening now! Write to the BC Government today. Your message can be very short: This process is a sham. Our rivers are precious and irreplaceable and they are BC’s last great resource. If all the 800 BC rivers now staked for private development are diverted to produce electricity at full capacity, our carbon offset would be less than 8% – with unimaginable environmental costs. Its time to stop and rethink what’s truly ‘green’! Send your email to

• BC Premier Gordon Campbell: premier@gov.bc.ca
• Minister of Energy Mines & Petroleum Resources, Blair Lekstrom: blair.lekstrom@gov.bc.ca
• Minister of Environment, Barry Penner: barry.penner@gov.bc.ca

Copy your email to the task force groups:

• ProcurementAndRegulatoryReform@gmail.com
• CarbonAndExportMarket@gmail.com
• CommunityAndFirstNations@gmail.com
• ResourceDevelopmentTF@gmail.com

WRITE YOUR LETTER TODAY! FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO YOUR FRIENDS: WE NEED MANY VOICES SPEAKING LOUD! You can also say more - best in your own words.

• Request province-wide town hall meetings and more time for public submissions.
• Demand return of community and citizen rights:
  • Repeal Bill 30 that silenced our local governments’ voice in private power projects.
  • Heed the report of our independent regulator, BC Utilities Commission, which ruled private river power is unnecessary, too expensive, and not in the public interest.
• Ask for a moratorium on river diversions until we have inclusive and comprehensive planning.
• Insist on energy conservation before energy production.
• Put the public good ahead of corporate profits.
• Design incentives and infrastructures to encourage conservation.
• End your letter with a question that requires a real answer.

FYI More info: http://www.timescolonist.com/technology/Premier+Campbell+announces+sweeping+energy+policy+review/2173927/story.html http://www.straight.com/article-273776/vancouver/energy-task-force-members-green-bc-liberal-party-coffers http://www.buteinlet.net

The one hour public lecture is now available on youtube: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 University of Victoria, October 29th 2009. Part of the BC Creek Protection Society’s lecture series on environment and energy. For good reasons, climate change dominates the current headlines and presents itself as a difficult problem to solve within the framework of growth-based economies. Without a larger vision, governments have long prevaricated in taking action. Now, they seek solutions through minor policy changes, supposedly renewable energy sources and futuristic technologies. Their goal is to fix the problem–and get back to business-as-usual. However, upon close examination this approach to climate change proves to be intrinsically unsustainable. Instead, governments are prone to an ever-growing global dependence on a consumptive economic machine that is running out of space and time. This economy is oblivious to its planetary context; resurrecting it is a dream of a world gone by, all the while forsaking an opportunity for re-invention that can easily slip away. Dr. M’Gonigle is the EcoResearch Professor in Environmental Law and Policy in the Faculty of Law at the University of Victoria, one of the founders of Greenpeace International, EcoJustice, Smart Growth BC, the Dogwood Initiative, and the POLIS Project on Ecological Governance at UVic. He has written extensively in the areas of resource and environmental law and policy, and has been developing a new field of green legal theory.