Tag Archives: FOCI

Environment

Only A Week From Now: FOCI’s 2024 AGM

The Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) 2024 AGM is coming up at 5 PM on December 3rd. They are celebrating more than 30 years with their Marine Stewardship program. Sabina Leader Mense will be the guest speaker. 

“That’s the second part of the AGM. For the first part, we will be talking about  the work we’ve done in 2024. We’ve just produced our 2024 Annual Report and that’s bursting at the seams with amazing work that we’ve been doing over the last year,” explained Helen Hall. executive director of the Friends of Cortes Island.  

Continue reading Only A Week From Now: FOCI’s 2024 AGM →
Cost of Climate Change

Turning Down the Heat Part 2: Change Your Life Bulb

By Carrie Saxifrage and the Climate Action Network

In early July of 2024, a small group of Cortes Islanders, supported by Friends Of Cortes Island (FOCI), screened the film “How to Boil a Frog” for the community. You can watch the film here. The film is about the five-pronged problem life on Earth is currently facing — overpopulation, a war on nature, wealth disparity, peak oil (hee hee), and climate change—and offers five actions that can help—boycott Exxon, change your “life bulb” (reduce consumption), a change of heart, one kid per couple, and kick some ass. 

This article is the second in a series focused on each of these five solutions. You can read Maureen Williams great first article on a change of heart here. This second article is about changing your “life bulb.” The term refers to the end of Al Gore’s 2006 movie An Inconvenient Truth in which minor suggestions, including a switch to LED bulbs, float across the screen. The disconnect between the size of the problem and the size of the suggested solutions was so very obvious. It still is. Whether or not you change your “life bulb,” it is still important to “Kick Some Ass.” That will be the next article in the series.  

Continue reading Turning Down the Heat Part 2: Change Your Life Bulb →
Animals

Canada’s Unidentified And Unprotected Species at Risk

According to the United Nations, global diversity loss is one of the world’s most pressing emergencies. “Intense human activities, such as land-use change, overexploitation, climate change, pollution and the introduction of invasive species, is causing an extinction acceleration that is at least tens to hundreds of times faster than the natural process of extinctions.”  More than 400 vertebrate species have been lost over the past 100 years. The populations of close to half the species listed by the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals ‘are showing population declines’ and 97% of the fish species are ‘threatened with extinction.’ 

Canada made an international commitment to protect species at risk, but a new report from the Office of the Auditor General of Canada found we are not providing the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) with anywhere near the the support it needs. 

Continue reading Canada’s Unidentified And Unprotected Species at Risk →
Politics

Michele Babchuk Meets With Cortes Island Voters

Recording by Bryan McKinnon; Broadcast and text by Roy L Hales.

NDP incumbent Michele Babchuk came to Cortes Island Saturday, October 12, in the second in a series of meet the candidate events organized by the Climate Action Network. 

There is not room to unpack close to two hours of fact filled conversation into this half hour, but the full podcast is at the bottom of this page and here are some highlights.  

Continue reading Michele Babchuk Meets With Cortes Island Voters →
Politics, Transportation

Highlights from Green candidate Nic Dedeluk’s visit to Cortes Island

Around 30 people turned out to meet Green candidate Nic Dedeluk when she came to Mansons Hall on Monday, October 7. Cortes Currents recorded 145 minutes of the two hour meeting, which is far too much to fit into a half hour broadcast. So today’s program consists of a few highlights. 

This event was put on by  FOCI’s Climate Action Committee (The Climate Action Network) and there is a link to the unedited audio at the bottom of this page.

Continue reading Highlights from Green candidate Nic Dedeluk’s visit to Cortes Island →