Tag Archives: Forrest Berman-Hatch

Community

Folk U: Cortes Foundation’s Care for Cortes fundraising campaign

On Friday, June 28, host Manda Aufochs Gillespie was joined by community leaders Sadhu Johnston, Michael Datura, Bryan McKinnon, Kate Maddigan, Forrest Berman-Hatch, and Andrea Fisher, to chat about the Cortes Foundation’s Care for Cortes fundraising campaign and the community projects it will be supporting. Tune in for news and discussion about the CIA, Microgrants, CKTZ, the Cortes Foundation’s climate fund, Cortes Housing Society, and the Social Profit Network.

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Politics, Transportation

Canada’s New Electric Vehicle Availability Standard

On Tuesday, December 19, The Government of Canada announced a gradual phasing out of gas powered light vehicle sales until 2035, after which all new vehicles must be 100% emissions free.

“Transportation is the most polluting  sector in Canada after oil and gas, a lot of that comes from road transportation. So from the vehicles we drive that are on the road, from sitting in traffic. This regulation is aiming  to ensure that we’re putting forward technologies like zero emission vehicles, that includes electric vehicles, that will drastically reduce emissions within that sector and this regulation says that it will have emissions reductions of 360 million tons. That’s the equivalent of 62,000 Olympic swimming pools full of gas that have been burned,” explained Meena Bibra, Senior Policy Analyst with Clean Energy Canada. 

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Environment, Housing, Transportation

FOCI’s Recommendations for the Official Community Plan

On Monday, Dec 11, the Strathcona Regional District will be holding an open house at Mansons Hall, pertaining to updating the Cortes Island zoning bylaws. This is the first of a series of steps that will also include a revision of the island’s Official Community Plan. The Friends of Cortes Island has prepared a 22 page study of suggested recommendations for revisions to Cortes Island’s plan for the future. 

“It’s really critically important at this moment in history that we make sure that every decision made in the community plan is made taking climate change and  climate adaptation into account,” said Forrest Berman-Hatch, author of the report. 

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Transportation

The carbon footprint of longer distance travel to and from Cortes Island

The Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) just released a report on the carbon footprint made by longer distance trips to and from Cortes Island. 

Many of their findings are to be expected. Taking a plane off the island creates a great deal more emissions than driving a car, and people who carpool or take a bus are responsible for only a fraction of that vehicle’s pollution.  

One of the biggest contributors to our local footprint is the Cortes-Quadra ferry, which creates approximately 1 kg of carbon emissions for every walk-on and 12 kg for every car. 

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Forests, Youth

A Beacon of Hope: Questions from the Children’s Forest Alumni

One of the world’s leading forest ecologists was the feature speaker at the Cortes Children’s Forest virtual AGM on Saturday, January 28th. This is the last in a series of programs from that meeting, in which Dr Suzanne Simard’s answers questions from the Children’s Forest Alumni. 

Forrest Berman-Hatch emceed the session and this abridged broadcast of the audio opens with him asking, “ How do you see the value of the Children’s Forest taking into account all the different factors that are important to small communities like the ecological, the economic, as well as the cultural and scientific values?”

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