Tag Archives: UBC

Energy

Politicians and lobby groups using crisis in Ukraine to push pro-oil message is ‘crass opportunism’: Elizabeth May

By Natasha Bulowski, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Canadian politicians and lobbyists are using the crisis in Ukraine to advocate for more fossil fuel expansion in a move of “crass opportunism,” said Green Party parliamentary leader Elizabeth May.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the House of Commons and social media have reverberated with claims from politicians and fossil fuel industry representatives that Canadian oil and gas is needed to replace the 40 per cent Europe imports from Russia.

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Energy

Document reveals influence of oil and gas lobbyists on B.C. officials after Indigenous Rights ruling

By Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

In the wake of a precedent-setting Indigenous Rights case in June 2021, B.C.’s ministry of energy did something rather unprecedented: it immediately cancelled summer auctions for new oil and gas tenures.

This sudden closure of oil and gas opportunities in response to the Blueberry decision — a B.C. Supreme Court ruling, which determined the province violated the Treaty Rights of Blueberry River First Nations by permitting and encouraging damaging industrial development — sent a shudder through the industry that continues to reverberate across the country today.

Documents  released to The Narwhal through freedom of information legislation show  petroleum and natural gas (PNG) lobbyists told public servants that  B.C. could lose more than $90 million in annual revenue and up to 10,000  jobs as a result of the Blueberry decision. These stark warnings were  then passed on to senior B.C. government officials, including Fazil  Mihlar, deputy minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation.

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Rivers & Oceans

Looking down the throat of a Humpback Whale

Dr. Kelsey Gil is  a postdoctoral researcher at UBC’s department of zoology and the lead author of a paper published in Current Biology that literally peaks down the throat of a lunge whale.

Lunge feeding whales (humpbacks, blue whales and fin whales etc)   open their mouths as they accelerate towards their prey.

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Rivers & Oceans

Climate change could spark international fish fights

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Tensions between countries are likely to rise with the global temperature as valuable fish stocks fleeing warmer waters cross into different national boundaries, a new study suggests.

The climate crisis will push 45 per cent of the world’s shared fish stocks away from historic habitat ranges and migration routes by 2100, posing a challenge for international co-operation, said senior author William Cheung.

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