Tag Archives: Vancouver Island

Cost of Climate Change

Loss of Electricity and CityWest Internet During Recent Storm

Close to 400,000 BC Hydro customers, primarily on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland, lost power during the recent windstorms. Gusts of up to 159 km/h were reported on November 19, the first night of the storm.  By 4 PM on Friday, November 22, all but about 5,000 customers on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands were back online. Parts of Cortes and Quadra Islands were among the last areas to be restored. 

BC Hydro identifies extreme storms like this with climate change and, in their 2023 Climate Change Accountability Report, states:

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Cost of Climate Change

On carbon tax, BC Greens stand alone

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

BC Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau is doubling down on her commitment to the carbon tax before the Oct. 19 election. 

The party will clamp down on the oil and gas industry, close loopholes on pricing carbon pollution, and provide larger rebates to individuals and families, Furstenau announced Wednesday. 

Furstenau criticized Conservative Party of BC Leader John Rustad for denying the climate crisis is a problem and accused the BC NDP of tinkering with the carbon tax system it inherited to grant subsidies to the oil and gas industry. 

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Animals, Health

Chronic Wasting Disease reported in the Kootenay Region

On January 31, 2024, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed that two cases of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) have been found south of Cranbrook, in the Kootenays. ‘The first sample came from a ‘harvested’ adult male mule deer and the second from a white-tailed doe that was struck on the road. 

CWD is a highly infectious and fatal disease, which the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention states, “affects many different species of hoofed animals including North American elk or wapiti, red deer, mule deer, black-tailed deer, white-tailed deer, sika deer, reindeer, and moose.”

This is the first report of CWD west of the Rocky Mountains in Canada or the United States.  

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Rivers & Oceans

BBC’s Planet Earth does a deep dive on West Coast whale poo

Editor’s Note: Most of what follows is applicable to our waters, doubly so because MERS operates in our waters. Stay tuned to see if there are any scenes from Cortes or the surrounding islands in the BBC story.

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Whale researcher Jackie Hildering and her colleagues never imagined their work on humpbacks would capture the attention of the globe’s premier documentary series.  

Or that whale poo would be of such interest to Planet Earth — BBC’s famous nature show. 

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Water

When it comes to water security, small rural communities in B.C. largely left high and dry

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

B.C.’s small rural communities striving for water security as droughts become the norm still sink or swim without much assistance from the province, policy experts say.  

Most of the province has been in the clutches of unprecedented — but long anticipated — climate-induced drought for most of the summer. About 55 per cent of B.C.’s water basins are at Level 5 on the provincial drought scale — the point when adverse socioeconomic or ecosystem impacts are almost certain. 

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