We just overshot our fair share of Earth for 2023
Just a few days ago, Canada overshot its fair share of Earth’s biocapacity and resources, as measured by the ecological footprint in 2018, the latest year for which data is available. By March 13, Canada had already consumed its fair share of the Earth’s bounty for the year. Collectively, humanity passed its 2022 Earth Overshoot Day on July 28.
Read moreIPCC Report Findings
This is a good summary of the main points of the IPCC report released yesterday. The new analysis, a synthesis of six previous reports by the United Nations’ climate group, presents a mixed picture of the world’s fight against climate change. Here are three takeaways.
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Open Letter to Premier Eby: To Protect Our Oldest and Rarest Forests
“Our forests are foundational to B.C. In collaboration with First Nations and industry, we are accelerating our actions to protect our oldest and rarest forests.” These are the words attributed to you, Premier Eby, in the February 15, 2023 government press release... Read moreLearning self-care should start in school
Last week, I suggested self-care should be a strategic priority for Canada’s health system. Done well, it can reduce unnecessary demand for professional care while at the same time improving outcomes, empowering patients and enhancing personal and community capacity for caring.
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One Planet Challenge 2023
The Capital Regional District, District of Saanich and City of Victoria are very pleased to invite all Middle and Secondary School students (Grade 6-12) in Greater Victoria to participate in the One Planet Living Student Challenge. This One Planet BC contest is led by... Read more
Purchasing for protection: A perpetual Sophie’s choice for conservationists
Unlike the rest of BC, where the majority of land is under public management, 80% of the Coastal Douglas-fir zone is privately owned. Thus land protection is one of the most common conservation approaches, but is it sustainable?
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Support Spotted Owl to Save Our Forests
Please support the Federal Government in passing the emergency order to save the spotted owl. We need the Feds to take this on because BC doesn’t have species-at-risk legislation. Maybe the spotted owl’s right to survive can save some of our forests.... Read more
Self-care must be a strategic priority for the health system
Courtesy of the Times Colonist Photo: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck The most important task in creating a health system is to keep people healthy, so they do not need to use the illness-care part of the system. My three most recent columns looked at ways in which we... Read more
United for Old Growth Rally Recap
Thousands of people from all over Vancouver Island and the Mainland braved the cold to show their support for protecting and preserving British Columbia’s at this week’s Old Growth Forest Rally. Douglas and Government Streets in Victoria were closed down for more than 45 minutes as people streamed in filling the streets from the length of City Hall to the Parliament Buildings.
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Why you should know and be concerned about C-IRG
C-IRG emulates and supports a structure of quasi-fascism within Canadian government and policing, however many citizens are unaware of this government funded group. This post hopes to raise awareness and gain community support.
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Public policy as if health matters
Back in the early 1980s, building on the work of others, I came up with the concept of “healthy public policy,” which has since been taken up by the World Health Organization and many national and provincial governments. Canada even has a National Collaborating Centre on Healthy Public Policy.
Read moreYour Pension and the Planet
Many people are either contributors or beneficiaries of one or more of the pension plans reviewed by Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health in their inaugural Canadian Pension Climate Report Card and as presented in their webinar – Report Card 2022 —... Read more
Voices in Motion choristers serenade local little free library
On Wednesday, February 22, 2023, the Voices in Motion Choral Society and Greater Victoria Placemaking Network launched region-wide distribution of I Remember, a book by student author Priscila Kumar that focuses on the power of singing and what it can do for those... Read moreRSVP for our Youth Climate Corps event!
This event, featuring Anjali Appadurai, Seth Klein, Naomi Klein, Juan Vargas Alba (& others to be announced), will be a place to learn more about this campaign and plans to win a Climate Corps (nationally and in BC and Alberta). Plus, we will be debuting an... Read more
Old Growth Forests Need Legal Protection
The stakes for old growth forests in British Columbia couldn’t be higher. The old growth forest ecosystem in BC is the most biodiverse ecosystem in Canada. Yet today, very little of the original old growth remains, due to the practice of clearcuts, TFLs (Tree Farm... Read more
Please encourage Saanich to better fund its urban forests!
The Community Trees Matter Network is asking anyone who lives, works, studies, recreates, or would like to help the urban forest in Saanich, BC, to please consider sending this letter to council@saanich.ca, or write your own. This letter could be used as... Read more
Whose Land is This, Anyway?
Welcome to Home on Native Land, a self-guided course about Indigenous justice in Canada. Through a series of 10 videos, cartoons & lessons, take a walk down the back alley of history — and the frontlines of legal action — with Anishinaabe comedian Ryan McMahon.... Read more
Nature’s Greetings Cards
Saltspring Island author, naturalist and artist Briony Penn, has kindly allowed the Yellow Point Ecological Society to convert some of her beautiful illustrations into greetings cards, which we are selling as a fundraiser for YES. Details here:... Read moreNew B.C. Old-Growth Update Video & Please Send a Message!
Please watch and share our new BC Old-Growth Policy Update by the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance’s Executive Director Ken Wu. Note: it was filmed just before the positive new forest policy announcements by BC’s new Premier David Eby last week, which we... Read more
Feb. 25 Rally for Old Growth – The Final Push
United For Old-Growth March & Rally February 25 Walk: begins at Noon, Centennial Square (lək̓ʷəŋən territories, Victoria) Rally: 1:30-3:30 pm, BC Legislature Dear Friends of the Forests, We’re now moving into the final phase of coming together for the United We... Read more
Human behaviour is affected by factors beyond personal choice
The most fundamental determinants of our health are what I and others call the ecological determinants of health: air, water, food, fuel, materials, and other “ecosystem goods and services” we derive from nature. A second major set of determinants are the social factors that enable us to meet our basic needs: healthy food, adequate shelter…
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Great Tree Stories
Here are a few great tree stories we hope you enjoy. We welcome submissions from the public. Please share your tree stories here. Community Managed Forests: https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/10/23592712/conservation-nasa-satellite-images-nepal-forests The Spirituality... Read more
Time for a radical re-think of health care
Having worked as a family physician in primary care, as a public-health physician in health planning and as a medical health officer, as an advisor and consultant on health promotion to the World Health Organization — mainly in Europe — as a medical consultant in population and public health at B.C.’s Ministry of Health…
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If doctors operate as a business, what’s wrong with surgery through private clinics?
There is much wringing of hands these days about the state of the Canadian health care system, as well there should be. But in fact, there is no such thing as a Canadian health-care system, although there is a Canadian way of funding health services. In the 1990s, when I helped organize study tours for Swedish health-system managers to visit Canada…
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People Power in Action Results in Good News
FortisBC and Woodfibre LNG are beginning construction of a pipeline without the proper permits to house their workers safely. The process is an indication of their poor commitment to ensuring the safety of the community and the human rights of Squamish residents.... Read more
Black History Month
February is #blackhistorymonth : What I’m learning to do as a non-Black mixed POC. This post was inspired by Mikhaela Connell’s article for Greenpeace. Ella here (CU’s social media coordinator) As a non-Black mixed Euro-Canadian and Korean POC, I definitely want to... Read more
Call for Nominations Poet Laureate and Youth Poet Laureate
Applications Are Now Open Looking to share your love of poetry with Victoria? The City of Victoria is seeking nominations for the next Poet Laureate and Youth Poet Laureate. These two-year positions will run from April 2023 to April 2025. Nominees must reside within... Read more
Morgan’s columns should come with a health warning
Fossil-fuel advocate Gwyn Morgan recently provided yet another nonsensical defence of his industry (“Net-zero fantasy has empowered dictators,” Jan. 11). But as Prof. Roland Clift — a past member of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.K. Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution — wrote in response…
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We must tax the rich, for the benefit of all
My recent columns on the need to reduce inequality and social injustice by, among other things, increasing taxes on the rich and introducing or expanding wealth taxes, have elicited responses from some people along the lines of “you advocate stealing from the rich.”
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The Bateman Foundation is Moving
Hello Bateman Foundation Friends, We have exciting news we want to share with you. The Bateman Gallery is moving! We are investing in a new space to fully integrate art, nature, and education, creating a new cultural centre accessible to all. This means we will end... Read moreApplications welcome: MEd in Leadership Studies at UVic
The Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies is pleased to welcome applications for our 2023 MEd program in Leadership Studies! Applications are open now until 11:59 p.m. on February 15, 2023. Please see below for more information on the program, or... Read more
Happy Lunar New Year!!!
Happy Lunar New Year 恭喜發財 새해 복 많이 받으세요 Ella here If you don’t know me, I’m the social media coordinator for CU Lunar new year is close to my heart as I celebrate Seollal with my Korean family, and Chinese New Year with my step family This lunar new year is this... Read more
United for Old Growth Super Rally Feb. 25 – Info & Sharing Material
An ancient forest is a home to more life than we can imagine. The project of colonization has left less than 3% of what once stood. On February 25 a united movement of thousands of people will be sending a clear message to the provincial government: Keep your promises... Read more
Coming generations need the UN to focus on their future
Courtesy of the Times Colonist Photo: Students at a rally in California in February 2021 call for in-person learning. Young people who wrote a recent report for the UN called Our Future Agenda aim to “unleash a new generation” by engaging young people as... Read more
Call for Artists – International Women’s Day
In recognition of International Women’s Day, the Victoria Arts Council is seeking proposals from local and regional artists who are interested in participating in a thematic group exhibition throughout March 2023 in our main gallery. The 2023 theme for... Read more
United We Stand for Old-Growth Forests
As a climate champion you are no doubt aware that BC’s logging industry continues to cut down old-growth forests despite government promises to protect them. While new Premier David Eby has made encouraging statements, there is so far scant evidence to contrast his... Read more
12 Prince Claus Mentorship Awards Recipients Announced!
Together with the Goethe-Institut, we are excited to announce the 2022 Mentorship Award for Cultural & Artistic Responses to Environmental Change! Floods and forest fires, storms and disappearing species: the climate crisis is being felt everywhere around the... Read more
Setting Goals in 2023
New Year’s resolutions have always seemed intimidating and many people seem to set themselves up for failure. Why is this? Well, from what I have seen and experienced in my own life, oftentimes it seems like people set New Year’s resolutions as a way to punish... Read more
2022 Creatively United Wrapped
2022 Creatively United Wrapped is here! In 2022 you helped us… Reach 670 Instagram followers Reach 1.46K YouTube subscribers Put on four Climate and Artists series webinars Launch our ‘Trees Matter’ film Put out 16 newsletters In 2022 our website… Had 26,971 unique... Read more
Reconciliation with the planet includes Indigenous Peoples
“Reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians, from an Aboriginal perspective,” wrote the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015, “also requires reconciliation with the natural world. If human beings resolve problems between themselves but continue to…
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Great Annual Family Christmas Tree Hunt
We set out early in the morning. A wintry sun grudgingly appeared as we piled into the car. Mom and Dad, siblings and cousins made up our party. The roof-rack was securely in place on which to bring home the quarry: the perfect Christmas tree which we’ll flush... Read more
In tackling biodiversity loss, it’s actions that matter, not words
The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the materials and energy we use — they all come from nature. We are part of the web of life, and as the Duwamish elder Chief Seattle is recorded as saying more than 150 years ago: “Whatever we do to the web of life, we do to ourselves.”
Read moreCome One, Come All, Including Ye Forest Advocates of Lore.
North Cowichan is conducting a consultation to determine the fate of our community forests — to log or protect our Six Mountains. No matter who you are, or where you live, near or far, our Council invites you to participate, to give perspective, to fill out our... Read more
Seven ways to include nature in our economic choices
From nature’s perspective, human civilization has been a disaster. It has caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and 50% of plants. Between 1970 and 2016 alone, humans wiped out 68% of the world’s mammals, birds, fish and reptiles. The world’s governments support this destructive activity with subsidies…
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Sustainable Holiday Gift Guide (Victoria + Vancouver BC)
This year we’re bringing you the ULTIMATE Sustainable Holiday Gift Guide (Victoria + Vancouver/BC) 🎁 This is in no way an exhaustive list but we just wanted to highlight some of our absolute favourite local organizations, markets and businesses to check out... Read more
Playing field needs to be tilted in favour of low-income countries for a while
I was fortunate to be born in a fairly peaceful high-income country. I had a high standard of living while growing up, with enough energy, food, water and other resources to lead a good life. I am fortunate to have never experienced war, real hunger or starvation, serious poverty or homelessness.
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Mobilize: Cell Phones & Cancer Documentary
This award-winning, feature-length documentary explores the long-term health effects from cell phone radiation including cancer and infertility. The film examines scientific research, follows state and national legislative efforts, and illuminates the influence that... Read more
The Great Transition – Which Future Are We Living In?
The Great Transition scenarios, detailed in the 2022 Great Transition essay, stand the test of time. All six are alive and well, not as scenarios but as realities. In the two Conventional World scenarios, market forces still determine almost everything, regardless of... Read more