I wrote to Elizabeth May reminding her of two of her excellent ideas that I hope she’ll continue to promote regarding Site-C and water bombers. I remember when I first heard her mention these ideas several years ago and I thought “brilliant.” Elizabeth got right back to me with a link to her recent speech. It’s 10 minutes. I love it! I always think Elizabeth is the smartest person in the room.
If you have the time and interest to watch the video, please listen for “pumped storage” to come up. Pumped storage uses the same water twice to generate electricity. This makes so much sense to me. News from BC Hydro reports that we purchased out-of-province electricity last year and expect to do so again this year. The production of Site-C will be less than anticipated because of drought. As I understand it, you can pump the same water up and have it fall again. Smart, yes? Here’s more on that topic from the US Dept of Energy: https://www.energy.gov/eere/water/pumped-storage-hydropower
Elizabeth’s speech also touches on water bombers. Oh, how badly we need water bombers to get fires arrested sooner and more completely in difficult to reach places, most of which are close to a water body. I hate the inferno we are sending our firefighters into. It’s not safe and it’s not effective. We are losing too much forest and pumping too much bad smoke into the air.
If you have a different favorite politician, you could suggest these ideas as worthy of support. Elizabeth is quite happy for other politicians to take her ideas.
One more take-away from Elizabeth’s speech is “Get Our Country to Think Like a Country.” Great slogan. Her example of cooperation and coordination is the European Union, 27 states and 24 languages, that manages to get things done. This speech is in reference to the supposed “carbon-tax crisis.” Elizabeth points out that our real crises are affordability, health care, and climate.
Please get involved, stay involved, find new ways to be involved. Thank you.