Transition Salt Spring and the BC Climate Emergency Campaign have independently assessed our response to the undeniable climate crisis at the local and provincial levels, respectively. Each organization’s recent release of a climate action report card tells a sobering tale – we are falling short in our efforts to address this unfolding crisis.
In this webinar of Nov 28 2023, our two organizations unveil insights into how we are meeting climate goals right here on Salt Spring and across the Province, as well as highlighting the urgent actions required now and discussing what we must do together to push our leaders to take much bolder climate action.
Hot on the heels of our disastrous summer fires, learn about the problems we face and the solutions we need now. You’ll hear this from your very own local climate action organization, Transition Salt Spring, and a provincial-scale coalition of leading organizations that includes Seth Klein, and leaders from a coalition of more than 550 BC civil society organizations.
This webinar is a frank acknowledgment of our failures so far and a call to collective action. It’s an opportunity to reimagine our approach, inspire change, and prepare our island community and ecosystems for the times ahead.
We encourage you to review the Transition Salt Spring (https://transitionsaltspring.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/2023_ReportCardSummary-WEB_v2.0.pdf) and the BC Climate Emergency Coalition Report Cards (https://climateactions.ca/site/assets/files/16628/confront_the_climate_emergency_-_signatories.pdf) before the webinar. These reports offer valuable insights into our progress in addressing climate challenges on Salt Spring Island and in BC, highlighting the areas where further efforts are needed.
So starting uh I’d like to just take a moment to reflect that we are on um others lands that we get to live on and the indigenous peoples who have stored these lands for the uh last thousands of years here on the unseated territory of the co Salish people and specifically
It’s the Hokum minum and the cottin people uh whose land uh we on Salt Spring enjoy today um and as we go forward to talk more about our climate and the crisis that’s facing our climate and what we’re doing about it I just thought a little reflection um about the indigenous
Perspect perspective on how they think about nature would be useful as a uh a way to start the conversation um this has been very impactful to me and it really talks about the importance of language and how it how it uh sets our minds gives us influences our mindset as a people and
Uh specifically with with many of indigenous people’s languages it influences how um they think about their relationship with nature because in many indigenous languages nouns and verbs are categorized as either animate meaning living or inanimate not living and so in these languages nature is made up of
Living beings not just people not just animals but also trees are living and flowers and plants and lakes and creeks and uh that’s very different as you know from our English language and from Western languages where uh we have fairly minimal living beings in our language we talk about humans being
Living and animals to a certain extent but not much beyond that and so in indigenous language a tree that is growing out of the ground is animate living but a tree that has been cut down for a canoe or a table is no longer living it’s inanimate and why this can be important
Is I think if you speak and feel the nature around around you as being alive I think it it uh gives you a certain mindset about how you feel if you’re damaging it or taking from it so how do you feel about cutting down a tree that’s living or plants or pulling fish
Out of the sea if you’re speaking them as animate objects every time you mention the word and so it makes me wonder um does our English language which doesn’t recognize nature as living so much um it helps me and when I think of it the way the indigenous language
Thinks of it it helps me feel that symbiotic relationship with the Earth and maybe uh minimizes or or makes me think less about the extraction mindset that we settlers have brought to the Earth as we try to maximize the economic return that we get from nature and from
The earth so I’ll just leave that with you um as just a thought as we go into this in terms of how the indigenous way of thinking and knowing can impact the way we think about our planet and what we need to do to protect it so before we get started it’s always
Great to know who we’re talking to so uh we’re going to ask you to uh share with us if you would in a poll a little bit more about you and uh what your mindset currently is about the climate challenges and the ecological crisis in
Front of us so I think Arin n you’re going to put up a uh a poll uh which each of you can participate in okay you should be a see it on your screen right now um if you don’t since you’re muted I can’t tell you to scream I’m going to
Assume that the technology is working and so the question that I have for you is where do you currently stand active addressing ecological sustainability and the prevention of a crisis on our planet and you can see the choices and just go ahead and click the one that’s the most
Close to how you feel so you’re dormant not active at all except in your mind dipping your toe in have made personal changes in your life you’re gearing up ready to take action and small ways when asked there’s actually five of these you may have to scroll them on
Your screen number four is I’m in actively dedicating time and effort to address climate change and then five you’re an Eco Warrior and so this commitment deeply influences your daily Outlook how you think talk and breathe climate action so this is great um I don’t know if you can
See the results um ainan do we show these now or do we go on to the second question uh we’ll wait until the second questions okay okay so um continuing on getting to know you this question is when you think about climate change concerns do you think more about
Reducing the impact of humans on Earth climate mitigation or do you think more about adapting to the impact of the climate to keep our lives and our economies safe adaptation right so mitigation adaptation both equally that seems to be a favorite or you’re not sure what’s great what’s great Mary is
That no one said don’t know which is that would that’s a change over a few years ago yeah we are very smart climate people here which is fantastic that all of you have your heads in this space already do you want to go over or maybe
Show the results on the first poll aonan yeah there’s just 52% people have answered the second question but maybe we’ll go ahead and and share it now yeah amemo and Tracy feel free to pop in with your video at this point if you want co-host wonderful co-host for tonight’s event we’re gonna introduce
You guys in a minute um Mary can you see the results there yes I can’t okay I didn’t know if it was coming up as a graph great perfect so in terms of how you currently stand in actively addressing the ecological St sustainability uh 56% of you are I’m in
You actively dedicate time and effort to address climate change regularly and uh very few of you none of you are dormant only in your mind and uh a few of you are dipping your toe in and gearing up which I love that’s fantastic because as you can imagine we also often
Are preaching to the choir we preach to ourselves and we’re always trying to influence people to think more about what does climate change what does sustainability mean to you and your life so it’s really exciting to to see that and then I’m scrolling up and I see 36%
Are Eco Warriors so that’s that’s fantastic so a huge majority are actively working on climate change every day and we have some people gearing up which is just that’s really exciting so thank you for that and then if we go to the next question um you can see as as
Brian pointed out that uh most people are thinking equally about adaptation and mitigation uh knowing that they’re really you need to do both to be honest and uh they often the same action will help in both areas and Brian I know you think a lot about this I don’t know if
You have any comments for the group in terms of how you interpret the results and what it means to to to us here on Saltspring well I think there’s been a big evolution Mary it’s um I’m not sure howo and Tracy feel but even when we
Were doing the climate action plan a few years ago a few of us had to fight to get adaptation on the menu when we did that everyone was was on board fully once we got there but I think when we wrote the climate action plan we were at
A folr point between those two and uh today’s a very different world what do you folks think what would you expect Tracy and emo in terms of what you would see I’m actually really impressed um that everybody knows what adaptation versus mitigation is um I think we’ve got a
Very high level audience here tonight um I think that a lot of people don’t understand the difference between those two things um and it’s really exciting to to to see um that with a lot of work and effort of the the community groups and the the education and Outreach that
You’ve clearly been doing um that it is possible to to get to that level of understanding um because I think it is a really important piece of of what we’re doing um we need to immediately reduce emissions but we’ve made a mess so we also need to adapt to it and what
Politicians tend to focus on is the adapt adaptation piece rather than like let’s not make it any worse so um yeah so I’m really excited to talk about mitigation and adaptation and I know you’re gonna have a lot to say about that in your report
Card and so maybe I will go ahead and introduce uh the two um our partners here from the BC climate emergency campaign really happy to have um uh emo who emo Newman who works directly for as a coordinator for the BC climate emergency campaign and will be one of
Our presenters of the report card as well as uh Tracy Saxby who uh her her uh home organization is actually as executive director of my SE to Sky in the Squamish SE to Sky area and uh she’s a marine scientist and the lead author on the BC climate cam emergency campaign uh the
2023 progress report so uh we are so happy to have both of you here uh it would just by a chance it turned out that we came out with our report cards at the same time and while we here on Salt Spring um you may realize this but
You you may not know it’s totally by Design we are extremely local in the work that we do under transition Saltspring and we we always remind ourselves um while we need to understand the big picture we want to our actions and our advocacy for the very very most
Part 90% will be local to Salt Spring because there are many other organizations that are doing fantastic work such as the one that we brought to you today um that are working at a provincial level or a federal or a global level and so that lives gives us
The luxury so to speak to work just on uh issues that are local to transition Salt Spring but we need to be a part of the bigger picture and so the fact that the BC climate emergency uh campaign report card came out pretty much the
Same time as we did and has some really impactful um outcomes that are worth discussing um it was a great opportunity to have this partnership and as you’ll hear about the Coalition that’s behind all of that transition Sal stream was one of the early organizations to support the work so again we’ve been
Partners uh for a while together on this so with that introduction uh I’m going to turn it over to emo and Tracy I believe emo is going to start the presentation and then uh Tracy will will follow and uh over to to you two ladies thank you so much Mary hi
Everybody so nice to see you all here my name is emo Newman I’m the coordinator of the BC climate emergency campaign and of course I’m am joined by my colleague Tracy tonight and I just want to begin by saying a huge thank you to the transition Salt Spring folks for
Bringing us on and um allowing us to join this webinar and we are both really excited to be here and to be in conversation with you tonight I’m going to start us off by uh giving a brief background of what the BC climate emergency campaign is for
Folks who don’t know and then after that I’ll be passing it over to Tracy to talk a little bit more about the details of our climate action progress report so what is the BC climate emergency campaign we are a group of Civil Society organizations all of whom feel anxious about the climate emergency
And who are coming together to collaborate to increase the ambition of climate policy and action in BC all of the groups who are who are a part of the campaign feel very strongly we all agree that the the the greenhouse gas emissions in our Province are not going
Down at the speed that the crisis requires and we share this belief that BC’s climate Plan called clean BC needs a profound jolt one that would transform clean BC into a genuine emergency plan and force the provincial government to take real action on climate change so
That is what our group is all about that is why we reformed um and that is what we have been pushing for for the past two years so just to give you a little bit more detail as I just mentioned we’ve been we’ve been running for two years we came together in
2021 and those uh founding uh groups essentially came up with this list of 10 urgent actions I’m not going to get into that because Tracy is going to be running us through those actions very shortly we put those actions together into an open letter sent that letter to
The BC government and at that time the letter was supported by 200 organizational signatories two years later we are very excited to have over 550 organizations that have signed on to show their support for these 10 urgent demands now of course uh the BC climate emergency campaign launched our climate
Action progress report very recently this is a photo from our launch we were so excited to do an in-person launch this was just two or three weeks ago so quite recent and uh as I as I finish up here on my section I just want to emphasize to to everyone that this is
What makes our campaign so strong is that we convene diverse sectors of society so in this photo alone our speakers we have um a doctor the the president of Canadian Association of physic Physicians for the environment we have indigenous leaders including Grand Chief Stuart Phillip we have of
Course environment folks we have um a professor who works in an agriculture uh department at a university we have a bishop of the Ang Anglican dasis so that is really where we get our strength is in showing the public and showing the government that it is not only climate
Activists who are fighting for a better future it is everybody we all have a stake in this crisis we all have specific ways that we are doing our part and we are all in this together to try to push for a more ambitious and truly emergency level provincial climate
Plan so here is our climate action progress report and I’m very happy now to pass it over to Tracy Saxby who’s going to be walking us through the report all right hi everyone um it’s a great pleasure to be here today um one of the first things
That I’m going to talk about is why did we decide to do a report card in the first place and the idea for this uh happened in 2021 and the impetus for it was because we kept on hearing from mlas that nobody cared about the climate despite the 2019
Having one of the largest climate strikes um globally around the world and and having nearly like hundreds of thousands of people in Vancouver according to the mlas we were speaking to nobody cared about the climate um and often what we were hearing is that anybody that did Clare about the climate
Was getting dismissed as an activist um rather than a recognition that regular people are stepping up and taking action out of desperation because they don’t know what else to do so when I proposed the original open letter I have um worked as a marine scientist for nearly 20 years I’m an
Expert in visual science communication um working with universities and government and agencies all around the world and I’ve done a number of report cards in the past and there’s a funny thing about report cards because when a politician gets a report card and they get a bad grade they don’t like it and
They want to do something about it they want to start taking action and so when I proposed this open letter which we could then turn into a report card every year um that was kind of the idea and the thinking behind that was to demonstrate that it’s not just climate
Activists that care about the climate it’s not just a few people people everywhere really care about this issue and I think that the uh climate emergency uh that we’ve been experiencing here in BC is really driving that change home so in 2021 we wrote the open and we had 200 organizational signatories as
Amo said and then last year in 2022 we released our first progress report um and at that time BC wasn’t doing a really great job um they failed on six out of the 10 climate actions and I’ll go through each of these one by one um
We initially set up like three grades to fail progress and then complete and then unknown um in 2023 we’re starting to see progress and that’s exciting it’s small steps at the moment but it is exciting to see the VC government adopting the language that we’re using responding to us um and and
Starting to take the the action that is needed um so in 2023 um we are seeing more minor progress so the BC government failed only on three of the Urgent climate actions that we were calling for in our open letter and they’ve made minor progress on the other seven and I’m
Going to break this down for you one by one now so the first climate action um is to set sorry and I’m just going to move this a little bit I think’s on my screen is to set binding climate targets based on science and Justice um and this is
One of the areas where BC is failing right now um BC has failed to meet its emission targets for over a decade and every year that the BC government delays urgent climate action means that we must cut even more rapidly and over shorter time frames so we’re making it much more
Difficult to take action um by failing to take climate action now and this is really clear when you start looking at the data um so if you look at the emissions um in greenhouse gas emissions the trends over time for BC from 1990 through to 2001 you can see that
Emissions have gone up um and while there was a slight dip in 2020 due to the pandemic um we saw an increase again in 2021 and we are fully expecting that once we see the data for 2022 and 2023 emissions are going to keep on going up
Um and as soon as LG export facilities come online the emissions are going to go even further up so we are move moving very clearly in the wrong direction where what we need to be doing which is on the right hand side of this this um chart um we need to be reducing
Emissions uh down to 60% by 203 30 and if we had started action last year we only would have had to cut emissions by 7.5% uh because we failed to take action for a year we now need to cut emissions 88.6% every year and if we fail to take
Action this year then next year we have to cut emissions by 10% per year so we’re making it that much more difficult for us to to stick to our climate reduction goals um to keep uh the planet livable um to 1.5 degrees so action number two is to invest in a
Thriving regenerative zero emissions economy and we’ve seen some line of progress on this um governments need to spend 2% of GDP on climate mitigation efforts every year according to a world-renowned economist um for BC that equals about $8 billion every year that we should be spending on climate
Mitigation and climate adaptation and in budget 2023 only 1.6 $6 billion was dedicated to climate action so that’s about 1 of what we need to see action number three is to rapidly wind down all fossil fuel production and use and this is the biggest fail for the BC government uh essentially because the
BC government is failing on this action it is undermining all the other amazing work that is happening um so the reason that BC government failed is that they approved new fossil fuel infrastructure they approved CA LNG which is a liquefied natural gas export facility in northern BC once that project becomes
Operational it will emit eight megatons of greenhouse gas emissions every year that’s more than the entire city of Vancouver and that was improved in 2023 when the science is clearly telling us that we need to do everything we can to stop new fossil fuel infrastructure and rapidly decrease fossil fuel um
Extraction uh we don’t see any policies to stop new fossil fuel infrastructure or phase out existing fossil fuel production um and BC’s plan to Electrify the oil and gas sector what they’re proposing to do is to to essentially greenwash oil and gas extraction by saying well if we Electrify everything
We’re going to reduce some of the emissions uh but the reality check is that we’re still extracting fossil fuels and exporting them um and it’s it’s essentially comes down to green washing um and if we use our limited electricity um then that means that we can’t use that electricity elsewhere to reduce
Emissions from our buildings or to reduce emissions from Transportation or other sectors action number four is to end fossil fuel subsidies and make polluter pay and we’re seeing minor progress on this as BC has committed to review and phase out fossil fuel subsidies they’ve committed to put a price on pollution
Which is one of the most effective ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but BC is still the second largest provider of fossil fuel subsidies in Canada second only to Alberta action number five is to leave no one behind and this is where BC is focusing a lot of their efforts which is
Good but this is where we’re talking about reaction rather than being proactive um and and focusing on mitigation so instead of adaptation they’re focusing on Med sorry instead of focusing on mitigation they’re focusing on adaptation like how do we adapt to this mess that we find out ourselves in
Um so the climate crisis is deepening existing inequalities for the most vulnerable and the BC government has established a new ministry of Emergency Management and climate Readiness and they’re updating BC’s emergency manage Emergency Management procedures and support programs who knew that was a tongue twister um and they’re giving First Nation self-governing authority
Over disaster uh response and prevention uh so there’s some really excellent steps that are happening here um um and it’s really important we do need to adapt to climate change as well um but this is where the the government is currently focusing most of their efforts and we need much much
More action number six is to protect and restore nature and this also gets minor progress um there was a really big announcement just before we released our report card uh it’s called the tripartate tripartite framework agreement on nature conservation which is dedicated $1 billion to protect and conserve biodiversity habitats and
Species and recognizes First Nations leadership and ecosystem stewardship uh BC’s also taken big steps towards meeting marine conservation targets uh but the reality check is that all growth logging is continuing and more than half of the most at risk forests remain open to logging uh we also the reason that
This grade gets a minor progress is because right now these are only words we want to see these promises turn into action uh we want to see the the commitment on the ground um and that will result in a much much better grade for this action number seven is to invest in
Local organic regenerative agriculture and Food Systems climate change as you know on Salt Spring Island um is a major threat to food security um so BC has been making new investments in food security um indigenous Food Systems and salmon restoration uh but there are a number of very big challenges that need
To be overcome uh including water restrictions that unfairly targeted small farmers this year um and there’s the least affordable housing and farmland contributes to Growing food insecurity across BC action number seven is to accelerate the transition to zero emission Transportation this is another one of the actions where we’ve seen a
Significant amount of effort made by the government which is great so there’s progress that’s been made on electric vehicles charging stations and Transit uh but Highway expansion continues to induce in increased traffic so if you build it they will come is real if you build more highways then people are
Going to use their cars to get places whereas if you reallocated funding to public transit an active Transportation then people are going to use public transit more or they’re going to ride their bike more or or walk or ride or roll um in other places so we really
Need to focus on the behaviors that we want to see if we want to see those Behavior changes action number nine is to accelerate the transition to zero emission buildings and this also gets some minor progress uh but the big gap is that there’s no plan to phase out
Fossil fuel Heating in buildings and there is no plan to phase out fossil fuel utilities BC has installed about uh heat pumps in about 10% of homes most of those are in new homes so it’s great to see that heat pumps are starting to be
Installed um but if if we look at what’s happening um last year only 5,000 households installed heat pumps in 2022 so using electric heat um which is really great compared to 10,000 new for BC customers that signed up for fra gas so again things are moving in the wrong
Direction um and heat pumps little shout out to heat pumps I installed a heat pump a couple of years ago and it is amazing um because not only does it heat my home but when we get those Heatwave events it also can cool people’s homes
Uh to keep people safe um so I turned on my heat pump in the in the heat doome in 2021 for the first time um I I felt very fortunate to have it um the other thing that my heat pump does um I have a HRV system installed in it so when we
Experience Wildfire smoke uh which we do often um it also means that the air that I’m breathing inside my house is clean so I don’t have the same um exposure to pollution and the health impacts that come from that when when we experience wild fire smoke uh which is getting worse with climate
Change so lots of benefits to heat pumps action number 10 is to track and Report progress on these actions every year and this also gets a fail uh right now BC’s climate accountability legislation doesn’t allow the public to hold government accountable and track progress like how are they doing we
Don’t know uh because they’re not reporting it and their own legislation doesn’t let us do that while some plans and policies are under away the plans lack ambition um and they’re not embedded in legislation yet and and you can see that in this whole report um they’re getting minor progress because
They’re not responding to the climate emergency with urgency they’re not doing what we need to do to take action so that we minimize harm for people and the planet um BC is also ignoring the major risks um we Face a number of challenges to reduce our emissions and the biggest
Risk is that BC is continuing to expand fracking and liquefied natural gas exports and that is undermining everything else everything else that you and me and the government and local governments are doing to reduce emissions it’s completely wiped out because these great big dirty fossil fuel infrastructure projects are being
Built today and being approved this year um when we shouldn’t be doing that anymore so our overall assessment of BC’s CL emergency response the climate crisis is worsening it is destructive it is disruptive and it is deadly um we are experiencing on the ground the very real
Impacts of climate change right now um I’ve personally experienced so many different impacts of climate change um and and it’s costing people a lot of money um climate change is expensive um BC on the whole has been reactive instead of proactive so they are focusing on adapting to climate change
Instead of focusing on reducing emissions uh which is what we urgently need to do and the incremental change that is being implemented lacks the urgency that’s required to really address the the climate emergency we’re calling on them to confront the climate emergency and they’re not doing that um
LG is a carbon bomb um because of the focused or the continuing support on fracking and energy exports it’s undermining everything else that we’re doing um and we also wanted to highlight that citizens across BC are mobilizing for climate action it’s not just climate activists it’s it’s your your average
Grandma it’s the the kid in school it’s it’s regular people like me who decide that we have to turn from our our careers to become activists because no one is listening um and and that’s my personal story of how I I went from being a scientist to being an activist I
Felt I had a moral obligation to speak up and I needed to start taking action on this and trying to to make climate action a real issue so the amazing thing about this campaign that is so inspiring and humbling to me is that 550 organizations from um agriculture arts groups businesses Community groups
Um Faith groups uh indigenous groups labor unions um um youth groups seniors groups like it’s a very diverse movement that has come together to support this campaign and to support the original open letter and we now represent 2.2 million British Colombians which is about 40% of the population so we’ve
Built so much power around this campaign and I am humbled and AED uh to be part of it um it’s it’s really inspiring to me it’s really inspiring to feel this momentum and to be part of that momentum it gives me a lot of Hope um and the
Good news is is that what we are doing is working so we timed the release of our progress report just before the bcnp convention and the response at that convention uh is that the premier told the bcnp convention that he’s nowhere near satisfied and housing and climate
Action were his top two priorities um so we’re hoping that that is going to translate into government we need to see a nonpartisan approach to climate action um by the BC government by all of the parties um and that is what we are working towards that is what we are
Calling for we are facing an incredible Challenge and we need an urgent and nonpartisan response where we all come together to take action to take the action that’s required um and so this is where you can help too um we are still recruiting signatories to the open letter so if if
You know a farmer if you know um or if you’re part of a community group or a faith group or if you own a business you can sign up as a signatory to the open letter um where we’re asking for organizations and businesses Faith groups labor unions to sign on so please
Help us recruit signatories we want to show that this movement is building momentum um the other thing that you can do is to email or phone your MLA and MP and ask them to prioritize climate action we need them to hear from you they need to hear from Regular People it
Doesn’t matter how informed you are or not um they just need to know that this is an issue that you care about and that you want them to take action um you can meet your MLA um and bring the the progress report if anybody’s interested
In doing that I it here so it shows up um if anybody’s interested in doing that um we have uh physical copies that we can give you and we can support you with training um so that you’re comfortable meeting with your um we want to make uh the 2024
Provincial election a climate um election it needs to be with all of the different parties um so all of the candidates that come forward you need to ask them what are they going to do for climate action what do they have planned um and I know there’s one more thing in
Here which I can’t see oh finally uh we need you to vote next year um so that’s it from me and I’m going to hand it back to uh thank you Tracy that was just amazing and emo um wow it’s so good to see all
The work that laid out I when I read your report I was really um really impressed and amazed and to hear you present it and the passion in your voice and how far you’ve come from it um I don’t know we’re just really proud to be
Partners with you on this thank you and um I I I’ve heard this a couple times and I keep coming up with questions and things I’d love to chat about and I know you guys probably are too I should have mentioned earlier if you have questions during the presentations just put them
In the chat and we will get to them at the end of the uh the two presentations and have a bit of a um a give and take there so we can understand some of the points that you’d like to hear a little bit more
About and uh but now we’re going to go on to our transition Saltspring report card and I’d like to introduce to you Brian Young um we all love Brian who’s our new uh relatively new couple years old board chair for a transition Salt Spring more than that okay I don’t have
It in my notes um but Brian has come to us from out east uh he came to Salt Spring five years ago has an amazing background two decades of work in Energy Efficiency and renewable energy but of course as you’ve if you’ve looked at the report guard uh what transition Salt
Spring has done in the climate action plan which he was a big part of it’s much broader than Just Energy Efficiency and he’s very well versed in all things related to uh saving our planet and adaption and mitigation here on Saltspring and he has an incredible challenge to present a very
Comprehensive report card um which covers all the bases for here on our little island so over to you Brian yes good evening and really welcome to everybody I’m really pleased to be with you here tonight um this was long and making uh just going to get the presentation up on my screen here
Um and I’m excited to tell you about this is this is our climate action plan and we’re having B basically Mutual admiration Society here between the BC climate emergency campaign they’re really excited about our report card and we’re really excited about theirs so we look forward to the the discussion so in
2021 TSS released the climate action plan 2.0 uh known as cap with 250 actions in it over six key areas so its goals were to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 by 2030 which was echoed a lot of international targets and secondly to get sspring ready for
The impacts of climate change the new report card which you can download shows us how we’re doing against the climate action plan so like with the previous presentation we won’t be able to go into a lot of detail you can download that uh but instead we want to talk about some
Of the highlights from it and how we intend to respond to what we learned out of the report card exercise we’re also going to include all of you in a conversation as Mary said with Tracy and emo from the BC Clement emergency campaign so please do use that chat
Window uh so that we can have lots of questions during the Q&A so we had two key goals um for the report card um one was to develop and apply indicators and metrics which can serve as a baseline for track in climate action progress every two years that
Sounds really geeky and mathy and it is and really hard because the data is is not there uh it is there in in patches but we had to do a lot of work uh to get enough pools of data to be able to make the kinds of observations we made in the report
Card uh secondly the a second goal is to publicly communicate successes challenges and vulnerabilities while of course course mobilizing political and public support for bold climate action this is a big deal uh report card for us because it marks a pivot for transition sspring in 2024 in terms of
The kinds of activities we’re going to be doing political action being a big one so the big Revelation tonight probably not a surprise to our ecarrior folks and the audience we’re not on track to meet the climate action plan 2.0 goals our lack of progress though is paralleled all around the world with
Canada and BC lagging significantly in a number of really important areas we’re not ready for the multiplying climate change threats posed by wildfires droughts and uh heat related emergencies and as you heard from uh emo and Tracy we are simply not undertaking the planning needed to do uh to protect our
Communities and our ecosystems that we depend on nor are we reducing emissions quickly enough and we can already see these changes washing up on our Shores just check take a look at the local climate impact slide uh on the screen let’s look at some of the data though Behind These
Expected impacts the numbers I’m uh that are behind the maps I’m going to show you are from the most recent uh package of ipcc data used by countries all around the world ipcc is the intergovernmental panel on climate change and it’s the UN body that uh works with member states all over the
World to come up with a consensus position on climate change um and uh it is a conservative one I have to say but thankfully is getting more uh more realistic so over to the next slide this map of BC and Vancouver Island well Mainland BC and Vancouver Island has a
Little call out right where Salt Spring is and this map shows us that we can expect up to 112 days with temperatures over 25° Centigrade starting in 20 around 271 when my son’s going to be 54 years old but when many of us here tonight were kids say between 61 and 90
Sal Spring Island saw approximately 15 days over 25 degrees and on the next slide this shows us average temperature for an average day in January Ary starting in about 2071 so recalling back to when uh I was a kid uh Salt Spring would have been seeing uh average January daily
Temperatures of 1.5 degrees Centigrade 2071 we’ll start seeing averages of 6.2 degrees Centigrade these kinds of changes will have massive impacts on the number of pests we have for example and the list goes on so that’s just a bit of context here this is a SL a picture I took
During our King tides in November last year because I uh Environment Canada said it was going to be a Whopper uh but the bad news is that sea level rise is accelerating much more quickly than forecast due to the conservative nature of the models agreed
To by ipcc member states and we can now though even according to those forecasts expect two feet of almost two feet of sea level rise by 2100 it’s starting to hockey stick we urgently need to plan for a retreat from some of our coastal areas now and yes that means fulford and
It does mean Ganges this has big implications for infrastructure like roads fairies water treatment and existing buildings oops pack one I so we need to act unanimously now to reduce emissions and get ready for the changes that we actually have already unfortunately committed ourselves to that CO2 is
Already out there and there’s a there’s a time lag between when we emit it and the impacts that it has on climate we also need to build resilience while reducing risks that’s the climate change adaptation that Mary talked about earlier in our poll the good news is that adaptation often aligns with
Emissions reductions resulting in multiple Community benefits so the report card focused on five key areas and believe me there are many ways in which you can do a report like this and in fact the headings you have here don’t line up precisely with the climate action plan but this is the
Way we decided to frame the report card uh this time around and we chose those five areas because of one their High emissions profiles two their climate change adaptation potential and three the relative climate risks they pose and there are I’m happy to say some areas where we’ve made some progress and
We really need to celebrate uh the progress that’s being made um es particularly in a small community like ours where we know our public officials where we know the folks who are actually involved in a lot of these initiatives so the first one I want to start with is
Forest protection we have significantly enhanced Forest conservation on soulspring with 200 555 acres in recent acquisitions most recently on Reginald Hill on the south side of soulspring with humtum the uh Hokum name for Mount Maxwell uh which is now actually a park uh that’s managed by crd Creekside the Creekside lands and
Also the Bettis Road along more lands that kicked it off a couple of years ago and uh also our fire risk reduction project on with nor sspring Waterworks in the Maxwell Creek Watershed is attracting attention from all over Canada in fact uh there’ll be a link in
The chat uh to a talk that our very own Ruth walck will be delivering uh very shortly it’s a webinar that you can participate into to learn more about the great work that she and her large team are doing up on the mountain Farmland trust initiatives my
God I was just at a awesome uh and John cookie and pamar who participated in the awesome food Summit on the weekend are actually in our audience tonight and hats off to you folks you must be tired today but lots of great stuff coming from that Mighty organization including
Finally the opening of the root food Hub and uh it’s going gang busters going very strong uh under new leadership and of course the Sal spring abattoir which has struggled for years but is on a much better footing now this is strengthening Local Food Systems promoting sustainability and of course
Self-sufficiency on our Island also our markets are going strong with the potential for a yearround market in the old soon Tobe old uh fire hall we have some areas too where there are some developments but these are areas where we felt it was important to signify some concern where there’s
Action that’s stalled or much more work needs to be done and here are a couple of examples on that score one is Island Pathways great news they secured Federal and provincial grants to do some preliminary planning to close what is essentially a two 22 km
Gap in what’s known as a salor Sea Trail Network it’s a continuous loop uh 170 kilometers long that goes from cofton all the way down I guess looking from your direction down to to schwarts Bay with this massive Gap after you get off the ferry when you get to Salt Spring
And what’s missing of course is safe cycling on our Island from fulford to vvus and for that we need widen shoulders to complete this cycling amenity of regional significance uh TSS is working with Island Pathways and our local elected leaders hats off to Adam Olson and Gail Baker and Gary Holman uh
And to help close that Gap and but prus I have to say and says so in the report has been slow with limited action from crd and the province this needs to change but I know that with perseverance that we will get there and hopefully we’ll have some good news to announce on
That front soon the um development of the island trust Salt Spring Island Watershed protection plan that’s a mouthful demonstrates a very proactive approach to safeguarding our Island’s vital natural resources it’s an achievement that we have to celebrate but the Island’s trust um due to pressure from some trustees uh has
Voted to ask the crd to take over the role that they’ve been playing the modest role they’ve been playing in watered protection through an entity called swia but there is no institution crd hasn’t yet agreed to implement a watershed protection plan the islands trust is a planning Authority only the
Crd or an empowered crd local community commission can bring Watershed level planning and action to our Island this is of critical importance as forests get drier over hotter Summers and drinking water becomes more scarce in the years to come so there are number of areas where
We are nowhere near where we need to be in terms of addressing the scope and gravity of the issues I’ll highlight next here are a couple examples one of the biggest risks we probably can all agree on and fear on this island is from Force fires and yet
We’ve seen limited progress in Wildfire resilience planning and Forest management the crd however did uh this year issue a wildf fired hazards report and uh the actions outlined in the report however really need to be robustly supported with coordinated action within and between local and provincial levels of government great
Report but we really need like this report card we need to see action coming out of it so TSS is working to prototype the kinds of techniques and strategies that we need to face climate change with the North spring Waterworks with a now a 5-year contract we have with that
Organization to help them out but work like this in this small area needs to be done on an islandwide scale uh you’ll see a link again to that chat um that web that Dr Ruth waldick will be doing sponsored by the Str cona Wilderness Institute and you can find lots of
Resources on our website to explain what we’re doing up on the mountain so we need comprehensive strategies not only up on uh North Sal spring land but all across the island and Regulatory measures including carrots and sticks to address this key climate risk so hint
The key um thing will be the upcoming uh official community plan and land use bot process is going to give us the best chance we’ll have in years to influence policy in this area and we are going to need your support uh to make this happen
And to make sure that the message gets through that we need better Forest risk management uh policy uh in our official community plan 4% a mere 4% of our food comes from our very own island with our Island dependent on we know fragile supply chain connections like our fairies and
The waning ability of the western US states to keep us in produce we really need to up our gain for the challenges uh ahead we’ll be pushing for coordinated political financial and community support for Island grower and food process supports like we can get library books out basically tax with taxpayer support
Why can’t we be supporting our Island Growers and food processors in an area as vital as food that makes climate sense and fiscal sense because more of that money stays in our community while making us more resilient uh to Future Supply shocks as crop failures increase so we’ve completed a first
Round of meetings this fall with the c Rd the lccd is LCC as well uh and with Island trust officials as part of the introduction of the report card to our community we also in October uh held a supper at the library which was wonderful with a range of Island
Nonprofits and agencies including community services and the Salt Spring foundation and that evening going to be more suppers you can count on it because it was very productive out of all those fruitful discussions we had this fall key priorities have emerged which I’d like to share with you this evening so
Transition sspring is now finalizing our 2024 strategy and we will be fundraising for a policy researcher SL advocacy campaigner to help with our advocacy goals your donations are going to make a big difference to our ability to get concrete action happening on this island in these
Areas and the first one is climate smart land use and planning and permitting we have an old patched up land use bylaw and official community plan that does not adequately reflect climate risks like sea level rise and forest fires as I said earlier the islands trust is preparing to review the elanus
Bylaw or certain sections of it at least Island groups uh need to get ready like TSS and our allies to speak loudly in the face of calls by some for unlimited development and no climate change adaptation with your support we will be at the table number two we need a comprehensive
Strategy that includes new planning regulations Forest stewardship programs incentives and Resident education to manage our forest on this island the vast majority of which is in private hands this work provides jobs for young people while making our community much safer with your help and collaboration with local government and our prior
District I know we can get there three on a similar vein water and Forest are part of the same basically two sides of the same coin our watersheds are in trouble deer drought ditching and climate change you get all that together and these issues and threats are Mighty
But they can be addressed through land use policy and again programs incentives and education we need Watershed Protection Services funded by the crd like most districts on Vancouver Island have including Nao they are already have these functions we need them here too with your help we’re going to work with
Water districts and our local government to design and deliver these policies and programs to build climate resilient Brad water sets number four Integrated Waste Management love this topic we have so many great local volunteer run Waste Management initiatives including the the um the agricultural alliances drum in
Bergo Bay that digests waste from the Avatar and the wonderful pickups of invasive species that happen every year as a result of the hard volunteer effort of our um TSS is own native plant stewardship group in partnership with Salt Spring Fire Rescue but there’s no overall system that’s publicly funded to reduce our
Waste and our burning and our export of things like septage food waste and plant waste all of these materials if properly protested processed can improve our forest and agricultural soils helping increase their fertility and their water attention these going to be really important things in the years ahead on
The good news side the crd is a Champion by Gary hullman is looking to buy dewatering equip equipment for our septage imagine all those trucks those gfl trucks that go over to transport our poop off the island every single day it’s mostly water people and that’s has
A huge huge carbon load so but that however the dewatering equipment is really just the first step we need to do way more than that let’s work together to develop a made on Sal Spring Island Integrated Waste Management strategy number five almost done one of ts’s key policy advocacy goals for the
Next two years are is to get that 22 kilometers of safe cycling infrastructure built from fulford to vvus with your help and the coordinated work with our wonderful part parners Island Pathways and our wonderful local elected officials who are working with us we will get there help us make Cy
Cycling safe for visitors and residents alike lastly really a lot of us at transition are really excited about our pod program and our emergency program it’s amazing because it’s Unique and it really ref reflects a lot of neighborhood involvement uh the crd emergency program supports that pod program and it’s seen
A big increase in funding and Communications in the past year I have to say that is welcome good news but to address the big threats ahead we need to go Way Beyond grab and go bags and support neighborhoods to be more self-reliant and interconnected when emergencies and TP times hit and they
Are going to come TSS is in discussions with the emergency program and I know John wakefield’s here so thank you for being here uh tonight John uh to develop a role for TSS and other community nonprofits and building neighborhood capacity and Community resiliency we are willing Partners we will need your help
Out there to accomplish that be it by encouraging our local leaders to support our requests to the crd or by directly participating in strengthening your own pod so think of the climate action report card as a wakeup call for our elected leaders businesses and our residents to get serious about preparing
For the changes ahead we are not well prepared for the climate extremes that we’re already beginning to experience and that the science tells us will worsen TSS is the lead organization on Saltspring pushing government to take bold action on climate change now to reduce emissions and get us rating for
The the challenging decades ahead we are also working with other local groups to build a broad Coalition asking government to address the crisis with policies and programs that are urgently needed we will also need your continued financial help and political support for the big asks we have for
2024 so how can you help today is giving Tuesday that’s a day set aside by nonprofits all across North America as a I guess a bit of an antidote to the buy more messages of Black Friday and Cyber Monday instead giving Tuesday is asking is to turn our Focus to how we can
Support local nonprofits to Build a Better World there are three ways you can help transition achieve it’s an ambition ambitious plans for 2024 one is just simply to subscribe to our newsletter and thereby become a member I know I’ve looked at the guest list before the webinar and a lot of you are
Already a members and get our newsletter but for your neighbors and friends and family who live in the island please encourage them it’s easy it’s non uh we do it once a month it’s not spam and we actually have a really high read rate uh we can direct these things uh so folks
Uh like over 70% open open the newsletter to read it it gives you the inside track on events and initiatives that we’re we’re doing and we also make an effort to publicize events that Partners on island are also doing it’s easy to sign up at transitionals spring.com the second way you can help
Us is to become a supporter with a donation many of you uh out there watching tonight are already members or have donated maybe once or twice we definitely encourage you particularly this giving Tuesday to become a monthly donor and thank you so much to our existing donors you have made a
Measurable difference in what we’ve been able to do in the and and extend our reach quite frankly lastly this is our appeal for 2024 you can get ready to help us as we uh basically make this pivot this is the final step in our release of the climate
Action report card this fall to Let’s started with local elected officials Community groups and now you our community we’ll need your uh your help uh to help us push local government to adopt our recommendations in 2024 we’ll also be issuing a targeted call for experienced volunteers that can
Help build our volunteer team we have an awesome advocacy Circle but we can always use more who are experienced at that kind of work lastly like Mary said at the beginning thanks uh big thanks to Sal spring an foundation and the crd who supported the development of this wonderful climate action report card
That you can download actually I’ll give you the links here uh and uh now I will will stop my presentation and get into the really fun part of the evening which is the discussion thank you thank you so much Brian um wow uh I didn’t think you could do it in your
Time frame and you did you did an excellent job I like well done you two rehearsals today was a lot of information and if you want more information read the report card because there’s a lot more there but there are some really great questions in the chat
So I’m going to go directly to them some of them were asking for a little bit more information on both the uh both of your presentations and so I think it’ll kind of be a bouncing back and forth but um why don’t we start with Alisa who I
Have not met you but from your questions I would very much like to meet you and I think this is first and Le really a question for Tracy and actually an excellent question um so what she’s asking is how do you see BC reducing emissions when its economy is based on
Growth which increases energy and material throughout and uh if you were David eie I I’m sure this is what you struggle with all the time as somebody that wants to do something about it but needs money and the economic strength so and this is one of the really big challenges that we’re facing
Because we as a global Society have decided uh to use or to all agree to this economic idea of NeverEnding growth and it’s not sustainable and this is where scientists are calling for something that is called degrowth um and there’s some really exciting things happening around this um there’s a new
Economist um that has started talking about using a system of donut econom ICS so right now the big flaw that I see within both the federal and the provincial governments is that their um their success is measured using GDP or number of jobs they they’re very limited in in how we actually measure
The success of government and so that is tied of course to growth um whereas what we really need to be asking is like well what I want to know is do we have enough teachers in our schools and do we have enough nurses and doctors to support
People when they’re sick in our Hospital hospitals do we have enough hospital beds um and when it comes to climate action of course this is like are we doing enough to reduce emissions um this is one of the key metrics that I think government needs to be evaluated on um
Not just growth not just this false economic model uh which is really only about a hundred years old I didn’t I didn’t realize um we all bought into this idea idea of capitalism um in the early 20th century and we need to seriously ask ourselves is it working
For us because it isn’t um it really isn’t it’s leaving so many people behind um it’s it’s creating billionaires who aren’t contributing to our society and the collective well-being of our society capitalism is broken um and so we really need to start talking about degrowth and start talking about climate action
Um and the exciting thing about what we’re proposing um if if you read our report here it is if you read our progress report at the end of it is the original open letter that we wrote and there in there there’s a vision for the future um and we offer this up because
The climate emergency is an unprecedented opportunity to generate new vibrant economic and social wealth as we transform where our energy comes from and how it is used um it’s an opportunity so um and and there’s other it’s it’s very long I’m not going to read the whole thing um
But I see what we’re doing as an opportunity we have an opportunity right now to completely transform how our society works and to ensure that we are bringing everybody with us um to make it a much more just and fair world that we live in and that’s an exciting thing um
So that that’s a very long response to that question maybe I want to add um Nimo is as Tracy and and Mary both probably know has adopted the donut donut economics as uh for Nimo and they have already gone through the visioning stage that and I I took a look at it and
It it’s been a little bit watered down by by folks with a more traditional bent but it’s still it’s there and it provides a really awesome starting point and I was while you were talking TR I was thinking about you know you our the the little clothing swap that we did a
While ago and the toy swap we’re about to have it’s like what do we transition sspring doing swaps for it’s about recoding recoding our society away from that consumerist Society to become one more of a sharing economy and a circular economy so thanks for the thanks for the
Question on the point it came from Alisa R who was a member of the steering committee for the climate action plan I’m going to challenge you guys a bit more because I’m going to pretend I’m that politician having worked in government and um probably more recently come to the uh environmental movement
Than than many of the people here and so I need to get reelected you’ve already indicated we only have seven years with increasing urgency of uh reducing greenhouse gases by eight% a year and it may be more like 10% a year by the time we finally get our act together you
Mentioned some things though that can be immediately Shi shifted to investment in climate so one of them that maybe you can expand on is highways so we say we want to Electrify our transportation and yet we continue building highways as opposed to public transportation which
You know in my mind I don’t know which highways we’re talking about but usually you can’t get away with a highway for less than a billion dollars so are there opportunities to shift investment in the short term as we look for this lighter living um degrowth scenario in the longer
Term yes so I’m not the expert on Transportation um this progress report was um essentially it brought together 22 experts and one of them is Eric doy who lives in Victoria um he is the expert that has been um bringing together a lot of the expertise um on
Action number eight uh which is to reduce emissions um and shift to zero emission Transportation um based on what Eric says yes we do have that opportunity right now um we do like government has that choice about where they can allocate funding and they can allocate it to highways and supporting
Highway expansion or they can allocate it to supporting Transit and active Transportation um so it is a choice that has been made um and we’re calling for a different Choice um because the whole idea of if they build it that it will come I I just look at
Europe you know I’ve seen that map I’m sure lots of people have seen that map of the the infrastructure um the public transit infrastructure that exists in Europe and when you overlay that on North America you want to weep um because we simply don’t have that same investment in infrastructure and public
Transit infrastructure and that’s because of our society being a very car Centric Society um and it does create challenges because our communities have grown based on that approach right so we do have some significant challenges to over come to actually shift to a a society where we have a lot of access to
Public transit um and active infrastructure um but the thing that is exciting to me is that we are seeing that shift um at the local government level um so for example I my family bought me an electric bike for my 40th birthday it took me about five years to actually buy
It um but last year I got an ebike and I love it and I am riding everywhere and because I have a really excellent Trail between my neighborhood and downtown Squamish it takes me about seven minutes um I get there actually if you if you add in parking it’s quicker for me to
Ride my bike downtown and I’m riding everywhere I am very rarely using my car um and it’s it’s just so fun ebikes are so fun um and I bought a red ebike which is even more fun so um I don’t know why but it is
So um um yeah so I think it is a question of choice um and and I do see a shift that’s happening as Tracy sold the minister sorry yeah just wondering I wonder if Tracy if you managed to convince Minister Aken husen Minister Aken husen would like an
Ebike but her husband doesn’t think it’s safe here on Salt Spring so I’m very interested GSS is doing on that but uh speaking of Transportation there was another question in chat around exactly that in terms of uh I think it was highlighted in one one comment that 82%
And that sounds about right of our uh trips on Salt Spring are done by cars and then there was a question about public transit and that’s part of the TSS uh plan because I think it quoted two or three per of uh trips are made by transit not very many here on Salt
Spring do you want to talk about that Brian yeah sure I mean the transportation section in the uh report card is really good and um we’ve got the metrics all lined up there and they we do talk a lot about uh about a non-vehicular Transit yes Min Le
We do believe me Min Lee Johnson is a is a um a pedestrian a non-combustion engine a non-ar uh Advocate on the island who’s been really powerful in raising that her voice at every meeting on this isue it’s super important getting some background noise from someone
Um but yes it is definitely we need to do more uh I noticed G Gary Holman joined fairly recently we need to do a lot more we’ve got in the in the report card I’ll do what Tracy did in the report card there’s a section that shows
The number of minutes between each uh bus here it’s long we do we we are one of the best rural transit systems in the province in terms of ridership and uh the amount of money that that uh supports it which tells me that we could we could actually the the proportion of
Rer contribution to the box is really high here which tells me that we might be able to shift that ratio a little bit and get more robust service the other thing we need is to solve The Last Mile problem we cannot have a modal shift like I don’t have a bus near my
House I’d have to walk or get a ride to a junction spot where there is a bus we need to solve that problem there’s been some very exciting developments in um in in rer apps that need to be exploited for Island communities and I think
That’s a that’s a an area where we need to focus as well as electrifying our feet our Fleet on the island of the of the buses we do have we have you know good buses there secondhand and whatnot but we really need to Electrify that
Fleet and just have more of them um but at the same time we also have uh a certain amount of pressure we can apply as an NGO and we are definitely going to be focusing in on that sailor SE Trail because I tell you Tracy Ando I don’t
Know if you cycled on this island but we have thousands of people come to this island a year with their cyclists thinking they’re coming to cycling Paradise it’s a meat grinder it’s not good uh and I participate with my electric bike a couple times a year when
We’ve got Adam Olson coming and leading a parade downtown to raise awareness or have a meeting with a minister and it scares the crap out of me especially coming down Ganges Hill but I know uh we have uh the hill is going to be repaved from the bottom of Gangi Hill up to
Cranberry and we’re working right now uh to advocate for uh a lot more work to be done as a part of that contract coming in Spring hopefully okay so the minister would now like to turn the floor over to emo emo I’m sorry I didn’t uh catch you from
Before and so whether you want to comment on Transit or back on the original question in terms of how you the practicality of moving uh this ship so we can invest in the right things um we need an e econom economy a good economy here in BC as well as proper
Investment in climate change yeah thanks Mary um I’ll be going backwards a little bit kind of riffing off what Tracy said earlier I I think there’s a very common fear held amongst not the climate Eco Warriors um but amongst other folks that investing in climate or making changes
To to address climate change is going to result in loss it’s going to result in giving up the things that we love um um in making sacrifices and people feel afraid of being told you you’re going to have to change how you get around what you eat
You’re not going to be able to go on the vacations you love going on anymore and I think that it’s um very important to be dispelling that myth as Tracy mentioned we are many of the systems that structure our our world and Society are are broken already education is suffering healthc
Care is suffering um how many of us love living in a capitalist Society right like this is not the ideal uh world that we already have and so I just wanted to to just throw it there that I think it’s very important to be trying to shift
That narrative um from you’re going to have to give up things um towards we can actually build Futures that are stronger and healthier and in which we are all genuinely happier I don’t know why we are um so convinced to to be Clinging On to this present that we have when so
Much of it is is is already uh not great right our lives are in some ways just speaking generally I I would say pretty good here in the west um but there are a lot of aspects that can be so greatly improved that we just can’t imagine
Right now because we don’t have them but we need to be as climate Advocates or activists or whatever you want to call ourselves um sharing that message that with climate action we can actually create better futures for ourselves and for future Generations it doesn’t have to mean giving up everything that we
Love yeah I think um I don’t know Arin if you can find it there was a great opinion piece in the Vancouver Sun um that I highlighted are cool things in our our space our uh Google space it was around cool cool articles but anyway it
Speaks exactly of that in terms of it it’s uh we’ll never win on climate change if it’s seen as a sacrifice it’s got to seen as a change in mindset and a way of being one of the things that I really liked about the BC climate emergency uh report that I hadn’t seen
Elsewhere that speaks a bit to that um and that is it’s under uh action number five leave no one behind and uh you talk explicitly about industries that might be impacted and how we need to help out the workers and make sure that they’re not left behind so here we are saving
The planet but they’ve lost their jobs and their livelihood and I don’t see that mentioned often um and I think it you know particularly as I’m a politician here as Premier I need to worry about those things so I can get my votes but I I I thought it was a very
Insightful uh piece of your report um another key question that I I hear asked often on Salt Spring or maybe it’s me that’s asking it and uh so this one’s for you Brian in terms of um our plans around U Better Forest management and the question around what we’re doing
Or what can be done uh to prevent tree cutting on private properties and just general b better management of private properties um because we know 80% or 75% of forest lands on the island are in private hands can you speak a bit to our thinking on that yeah it’s a really
Tricky one as we all know we just came out of a period in the last before the uh trusty Harris and uh trustee Patrick were elected last round we came out of a what in Sal spring terms was a kind of bloody period where there was a lot of
Talk about uh tree cutting bylaws and it was it was a very divisive period And I think that uh it is definitely regulating tree cutting is a recommendation in the climate action plan would I put that out there first as a policy and introduce that as a plate
On the table no I would not I think that we need to do a whole bunch of things as well uh to uh change the ratio between the honey and the vinegar um I think there needs to be a whole lot more education with willing private land owners to make them
Aware uh and incentivize them money talks I mean one of the things that happens is when land is being flipped or sold a way to get cash quick is to give a soall blank slate to the new owners and the new owners might bemoan the lack of trees but they bought the property
And they’re going to see the trees grow again we need to inter intervene at that transaction point with incentives that make it so that it’s it’s not fiscally fiscally favorable Money Talks again and and education and fiscal supports this might be beyond our little island and
The islands trust to be able to do that um there were there were moves to try and get quasi Municipal Powers I mean Sage right across the water can do this why can’t we I think when you know one of the on the way to town There’s a big
Piece of land that was basically clearcut when there was talk of that uh of that kind of bylaw coming in and it was it was was barely even talk but it got people heading for their revolvers and it never happened that wasn’t it wasn’t the intention uh to do that I
Think we need to be demonstrating the Alternatives there’s uh one one man um his name I won’t mention because he has a saw mail but he’s uh he’s a really great guy and he maybe know some of these folks who were reaching for their revolvers when there was some talk about
Tree cutting regulation his land is some of the best stewarded land on this island and he understands better than most what it looks like to have a really well stewarded forest and what the benefits are of that Forest we need the price of carbon to go up more so that we
Can monetize the value of those trees standing rather than those trees Dead uh it’s already becoming not cost effective to cut uh second growth Cedar for example I think according to folks I’ve talked to it’s it’s almost not profitable and but Cedar the old growth Cedar is still profitable which is why
We’re seeing continued cutting in the old growth forest here on sspring we don’t have that we we’ve got second growth trees but a lot of those logs get Shi off shipped off raw uh to to Mills over on the mainland what if those if there was stamping of that lumber on
Island so that we could actually use it here on Island right now I mean I’ve got I’ve got an unpermitted structure a greenhouse in my and my property uh that has uh unstamped Douglas fur Lumber that’s harder than any Spruce Pine fur that I can get from winds or plywood um
And uh it’s going to stand for years and years and if we could actually change some of those regulations and get ensure that stamp lumber on the island could be used we could blunt the edge of that clear-cut argument along with a higher price for carbon utilize that higher
Price for carbon to actually incentivize people to do the right thing okay Brian thank you very much um we are edging up towards eight o’clock so we’re going to start closing because I want to get you out of here at 8 as promised um but before we go and uh I’ll
Give Brian and uh the opportunity to do the final closure but we wanted to just uh ask you a couple more questions before you go if you’ll uh indulge us in a couple more polls because we learned so much from that and so Arin an if you
Can put up the last poll and so this really goes to what uh Tracy was talking about is our vote counts um so tell me how give us the um uh your thoughts in terms of how much will your voting decision in the next election be shaped by climate agendas so negligible it
Won’t affect your vote second options considerably I’ll take climate agendas into account when making my decision prominently climate issues will play a major role or decisively my vote will be primarily driven by the candidate stance on climate agendas 100% I love it thank you so much not that there’s any right
Answer on here but I just happen to like that ah okay prominantly that’s pretty darn good too there are other things going on in our lives for sure thanks that’s fantastic we have a weird situation on this island too where we have an incumbent who happens to be
Pretty popular too so that gets factored in as well to people’s uh strategic thinking I guess yeah yeah for sure for sure wow that’s great should we go to the next question uh which is basically uh just kind of what is your commitment following this webinar though
I think it’s pretty strong given that we’ve got such um such strong views in terms of protecting our our planet coming through on the chat and the discussion here we have a committed audience I can see that already for sure for sure do you wanna go to the next question quickly
Um in just the two I think uh I’m not sure maybe we don’t have the second one maybe we’ll just turn to you there are questions there they’ve been answered just oh they I’m sorry I’m the when I’m not scrolling okay thank you guys for being smarter
Than I am and answering the second question around your climate action commitments um fantastic and I really love how both Tracy and Brian and uh gave you clear Direction on what they’d like to see in terms of your support for their uh organizational agendas and with
That to keep us on time I’m going to turn it over to Brian to close and uh and just give you my personal thank you for um what a great great audience you have been and so supportive of both our organizations that have presented today thank you very much and have a great
Rest of the evening over to you Brian yeah thank you Mary Mary this is her first gig and uh being the host I love it thank you for doing this Mary Mary’s a new member to our advocacy Circle and she has been a Powerhouse in fact it’s
The back of her head you see in the release of the uh of your folks’s climate action report card a couple a month ago six weeks ago so she was at she was at the launch a real Keener so thank you Mary uh and it’s and it’s for
People like Mary that we’re really looking for some additional volunteer help in our Circle and in other circles uh at transition to do some of the heavy lifting we’ve got an awesome part-time paid staff and uh thanks to support from a lot of Foundations some from government and definitely a growing
Proportion from Islanders uh we’re able to pay Islanders to to do work on this this critical work on this island so thank you for that and keep it up we’re really going to need you um I in closing just want to thank uh Aaron an Harper the longest standing and sometimes
Sitting employee at uh at transition Saltspring uh who is behind the magic of making this all work of spotlighting us of getting the poles up and uh we also have Ingle Michaelson who’s our education lead who has very deafly herded us kitty cats in the past few
Weeks uh which was no small task and making sure that tonight was uh very smooth uh also behind the scene of course we’ve got uh Darlene Gage our executive director who is super busy with giving Tuesday getting the lead out so to speak uh and doing happy dances every time a
Really great donation comes in it’s been fun to see that uh and of course the other members of our advocacy Circle who are behind uh the work that we presented to you tonight uh including Rebecca Burman um and oh my God I gotta forget somebody as I’m blanking out here uh
Kelda Kea kelda Logan our board member ex principal at giss has been both of those folks have been an amazing addition and of course Darlene and Mary as well are part of that Circle Natasha and Natasha Natasha Pratt Anda Michaelson so uh so thank you so much
For your time and attention we’ve got an audience of Highly climate Savvy folks out there so we appreciate your commitment to spread the joy we look forward to breaking bread with you uh over the coming year as we dive deep on what we can do together I also want to
Hats off to some of our elected the leaders who are with us tonight I know Gary Holman was with us for the he’s still there on his iPad uh we have Earl Rook as well LCC commissioner I know uh John Wakefield Feld uh who is the emergency program coordinator thank you
So much for being with us um and we also had trusty Patrick with us uh tonight as well so thank you it really means a lot to you that you’re you’re kind of our audience in part here tonight for these messages so thank you for your work um
And thank you to all of you for coming tonight we wish you well we wish you a safe holiday season a virus-free holiday season with lots of wonderful food a company and love so stay tuned for our toy swap coming up you can find out more about that on our website and don’t
Forget that webinar uh being uh hosted uh and featuring Dr Ruth waldeck on the work we’re doing up on the mountain and of course some awesome videos featuring the work that’s going on there with people from 80 all the way down to eight and actually even younger so it’s pretty
Pretty inspiring thank you and good night thank you all thank you