By Chris Genovali

In their recent throne speech the Liberal government of British Columbia finally addressed the issue of climate change. However, the Liberals obviously haven't connected the dots between their push for offshore oil and gas development and their putative climate action plan.

While Premier Gordon Campbell deserves praise for breaking rank with the numerous climate change deniers on the far right, the Liberal government's climate action plan will stand in contradiction to their actions unless and until the province abandons their intention to open up B.C.'s coastal waters to oil and gas drilling.

Premier Campbell has previously stated his desire to see the current moratoria on oil and gas exploration and extraction lifted in B.C.'s coastal waters. This stance is cause for concern on many levels. More than a decade after the Exxon Valdez disaster, scientists continue to uncover new evidence of the accident's ongoing impact on marine life. Lifting the moratoria would not only put our coastal environment at risk, but would clearly have negative climate impacts. One offshore oil rig alone emits the same quantity of air pollution as 7,000 cars driving 80 kilometres a day.

As David Suzuki points out, offshore oil and gas drilling will not only compromise Canada's commitment to the Kyoto Protocol, but expanding the oil and gas industry will only perpetuate our current dependence on fossil fuels, which is contrary to the aims of the Kyoto Protocol (to which the federal government committed Canada) to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

According to Suzuki, the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from burning the crude oil and natural gas drilled from B.C.'s coast would be the equivalent of putting 13 million cars on the road for 20 years (the life of the offshore project). Greenhouse gas emissions from the production of oil and gas are growing faster than any other source in the province.

Premier Campbell recently met with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to discuss climate change issues. In fact, Campbell's political handlers and cheerleaders in the media have taken to calling him the "Gordinator," a take-off on Schwarzenegger's "Governator" nickname, in an attempt to frame Campbell's positioning on climate change as equivalent to that of the California governor.

But there is at least one cavernous difference between the Gordinator and the Governator - Campbell wants to turn the magnificent B.C. coast into the province's oil patch while Schwarzenegger opposes any changes to the current moratorium on offshore oil drilling in California.

From Schwarzenegger's website: "Recently, the Governor reaffirmed his strong

position supporting a permanent ban on any new oil and gas leases off the coast. In a letter to Acting Secretary of the Interior Lynn Scarlett, the Governor again stated his long-held position that a federal moratorium prohibiting new leases and exploration for oil and gas must remain in effect." The odds of Campbell's Liberal government making a similar pronouncement in B.C. appear remote with the likes of unabashed oil industry boosters such as Energy Minster Richard Neufeld holding sway in the Gordinator's cabinet.

Liberal forestry policies also show evidence of a major disconnect between the government's actions and their throne speech rhetoric on climate change. The province has designated over four million hectares of the Great Bear Rainforest, the largest intact network of temperate rainforest left on earth, as an "Ecosystem Based Management" zone in which commercial logging will take precedence.

The Campbell government's plans to allow logging in nearly 70 percent of the Great Bear Rainforest flies in the face of their stated concern about climate change, particularly given the important role the Great Bear Rainforest likely plays in sequestering carbon.

Forests play a major part in Earth's carbon cycle. Trees convert atmospheric carbon from CO2 into organic woody biomass as part of a respiratory process called photosynthesis. Trees then store the carbon until the woody biomass is destroyed; this carbon storage is called sequestration.

The Union of Concerned Scientists states, "as globally important storehouses of carbon, forests play a critical role in influencing the Earth's climate. Mature forests and other forest areas with recognized high conservation value should be fully protected. Even careful commercial forestry operations in high conservation value forests impose substantial costs to other forest ecosystem services. . .these forests should not be managed for timber."

In a recent speech, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pointedly blamed wealthy industrialized countries for global warming and said they should stop telling Brazil what to do with the Amazon rainforest, highlighting the double standard northern governments apply to their own forests.

As BBC News reported, Lula said wealthy countries were skilful at drafting agreements and protocols, like the Kyoto treaty, to appear as if they were doing something to reverse dangerous greenhouse gas emissions. In practice, however, he said the results prove otherwise.

A blatant example of the hypocrisy Lula spoke of occurred a couple of weeks ago when the BC Liberals brought down a budget that contains little or no funding for their climate action plan. In B.C. it is governance by public relations - make a dramatic announcement one week promoting a chimeric plan to tackle climate change and the next week make sure there is no money to actually carry it out.

Chris Genovali is the executive director of the Raincoast Conservation Society.

Wilderness
Deal Is A Release  Disaster
Only Small Fraction of Great Bear Wilderness Designated

By Chris Genovali

A little over a year ago, with self-congratulatory fanfare, the government of British Columbia announced land use plans for the north and central coasts of Canada's Great Bear Rainforest, the largest intact network of coastal temperate rainforest left on the planet.

Unfortunately, the vaunted "Great Bear Rainforest Agreement" falls considerably short of the conservation strategies provided by the Coast Information Team, the assemblage of scientists that advised the planning and negotiation processes.

Subsequent research conducted by Raincoast Conservation Society scientists indicates that the agreement fails to protect enough habitat for a variety of species, including grizzly bears and wolves. Aquatic habitat would be similarly compromised as approximately 80 per cent of salmon watersheds will not be protected under the agreement.

Ecosystem Based Management (EBM) is being relied upon to compensate for the low level of protection, but there is currently far too much uncertainty as to what EBM consists of and how it will be implemented by logging companies.

Designating nearly 70 per cent of the most significant expanse of coastal temperate rainforest on earth as a laboratory for an untested experimental forest management regime and calling it a "safety net" would appear to be a risk-filled strategy.

While the theory behind EBM identifies the need for "sustainable" resource use, the concept itself has never been adequately defined or demonstrated successfully in an industrial forestry setting. In fact, despite its adoption by the United States Forest Service in the early 1990’s, the concept is widely regarded among USFS employees as a flawed approach because it has not delivered on the promise of improved management and conservation of lands and wildlife.

In B.C. the chronic disconnect between science and conservation in practice seems more pronounced than ever. Although ecological literacy and awareness have improved in recent years, the province has yet to heed the persistent warnings of conservation biologists.

Government still lacks a fundamental understanding of the functions and processes that underpin natural systems, and at present, there is often no intersection between what politicians and regulators claim is politically feasible and what science is saying needs to happen.