Tag Archives: canada

Here’s Why, as a Green, I am Endorsing Stephanie Higginson, NDP, for Ladysmith-Oceanside

politics, , , , , ,

In BC’s October election, as a member of the Green Party, I am endorsing the NDP candidate for Ladysmith-Oceanside, Stephanie Higginson, hoping she will win. 

This needs some explaining! 

I met Stephanie when she came to my home to  pick my brain about local environmental concerns, and I found her to be smart, alert, and committed. I think she’ll make a great MLA. She lives locally on a small farm in Cedar, and she has served our community on the Nanaimo-Ladysmith Board of Education, and as past president of the BC School Trustees’ Association.

Our Green Party candidate Laura Ferreira, on the other hand, appears to be a paper candidate. I’m sure she is great, but she does not live here, does not appear to be campaigning, and has not been attending election meetings. On October 9th, the website Canada 388 suggested that in our Electoral District the BC Conservatives are leading at 43%, with the NDP at 40% and the Greens at 12%. 

This tells me that a vote for Laura is a wasted vote that could help the Conservative candidate get elected. If they win a majority and form the new government, the next four years willl be dire for everything I believe in:

  • They will be worse for climate action, since they have promised to scrap all of the government’s climate action plans and initiatives. 
  • They will be worse for affordable housing, just leaving it to the market.
  • They will be worse for healthcare, allowing private care for wealthy people, which will siphon off doctors and nurses and make health care harder for everyone else.
  • They will be worse for BC’s forests.
  • They will be worse for building respectful relations with BC’s First Nations.

My primary loyalty is to the Earth, not to any one party. I am a Green Party member because that is where my heart is, and I support their approach on almost everything. They are the only party that promises to stop permitting new LNG projects, and to phase out fracking for fossil gas, both of which pour fuel onto the raging climate fire. As someone who has been working to slow the climate crisis for more than 20 years, I find the NDP’s careless attitude to fracking and LNG appalling.

I know the NDP has been split over this, with some NDP MLAs disliking their approach to LNG and fracking, but lacking a majority in caucus to be able to change things. This is why we need more green New Democrats to be elected. I perceive Stephanie to be a strong environmental advocate, which is why I am endorsing her.

I hope you will too!

Guy Dauncey, Yellow Point, Ladysmith

About me

Climate Emergency: A 26-Week Transition Program for Canada

Climate, Economy, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
CE March 2020

This is a work of imagination.

But the urgency of the crisis is real,

the need for the suggested programs is real,

and the data included in these proposals is real.

3rd Edition. March 2020

A printable 40-page PDF of this paper is available here:

PDF Climate Emergency

A video of Guy Dauncey presenting a brief summary of this paper is here.

“This is a practical, down to earth concrete step by step transition strategy for the Canadian government to get real about the climate emergency. A must read for all Canadians to make a difference and communicate to their elected officials new policies and programs that will make a difference now.” – Professor Ann Dale, Trudeau Fellow Alumna, Canada Research Chair, Royal Roads University

“This is vital reading. It maps out an evidence-based route ahead; to open real conversations around what we actually need to do in these testing times. It should be read by politicians and policymakers, local and regional councillors, business front-runners, university and health service delivery managers, indeed everyone who wants to explore how we can collectively build the new zero carbon world we so urgently need.” – Paul Allen, Project Coordinator, Zero Carbon Britain project at the Centre for Alternative Technology

“Visionary and thorough, Dauncey’s 26 week Transition Program deserves close scrutiny in Canada and beyond. His passion for a clean economy shines.” – Raffi Cavoukian, C.M., O.B.C., singer, founder of Raffi Foundation For Child Honouring

Continue reading Climate Emergency: A 26-Week Transition Program for Canada →

Ten Green New Deals – How Do They Compare?

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Ten GNDs

By Guy Dauncey, Revised September 29th 2019

Guy Dauncey is founder of the BC Sustainable Energy Association, co-founder of the Victoria Car Share Cooperative, and the author or co-author of ten books, including The Climate Challenge: 101 Solutions to Global Warming and Journey to the Future: A Better World Is Possible. He is currently completing The Economics of Kindness: A Ten-Year Transition to a Green Cooperative Economy. He lives in Yellow Point, on Vancouver Island, Canada. His website is www.thepracticalutopian.ca.

I premise my analysis on five statements:

  • The climate emergency is real.
  • The ecological emergency is real.
  • The inequality, household debt and affordable housing crises are real.
  • A new global financial crisis is lurking, caused by excessive corporate and private debt and banking deregulation.
  • We need a ten-year mobilization to achieve a rapid transition to a green cooperative economy that is human-friendly, community-friendly, climate-friendly and nature-friendly, leaving self-interested capitalism behind us.

Continue reading Ten Green New Deals – How Do They Compare? →

Canada’s Choice

Climate, Economy, energy, , , , , , , ,

CanaDAS CHOICE 2

by Guy Dauncey

$4.5 Billion Dollars to Subsidize Fossil Fuels? Here’s a Much Better Idea

$4.5 billion of Canada’s money, to buy a bitumen pipeline? Some suggest that it could rise as high as $12 billion, including future construction and legal costs.

So what if the money was invested in solutions to the climate crisis, instead making things worse by being invested in the primary cause, which is our use of fossil fuels? When Canada signed the Paris Climate Agreement most people presumed that it was being signed honestly, not as an act of laugh-behind-your-hand hypocrisy.

Thirty to Fifty Times More Jobs

That much money could leverage enough electricity to replace most of Alberta’s coal and gas-fired electricity, and generate between 30 and 50 times as many jobs. It could also power 18 million electric vehicles for 25 years. Continue reading Canada’s Choice →

Canada’s Housing Crisis: A Permanent, 100-Year Solution

Economy, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

100-Years

Guy Dauncey is the author of Journey to the Future: A Better World is Possible and nine other books. He is an Honorary Member of the Planning Institute of BC and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts.

June 2017. This is an updated and expanded version of Canada’s Housing Crisis: 22 Solutions, originally published on The Practical Utopian in December 2016.

A PDF Version of this essay can be downloaded here: Canada’s Housing Crisis – Guy Dauncey.

Executive Summary

Canada’s housing crisis is far more severe than most people realize. The fundamental problem is an excess of money pouring into the housing market from various sources, combined with an abdication of responsibility by all levels of government for the past 30 years.

There are many on-the-ground solutions, demonstrating positive ways to build affordable housing. And there are seven new housing-related taxes that could raise the funds needed for a massive expansion of affordable housing.

The fundamental cause of the problem is the excess of funds flowing into the market, and until this is solved house prices will continue to rise, and most other solutions will seem like never-ending sandbagging.

The money supply problem can be solved. The money can be obtained to restore safe, sustainable, socially designed affordable housing as a fundamental human right.

And by establishing an Affordable Housing Social Justice Connector, a permanent, hundred-year solution can be put in place that will guarantee that Canada need never confront a housing crisis again. Continue reading Canada’s Housing Crisis: A Permanent, 100-Year Solution →

Let’s Get Going – Climate Action Together

Climate, Economy, energy, , , , , ,

 

Lets-Get-Going

F is for Future, a world without fossil fuels,

new solar symphony changing the gyre,

clean up our garbage, restore Nature’s harmony,

offer our children the hopes they desire.

To download the PDF version of this paper, click Climate Action Together

So how do we do it?[1]

How do we tackle the climate crisis with the speed and resolution that the climate scientists say is so urgently needed?

How do we make a rapid transition to a 100% renewable energy economy in a positive, nation-building manner, without causing economic mayhem, unemployment and chaos?

It’s complicated. There’s no doubt about it. Our economy is completely enmeshed in fossil fuels. We use fossil fuels to travel, to heat our homes and buildings, to generate electricity, to power our industry, to make plastics and to pave the roads. If fossil fuels were to magically stop working due to a zombie-ray from outer space or an unexpected change in the laws of physics, our economy would grind to an immediate halt. Continue reading Let’s Get Going – Climate Action Together →

A Bold New Climate Vision: If I was Prime Minister of Canada, How Would I Tackle The Climate Crisis?

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Bold

By Guy Dauncey

New Scientist magazine reported in June that five meters of future sea-level rise is already locked in, due to the steady collapse of the West Antarctic Ice-Sheet. If we don’t act rapidly, their staff reported, it will be twenty metres.

The full extent of the flooding will not happen for several thousand years, but “locked-in” is the phrase they used.[1] Venice, New York, Miami, San Francisco, Vancouver, London, Mumbai, Kolkata; large parts of Holland; a large part of Bangladesh and many cities in China—all will be under water.[2]

Continue reading A Bold New Climate Vision: If I was Prime Minister of Canada, How Would I Tackle The Climate Crisis? →

Almost Twice as Many Green Jobs if Canada Phases out Fossil Fuels

Climate, Economy, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Almost

by Guy Dauncey

The 48-Page Report is here.

Is It Really True?

Is it really true that if we don’t build more pipelines and allow more exports of coal, oil and gas, that Canada’s economy will be in danger and unemployment will rise?

That’s certainly what we are frequently told, both by the Conservative federal government and by several provincial governments, either directly or by implied assumption.

There is alternative, however. The climate crisis is inescapably real. It threatens everyone’s future, and it is being caused by carbon emissions from the same fossil fuels that our governments want to expand.

So what would it look like if there were an organized plan to phase out fossil fuels and embrace 100% renewable energy in Canada? That’s certainly what the climate crisis calls for. Continue reading Almost Twice as Many Green Jobs if Canada Phases out Fossil Fuels →