Rob's Ramblings

Earth Day is usually about rallies in parks, maybe some tree planting and recently corporate sponsored events.  But residents in Metro Vancouver took things to another level this Earth Day when they took direct action against climate change. The largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the Metro Vancouver region is transportation.  Despite this fact the provincial government is in the middle of several large highway expansion projects.  On April 22nd a group of local residents began occupation of a highway construction site.  They have set up tents, barricades, an outdoor kitchen, toilet facilities, a solar power centre and appear to there for the long term. About 25 are currently camped out, vowing to stay and stop the freeway they call a ‘climate crime.’ "Gateway's goal with the South Fraser Perimeter Highway is to triple truck traffic. What they don't tell you is that means triple the pollution, too," says North Delta resident Richelle Giberson. "I...

The StopThePave Earth Day Action has inspired a serious of tweets from Dan at http://bctrucker.com/ Unfortunately these tweets promulgate myths about greenhosue gas (ghg) emissions and transportation.  I guess there is still a lot of work to be done to educate the public around these issues.  And in that spirit here are some of those myths: 1. Building more highways will reduce congestion, fuel consumption and ghg emissions.   There is no evidence to support this idea. In fact, the evidence all points to highway expansion increasing emissions.  The proponents of the SFPR and the other gateway program projects even admit this in their own documentation. The provincial government studies, conducted as part of the Environmental Assessment Process, project an increase of 176,000 tonnes per year in greenhouse gas emissions ( http://a100.gov.bc.ca/appsdata/epic/documents/p247/d24666/1189031210771_a472fd1478e9414c83aed4d70a214df5.pdf ). Gordon Price of UBC has iss...