Issues

Fracking for Natural Gas

Whether from coal beds or shale, methane is a potent greenhouse gas in its own right, and when combusted is converted to carbon dioxide and water, themselves greenhouse gases.  Its commercial development is inconsistent with the provincial government’s pledge to slash BC’s greenhouse gas emissions 33 percent by 2020. The fact that most gas is flagged for export is no excuse.

Coalbed methane is gas extracted from coal deposits, shale gas from harder rock rich in organics.  Both are released by ‘fracking’ – hydraulic fracturing of deep rock along horizontal drill lines by means of highly pressurized water laced with chemicals that open up pore spaces and release gas.  Inevitably, this technology contaminates water sources and fragments wilderness with roads, pipelines and hundreds, even thousands of gas wells and operating pads.

Northeastern BC is under siege by gas extractors.  Local First Nations feel alienated in their own land.  A pipeline is planned to Kitimat where the gas will be liquefied for transport to Asia.  Industry even wants access to the Sacred Headwaters area of northeastern B.C., where small tributaries join to form the Stikine, Nass and Skeena – three of the world’s greatest salmon-bearing rivers.  To contaminate them would be sheer vandalism.

One notable victory has been the protection of the pristine Flathead Valley in southwestern B.C. with a law banning mining and energy development – which had been planned by global petroleum giant BP.

Oil and Gas Development

The oil and gas sector is responsible for approximately one-fifth of B.C.’s total greenhouse gas emissions, and this does not include the emissions from the final use of the products. Yet the B.C. government’s Energy Plan contains 20 policy actions aimed at increasing oil and gas development in B.C. and these are being strongly promoted by Premier Christy Clark.  These range from promoting offshore oil and gas development—despite a federal moratorium prohibiting it - to promoting development of unconventional fossil fuel resources such as coalbed methane shale gas and associated pipelines. Sierra Club BC believes that British Columbia can meet its energy needs through conservation measures and renewable energy. We would be most unwise, and in contradiction to our own legislation, to increase our reliance on carbon-emitting fossil fuels.

Transportation Policy

B.C. Coastal Forestry Policy

BC’s Coastal Forest Action Plan fails to account for climate threats to our coastal forests, yet we know 15 to 37 percent of the world’s species could become extinct as a result of climate changes between now and 2050, including our own Western Red Cedar.  Canada’s forest Carbon equals two years of global carbon emissions, and forest generally store about 50 per cent of the Earth’s terrestrial carbon. B.C.’s old growth coastal forests are among the most carbon rich on the planet.  Their conversion into managed forest reduces their carbon storage by up to 50 percent, and eliminates critical habitat for species like the Marbled Murrelet.

B.C. should become a global role model when it comes to protecting biodiversity and preserving the ability of the world’s ancient forests to store carbon. Other smaller countries are already showing the way. Costa Rica, just five percent the size of B.C. but with a similar population, has already protected 20 per cent of its land base, mostly rainforest—six percent more than B.C.  Sierra Club BC is ever watchful and active on behalf of these forests.