Save the Salish Sea!

I am very excited to announce the launch of Save the Salish Sea, our new campaign in collaboration with the Wilderness Committee to protect our unique corner of the ocean from the threat of fossil fuel expansion.

The Salish Sea is one of the world’s most spectacularly beautiful and ecologically rich bodies of water, stretching from the north end of the Strait of Georgia to Puget Sound in Washington State. Here, hundreds of rivers meet the sea, creating a unique coastal environment that supports a huge variety of marine life, including wild salmon and endangered killer whales. Tourists, businesses and residents alike are drawn by the region’s mild climate, unique geography, fantastic quality of life and the stunning natural beauty of the Salish Sea.

Map courtesy of Wilderness Committee

All of this is at risk. Right now, plans to triple the capacity of Kinder Morgan’s pipeline running from the Alberta tar sands to the BC coast, and to dramatically increase coal shipments from our ports, risk turning the Salish Sea into a superhighway for fossil fuel exports.

If these projects are approved, BC will be responsible for millions of tonnes of extra carbon emissions and go from being a green leader to a global climate change export hub. And the magnificent Salish Sea will be under the constant threat of a catastrophic oil spill that would devastate the marine environment, coastal communities and BC’s entire economy for decades to come.

Save the Salish Sea is a new rallying point for concerned citizens: a place to find out more about fossil fuel development in the region, come together, and take action to protect the Salish Sea. So please take a moment to explore our new website, and if you have a bit more time, write an email to Premier Christy Clark asking her to stand up to the federal government and take back our power to say ‘no’ to projects like Kinder Morgan that aren’t in the best interests of British Columbians.

For us here at GSA, Save the Salish Sea is a natural extension of our efforts to protect the Georgia Strait from the threat of increased tanker traffic. We want to highlight the combined impacts of fossil fuel exports in the region, both to our local waters and our global climate, and contribute to the national conversation about how we make the transition to a clean energy future. By banding together with allies from all corners of the Salish Sea, we are building on our strong history of working across the Canada-US border to protect our shared waters, and ramping up the pressure on decision-makers in both countries.

We love feedback, so please get in touch with any thoughts, questions or ideas about the campaign. Now that we’re off and running, we’ll be holding a series of town hall meetings and other events across the Salish Sea this summer and fall, so stay tuned to our events calendar to find one near you - I hope to see you there!

Talking transition with tanker owners

As a campaigner who spends most of my time speaking out about the risks of shipping tar sands oil through the Georgia Strait, I found myself in a somewhat unusual position last week: standing in front of a roomful of tanker owners and port managers, talking about a future beyond oil.

Photo: Green Marine / Port Metro Vancouver

Although it wasn't exactly an easy sell, the crowd was more receptive than you might think. I was presenting at the annual conference of Green Marine, an industry-led program under which ports, terminals and shipowners attempt to measure and reduce the environmental impact of their operations in areas such as greenhouse gas emissions, waste management and oil spill prevention.

In media debates about increasing tanker traffic off BC’s coast, the shipping industry often takes the position that they are unfairly targeted. The sentiment is: ‘we don’t extract the oil or make the laws that govern it – we just carry it’. In my presentation, I suggested that this position wasn't going to fly anymore in BC – not when what the ships are carrying is oil, which is culturally and politically, and not just environmentally, toxic. The shipping industry is now under the microscope every day, not just when there is an incident or a spill. At least at the moment in BC, the shipping industry’s reputation is bound up with the reputation of the oil industry’s; and that reputation is not being helped by failing to acknowledge that ship owners and ports are more than innocent bystanders in the life cycle of oil.

So while we need to acknowledge that tanker safety and oil spill prevention have come a long way since the days of the Exxon Valdez, and that many members of Green Marine are working hard to reduce the direct impacts of their operations, true environmental leadership means taking into account the impacts of the products you carry. There is no doubt that the task of measuring and assessing these impacts is technically complex, and that mitigating them raises big questions about the future of the shipping industry in a carbon constrained world. They are certainly questions that are beyond the scope of a program like Green Marine in its current format – but the climate challenge demands that they be asked.

It also demands that we work together across traditional divides, which is why Georgia Strait Alliance has decided to become a supporter of Green Marine. Although we will encourage the program to raise the bar in how it defines sustainability and environmental leadership, we also need to acknowledge that many of its members are making genuine efforts to reduce their environmental footprint, and working with them to push the envelope is more effective than washing our hands of an initiative just because it doesn't yet go far enough. There are always tensions when strange bedfellows come together – but these can be productive, and building unusual alliances to find solutions is what Georgia Strait Alliance is all about.

Newcomer's View of Our Ocean Home

Over the summer, we have the pleasure of having Bryan Nordley join us as our Communications Assistant.  Here, he shares with us some of his thoughts on our oceans.

***

Photo: Bryan Nordley

The ocean is the heart beat of our planet. We depend on it for recreation, for food and for our economy. Human life as we know it could not survive without these vast, majestic and mysterious waters that surround and divide our continents.  Our reliance and dependence however places great stress upon the complex ecological systems and species which inhabit the sea. As the human population increases and nations around the world continue to industrialize the world’s oceans will face unprecedented stress and challenges to their ecological well-being. 

Unlike most organisms in the world, humans don’t live symbiotically with their environment, including the ocean, and the problems we create are numerous.  Pollution in particular is a critical problem.  One would think humanity would find occurrences like the Great Pacific garbage patch to be unacceptable yet this offensive toxic bed of floating trash grows each year and is estimated to be anywhere from 270,000 sq mi to 5,800,000 sq mi. In larger terms the estimate is 0.41-8% the size of the Pacific Ocean.

Elsewhere marine traffic such as containers ships and tankers continue to pollute the air and water across our oceans leaving suspended particles in the water.

Furthermore our release of C0² carbon emissions, which contribute to global climate change, actually cycles into our oceans increasing acidification. Ocean acidification critically affects species with carbonate shells, like molluscs by impacting their ability to create their shells and survive, and this has a big impacts on ocean ecosystems as many marine species depend on these species for food.  Eventually this problem alone will directly cost coastal nations' economies with losses in the billions of dollars. The problem will only be compounded with industrialization of Asia and the global south, whose economies are also most at risk as they rely heavily  on our oceans as a food source for their growing populations (the first article talks about economic impact). These are only a few problems, which plague our seas.

Here in Vancouver, we are surrounded by the beauty of the mountains and the ocean, home to an abundance of marine wildlife.  In my opinion, it is a coexistence unlike any other major city in North America.  Because we are immersed in such beauty, the larger man made problems of our oceans may seem

Photo: Bryan Nordley

 far away. Those who grew up here may not be aware of the rest of world’s oceanic perils but this is often something we take for granted.  Vancouver’s environmental awareness has spawned both from community and political efforts that emerged from dedicated and concerned citizens of British Columbia.  British Columbia’s climate of environmentalism is one of the factors that drives people to come, experience and live here. There are very few places in North America where is it safe and verifiable to swim in a bay with such a spectacular backdrop of a skyline.  Beaches in Vancouver Harbour are regularly safe to swim in, with little to no beach closures throughout the summer. This is in stark contrast to beaches in Los Angeles, with famous destinations like Santa Monica Pier Beach closed 57% of last years season.

Our stewardship as a community  is what makes this place unique and it’s environment so awe-inspiring.  British Columbians love the relative pristine waters of their Georgia Strait, and this unprecedented environment is what drew people like me to want to live here from thousands of miles away. Yet the Strait of Georgia faces many threats like the world at large such as increased tanker traffic and ocean acidification.

But it is the community of advocacy and awareness which helps maintain the health of our waters and protect against such increasing threats.  And this is why programs like Georgia Strait Alliance's Stewards of the Strait are vital to maintaining the health of our waters and their ecosystem as well as a community of awareness. 

We may not be able to fight against all the greater oceanic problems of our world but we can make changes where we live at the grass roots.  Stewards of the Strait's pledge system of simple everyday practical steps can help us do our small but important part in protecting  species and ecosystem against harm.  Easing the damage that greater issues may place on them and our environment might not seem like much but a water recreational and beach city constantly interacts with its oceanic environment and if every person does their small part, together as community, we can maintain the health our inland sea, continue to set an example for other oceanic communities and in the process protect our environment for generations to come. 

There's more than tankers out there!

Anyone who spends time traveling around or gazing out on Georgia Strait will see ships here there and everywhere in the region. The anchored ships in English Bay, Vancouver are a world renowned spectacle for tourists, travelers  and business visitors alike. Personally I love to see them and greatly appreciate how they bring many of the goods that my family and I need to this part of the world.

In the Port of Metro Vancouver there are well over 3000 ships entering and exiting each year and that does not include BC Ferries. Nanaimo sees over 200 and Victoria the same once again not including all the ferry trips.  While many of the ships look similar they perform a wide range of functions. From ferries to oil tankers, bulk carriers to container vessels, military vessels to large pleasure craft and cruise ships to break bulk. More information about ships in Georgia Strait is available on our main website.

Excluding tankers, an average ship is over 2 football fields in length and carries over 1.5 million litres in fuel oil. Add in oil tanker traffic and that's a lot of hydrocarbons floating around our waters. For the most part, the shipping industry is very conscientious and usually gets  them in and out of here without incident. However there have been accidents and oil has been spilled here. Just like the increasing tanker traffic that has had so much media attention lately, the more other ships we have transiting our waters, the more risk we have of a hydrocarbon spill.

So in order to keep those risks at an acceptable level it behooves us as a society to ensure that those shipping trips are necessary and that the goods that are being shipped are needed. Ninety percent of world goods are transported by ships and unfortunately some of those goods are just satisfying consumer wants and/or perceived needs.  I suspect that the production, transportation and use of some products could do more harm than good when you look at the bigger picture of world environmental and socioeconomic sustainability. Oil and coal might come immediately to mind but there are many other examples. What would it take to ensure all products shipped fit into a world view of sustainable development as outlined by the Bruntland Commission Report way back in 1987?

"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". It contains two key concepts:

• the concept of "needs", in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and
• the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs."

Your respectful thoughts are welcome.