Concerned citizens and grass-roots organizations can make a difference!

It’s happening here in Port Alberni.

At the City Council meeting this past Monday night (hattip: Westcoaster.ca, Keith Wyton, Chair of the Save-Our-Valley-Alliance (SOVA), presented Council with reasons why legal action should be taken against the BC Government for allowing private timberlands to be taken from public Tree Farm Licenses.

TimberWest is the main harvester of timber in TFL 44 around the Alberni Valley, and it is it’s practices and those of Island Timberlands which have caused many protests from residents due to poor maintenance of creek beds, destruction of viewscapes around the Valley, as well as possibly contributing to numerous boil water advisories over the past 2 years.

It is refreshing and encouraging to see the City Council take these facts to heart, and listen to their constituents. While Port Alberni is a logging town, it’s residents do not want to rape and pillage the land. Like a fisherman who knows the limit of his catch, loggers know that trees must be tended in a sustainable matter. Otherwise you only end up with bare hillsides, landslides, and no jobs.

The BC Government appears to not be following it’s own rules. It’s about time someone makes the effort to investigate what’s going on and to put things right.

Under the Geneva Conventions electrocution of a prisoner would be considered torture.

So what about Tasers?

Last week, an Iranian student at UCLA got tasered:

The Youtube video is below… the officers keep saying, after tasering him the first time.. “Stand Up!” “Stand Up!”… but really.. if you’ve been tasered, would you be able to stand up? Are your muscles not immobilised when shocked with 40,000V??

Why don’t the officers just drag him out of there, handcuffed… like they would have in the “old days”. There were 3 of them… and one resister… who wasn’t, at any point, even lashing out physically.

The man had no weapon, had done nothing to anyone else. He had been asked for his Student ID and refused.

At least our civil liberties have cellphone cameras to protect us from people like these officers.

There have been a few interesting articles relating to Peak Oil that I wanted to pass peoples way.

#1: Does the Peak Oil Myth Fall Down… to steal directly from the EnergyBulleting/Oil Drum release:

With the release of Why the “Peak Oil” Theory Falls Down — Myths, Legends and the Future of Oil Resources by Peter M. Jackson, Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) attempts to cast doubt on the credibility of those with imminent, empirically-based concerns about our future oil supply.

This is an excellent debunking of the Peak Oil debunkers. The crux is this: If you look at *all* the numbers that are *publicly available* (the CERA report uses figures from unpublished, private datasets) the conclusions are quite simple and mathematical. And they’re not encouraging in the near term.

#2: Bitumen sale in Canada again from Energy Bulletin…

Petro Canada is selling some of its’ in-situ tar sand operation. The article made me think of the process of making oil out of tarsands. Think of it this way… You know the black gunk that is used for patches roads? You see it melting in hot summer sun..

Well, that’s basically “bitumen” (actually a more refined form) is basically the same as tar sand.. without the sand. And that’s what you get from “in-situ” operations (different from the mining process). Now here’s something I never thought of… you can’t slide that tar through an oil pipeline… it doesn’t “flow” at room temperature… so you have to use “diluent” which is actually basically natural gas liquid.

and *That* is one of the main purposes for the new LNG import/export terminal at Kitimat in Northern BC. Many of the imports of LNG will be used, not for NG consumption but rather to import diluent to then *export* tarsands production. Sounds confused? Ya,.. it is. And it speaks volumes as to why economically the norm simply will not continue.

Finally #3:

The all important Monthly Oil Production Chart Update Click the link… see the chart. Place your bets.

We’re on the plateau… the only question is.. where does the shelf end?

Oh, I almost forgot the best article of all.. in case you were counting on all that Ethanol to save us:

Here’s #4

As many as 100 million acres of cropland and pastures would have to be dedicated to cultivating biomass fuels like switchgrass to support a national goal of 25 percent renewable energy use by 2025, a University of Tennessee study says.

100 million acres.

According to the CIA WorldFactbook (Thanks Spooks!)

There is just over 1.9 million acres of irrigated land in Canada

There is 55.3 million acres of irrigated land in the Unitied States

Multiple reports from people who were in Port Alberni in 1964 have indicated that the November 15 events were worse and have caused more damage than even the famous Tsunami that hi Port Alberni after the giant earthquake in Alaska in 1964.

The Westcoaster.ca has the best coverage of the events. Including a photo gallery.

The storm was certainly like nothing I had ever seen or experienced in the Valley. It was as if I was out fishing again and we were in the worst possible storm. The house was shaking, you couldn’t see 10 feet in front of you for the wind and sheets of rain… then there were the branches flying through the air.

One of our neighbours lost their entire south-facing fence. Our small fence was also blown over… as was part of another neighbours fence. My parents lost 1 large and very alive spruce tree (uprooted) and one already-dead dogwood.

The destruction along the highway has been phenomenal as well… hundreds of downed trees from Port Alberni to Parksville. Especially in the Whiskey Creek area. Yesterday as I was driving through there were still dozens of trees leaning precariously against Hydro wires. BC Hydro still has a ton of work to do.

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And then there are the Boil Water Advisories. Entire cities and regions have been affected.

The storm was severe for sure, but one really must wonder if inappropriate logging practices in our Watersheds are making things even worse. (and there is a lot of evidence floating around local web boards)

Cities affected:
Courtney/Comox (now lifted)
Port Alberni (still in effect)
Nanaimo
and all of the Greater Vancouver (still in effect) Regional District

Those are all the ones that I have heard, no doubt there are more around the Island and Province.

So yesterday we had a real ripper of a storm here in Beautiful BC. It hit most of the Southern Coast of the province including Vancouver, Victoria and Vancouver Island.

Hardest hit seems to have been my own town of Port Alberni. There were trees falling everywhere, 105km/h winds on my weather station branches being ripped off and flying down the street. 113mm (about 4.44in) of rain fell in about 12 hours and flooded rivers, streets, and homes.

Here are some pictures and I even uploaded some video to YouTube.

Pictures:

And here is the video… YouTube… power to the people!