RE: COLUMN: Some local good news climate stories you may have missed, Jan. 31
Nelson’s Citizen Climate Lobby in partnership with Nelson City Council would like to paint Nelson as an “incubator for innovative ideas that spread to other areas … we punch above our weight on climate change solution.”
I beg to differ.
City council is manipulated by property developers. Three recent projects — NDCC pool/ice rink, the Kootenay Co-op, and the new Nelson CARES apartment/commercial developments – have no geothermal heating, solar panel or solar water heating. They do have a massive parking lot and heated underground parking. Each underground parking space cost an extra estimated $60,000. The traffic congestion and pollution in front of our recreational centre will likely double because of the new Nelson CARES complex.
The Climate Lobby lauds Nelson’s councillor Rik Logtenberg as a good example for creating the Climate Caucus to lobby for meaningful climate action from provincial and federal governments. Both these political forums are faking their national and international commitments to the pollution or climate mayhem that threatens havoc on future generations.
The mayor, council and Citizens’ Climate Lobby would do better by standing outside city hall with cardboard signs pleading or lobbying with the thousands of logging trucks exhausting tons of CO2 from old growth and not so old forests that are majestic carbon sinks and rich in biodiversity.
No, I dream of course. The city and Climate Lobby need grants from the Columbia Basin Trust and you can trust that grant money from CBT is carefully monitored to ensure the status quo.
Tom Prior
Nelson
