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Climate Strike – by Keith Towse

2019-11-29 By Provincial Organizer Leave a Comment

The Green Party of Nova Scotia marches with the young people on the streets of Halifax and communities across Nova Scotia today.  Climate change is a threat to Nova Scotians – its impacts will include sea level rise and increasing coastal erosion, more frequent extreme weather events, and altered weather and rainfall patterns. We applaud the Ecology Action Centre for publishing two reports recently showing that Nova Scotians can take action and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 60% from 2005 levels. We can do this through changing how we generate our electricity and heat our homes, increasing the energy efficiency of all the buildings we live and work in and using more electric vehicles.  But, as our leader, Thomas Trappenberg, and deputy leader, Jessica Alexander, agree, “We must make sure that introducing these changes protects those Nova Scotian’s who can’t afford to heat their homes now. More than 20% of Nova Scotians experience energy poverty, and we must ensure that the benefits of clean renewable energy are shared by everyone”,

The Green Party calls for all political parties to cooperate to make sure that the changes which are needed are implemented now – we can’t wait for more studies or debates. We must listen to the young people who march and whose futures are most at risk from climate change. We can take action now.

Changes we can make right now include:

  • Pass legislation setting targets for increasing the percentage of our electricity which comes from renewables to 60% in 2023, 80% in 2026 and 95% in 2030. This should not increase the price of electricity significantly – the cheapest form of new power generation now is onshore wind, which will soon be cheaper than existing coal or gas fired generation:
  • Scrap the ineffective Cap and Trade regulations introduced by the Liberal Government and introduce a Carbon Tax of $50 per tonne CO2e (increasing at $10 per tonne CO2e per year), requiring that proceeds from the Carbon Tax are returned to Nova Scotians who are most impacted by the additional costs, in the form of quarterly cash distributions and subsidized energy efficiency programs. “Implementing this Carbon Tax will be less expensive than dealing with the climate crisis that results if we miss the IPCC target”, says Thomas Trappenberg.
  • Requiring that all new housing meets stringent energy efficiency standards and introducing programs to retrofit existing housing to the same energy efficiency standards.

The Ecology Action Centre report indicates the financial savings from reduced fuel use in buildings and personal vehicles, and reduced fossil fuel purchases for power generation could largely pay for the annualized investments in deep energy retrofits, electric vehicles, and renewable electricity generation.

We can afford it; the future of our Province requires it and our young people demand it.

Filed Under: General, Green Voices

Logging Old-Growth Forests a Menace to Wildlife – GPNS President in the Chronicle-Herald

2019-06-26 By Ashley Morton Leave a Comment

As Leader Thomas Trappenberg, Deputy Leader Jessica Alexander, and other Greens joined in a protest of logging in the Corbett-Dalhousie Lake Forest, Co-President June Trenholm of Dartmouth was busy putting fingers to keyboard to get our message out to an even broader swath of Nova Scotians.

Have a look at her recent Opinion article in the Chronicle-Herald, available at the link below:

www.thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/opinion-logging-old-growth-acadian-forest-a-menace-to-wildlife-321631/

Filed Under: Green Voices, In the News

How to Pick Where to Put a School

2019-06-25 By Ashley Morton 2 Comments

This past weekend, at the GPNS retreat, some of the other Executive members who were present said “Ashley, you’re interested in transportation issues, why don’t you write a bit more for the website about, you know, trains and buses and planes and stuff!”

Little did they know that the very first thing they’d get would be about where to put schools!

…But that’s the thing – we can never achieve decent, efficient, low-carbon transportation (no, not even with electric cars!) if we don’t put our starts and our finishes in reasonable places – preferrably not very far apart, but at least in places where people can easily travel together to reach them.

So when Education Minister Zach Churchill*’s announcement about streamlining the process for new-school site selection came across my Twitter feed, it seemed like a great chance to emphasize this. Here’s what I pulled together, as a proposed set of principles for the GPNS on this issue:

School Location and Climate Health

The Green Party of Nova Scotia would emphasize the relationship between climate and community planning – particularly transportation questions – when selecting school sites. Carbon-emissions impacts must be considered.

Background:

School-aged students make up over a quarter of Nova Scotia’s daily “commuters” (121,000 public school students vs. 381,000 full-time workers), so the locations of their destinations has a huge impact on our daily carbon emissions from transportation.
Locating schools in locations where students can safely walk and/or cycle to school improves health outcomes, and those students’ social connection to their communities.

Therefore, the Green Party proposes the following additional/complementary criteria for locations of schools:

  • In areas where public transportation is readily available, schools will be built adjacent to existing public transportation routes.
  • In areas where public transportation is minimal or non-existent, schools will be built so as to minimize the amount of travel required by students. This will normally be in the largest community of the catchment area, within walking/cycling distance of as many students’ homes as possible.
  • Wherever possible, schools shall be located adjacent to town centres or other public facilities (libraries, recreation centres, parks) that are common destinations for school-aged Nova Scotians.
  • “Brownfield” (previously-developed) land shall always be preferred to “greenfield” (never-before-developed) land.
  • The process of site selection shall include, from the outset, parents’ organizations, community groups and – in the case of junior and senior high schools – students’ groups.
  • Costs of infrastructure necessary to provide safe walking and cycling access to the school shall be included in the project scope for the construction of the school.
  • Costs of government-provided transportation (generally, bussing) shall be included in budgetary analyses of where schools shall be located to assist in generating a “lifecycle cost” viewpoint on sites’ benefits and disadvantages.
  • The impact of closing a school in favour of bussing to another community must also include similar factors, including carbon emissions, long term transportation costs, and impacts on student health and quality of life.
  • A comparison of carbon emissions impacts shall be published to aid in explaining the government’s choice of sites (and/or school closures).

Let me know what you think!

*Full disclosure: I’m currently in the middle of my Bachelor of Education, and hope to be employed in the Nova Scotia public education system by this time next year. I don’t think that has anything to do with any of these principles, though!

Filed Under: Green Voices

On Whipping Votes and Making Deals

2018-10-08 By gpnsadmin 1 Comment

by Charlene Boyce, Green Party of Nova Scotia Co-President

The recent New Brunswick election results engendered a lot of interest in the more obscure aspects of parliamentary procedure. What happens when the winner is really not evident?

This election has gone a long way toward showing the serious drawbacks of first-past-the-post in a splintered electorate. We may not be accustomed to minority governments, but once we have  three or more active parties, they become not just a possibility, but an expectation.

The “Big Two” (for now!!), the Liberals and Conservatives found themselves in a practically-tied face-off due to the precedent of favour that the incumbent government enjoys. This left newcomers The People’s Alliance and David Coon’s Green Party with the enviable position of being courted for support. Interestingly, the way the numbers broke out, even with a deal and an ‘alliance government’, a clear majority is not so clear.

Many news anchors were talking to David Coon, asking whether the Greens would ‘prop up’ the Liberals.

Now, those of us familiar with Green politics know that we don’t whip votes. That is a thing we are known for. Our MLAs, MPs and other elected representatives are expected to vote with their conscience. Since we rely heavily on facilitated discussion and consensus building, we often find ourselves agreeing with our esteemed leaders, but not always.

So how does a party leader guarantee support to another government if she or he cannot whip votes?  This is a question I asked of my party executive, some of whom have a lot more experience than I do.

The answer is, the same way all decisions are made. The elected New Brunswick Greens would meet and discuss and decide as a collective whether they would enter into any kind of agreement, and what kind of agreement, if any, that would be.

The New Brunswick Liberals therefore needed to negotiate not just with David Coon, a more known entity to them, as he has been an MLA for several years; but also with Megan Mitton and Kevin Arseneau, brand new MLAs.

It is situations like this that make politics my favourite spectator sport.

Filed Under: General, Green Voices

Green Party Replies: Cannabis

2018-10-08 By gpnsadmin Leave a Comment

We are happy to respond to inquiries from Nova Scotians. Send your question to gpns@greenpartyns.ca.

The Green Party recently received this inquiry:

What is your stance on marijuana dispenseries? I feel they should be allowed to operate in Nova Scotia. So many people rely on these locations.

This is our reply:

Thanks for reaching out to us. The topic of cannabis legalisation has engendered a lot of discussion among our members. We don’t yet have a comprehensive party policy on the topic, and all of the offshoot related issues. However, these are three basic statements we have agreed on:
  • We don’t like the monopoly imposed by NSLC.
  • We support studies into further potential medicinal uses of cannabis.
  • As with everything, climate change is a fundamental concern, so we want to ensure that the growing and production of cannabis products are as low impact as possible, minimizing GHG production.
At our recent AGM, we had a terrific panel presentation from Andrew McLaughlin of the Cannapy dispensary, Kenny Lord, active in cannabis business for years, and Myrna Gillis of the Aqualitas production facility.
If you want to discuss further, please feel welcome to reach out.
-Charlene Boyce, Co-President, Green Party of Nova Scotia

If you would like to contribute to future policy, become a member now, and join us on October 27 at our Policy Conference in Pictou.

Filed Under: General, Green Voices

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