media releases

Media release
B.C. Citizens for Green Energy
www.greenenergybc.ca
October 16, 2008

Faux environmental group
gives Pemberton speech

When opposing run-of-river hydro, the Wilderness Committee
places politics above the environment

The “River Awareness” public event in Pemberton on Oct. 18 supposedly will discuss independently produced clean electricity from an environmental perspective. But the motivation is political, said B.C. Citizens for Green Energy co-spokesperson Gene Vickers. “The guest speaker represents the Wilderness Committee,” he said. “And when it comes to electricity, the Wilderness Committee’s agenda is political, not environmental.”

Gwen Barlee, an official spokesperson for the Wilderness Committee, is listed as the guest speaker for Saturday’s public event concerning run-of-river hydro proposals in the Sea-to-Sky corridor. “But there are a number of problems with the WC’s stance on this issue,” said Vickers. “The WC says it will support run of river only if it’s developed by BC Hydro. But there’s absolutely no reason to think BC Hydro could achieve even higher environmental standards than independents.”

The WC works very closely with COPE 378, a BC Hydro union. “They’ve collaborated on several projects, including public events and speaking tours across the province, as well as a two-day training session for activists,” said Vickers. “But the alliance is troubling. This BC Hydro union actually campaigns to have the Burrard Thermal gas-fired generating plant restored to full operation. That would mean a huge increase in greenhouse gases and other types of air pollution. Yet the WC supports COPE 378. Politics might make strange bedfellows, but environmentalism shouldn’t.”

As for the speeches presented on Oct. 18, the content seems predictable. “Based on their previous speeches, I think it’s likely that they’ll recite a litany of discredited myths,” said Vickers. “Among other nonsense they’ll recite the stolen rivers myth, the privatization myth, the skyrocketing rates myth, the environmental devastation myth and the myth that we don’t need more electricity.”

B.C. Citizens for Green Energy responds to those myths here: http://www.greenenergybc.ca/myths.html

In fact the credibility of those claims has never been lower. On Oct. 1 Dr. Mark Jaccard released an academic review that demolished two books that provide the intellectual basis of the campaign against independently produced clean electricity. Jaccard is an internationally respected energy economist and Nobel Prize winner who has served both the present and previous provincial governments. His report, which tears apart work by Marvin Shaffer and John Calvert, is available here: http://www.greenenergybc.ca/Assets/Jaccard.pdf

Pemberton’s Oct. 18 event is part of a well-funded campaign by full-time salaried speakers, activists and support staff. The campaign includes province-wide speaking tours, billboards, glossy brochures, Internet banner ads, radio ads, a two-day training conference and financial support for supposedly “grassroots” groups.

“Vested interests like COPE 378 are pouring big money into this campaign,” said Vickers. “They desperately want to preserve the status quo. But unless we develop new sources of clean electricity, future generations will be left with a dwindling supply of increasingly expensive, dirty electricity. Here, as in the rest of the world, independents are best suited to develop clean electricity — despite what you hear from a BC Hydro union and its political ally the Wilderness Committee.”

For more information contact Gene Vickers
Co-spokesperson, B.C. Citizens for Green Energy
(604) 230-8030
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