This Week on GR
August 27, 2020
Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s continuing efforts, NOT broadcast live from CFUV Radio in the basement of the Student Union Building at the University of Victoria, but emanating live-to-tape via Skype from our home-based … studios on this date, August 19th, 2020.
The magnificent coastal rainforests greeting the English explorers have since then been almost eradicated. On the island named for the captain of one of those early ships it’s estimated less than 3% of the forest giants George Vancouver would have marveled at remain. But, there is no number greater than zero small enough to stay the hand of timber interests that continue to practice “clearcut” logging, and still pursue as single-mindedly as Melville’s Ahab, the biggest and best of what’s left.
Resistance is growing again in the woods though, along the San Juan river, where Teal Jones Group, the self-described “largest privately owned timber harvesting and primary lumber product manufacturing company in British Columbia” has begun carving roads towards the pristine Fairy Creek watershed. Joshua Wright is a spokesperson for the blockade.
Listen. Hear.
Joshua Wright in the first half.
And; Before Covid-19 swallowed the World we worried about banal issues like the climate crisis and survival of terrestrial life on a way too rapidly changing planet. But even if the environmental problems of our creation are no joke, our elected officials seem unable to take the situation seriously; some apparently wanting to accelerate the process. Clearly, we have to try harder.
Right now, not far outside New Westminster, near Hume Park, along the Brunette River, twenty metres above the ground is a tree-sit. Activists there are barring the way of the infamous TransMountain Pipeline Expansion project by occupying the trees that stand in the way of the final leg of the TMX pipeline’s route to terminus in Burnaby.
Dr. Tim Takaro is a scientist-physician, health researcher, educator, and Associate Dean of Research at Simon Fraser University. Takaro has dedicated his career to studying the human health impacts of climate change, and the more difficult task of communicating to those in control of environmental policy the dire and imminent consequence of failure to alter our societal course. Tim was the first to occupy the trees along the Brunette, and says of the TMX, “In addition to the direct health risks of the project, I am considering the future of my children, their children and future generations around the world.”
Dr. Tim Takaro on environmental intersectionality and obstructing passage of the TransMountain pipeline in the second half.
And; CFUV Radio broadcaster and host of Plant Powered Radio, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things you can get up to in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Joshua Wright and getting in the path of Teal Jones to save the Fairy Creek watershed.
Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/
