Tag: British Columbia

Agricultural disaster after record rains cause catastrophic floods in British Columbia, Canada

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British Columbia has declared a state of emergency on November 17, 2021, after several days of heavy rain caused catastrophic floods in parts of the province. At least 1 person has been killed but officials fear the death toll will rise.

Another atmospheric river event hit British Columbia and parts of the U.S. Northwest over the past weekend, dropping record-breaking rain. Parts of the region received more than 2 months of average rainfall in just 48 hours, causing rivers to overflow and low-lying plains to flood.1

The resulting floods destroyed roads and bridges, submerged homes and farmland, leaving at least 1 person dead.

B.C. Agriculture Minister Lana Popham said hundreds of farms have been affected provincewide, many in the Fraser Valley. Nearly in tears, she described the widespread flooding as an agricultural disaster.2

The region has been one of the hardest hit by floods, with evacuation orders still in effect for the city of Abbotsford — home to roughly half of all the dairy farms in British Columbia.

In addition, thousands of animals have perished in the floods and the government says it will work to get veterinarians into farms to treat animals. Some of the animals that escaped the floods are expected to be euthanized.

Some highways were closed after numerous landslides, including Highway 7 from Hope to Vancouver where as many as 100 vehicles were trapped between two landslides.1

As of November 18, nearly 20 000 people are still out of their homes across the province.

https://watchers.news

Approximately 1,000 evacuated as Canadian fires engulf town

AFP Staff Writers- July 1, 2021

About 1,000 people were evacuated in western Canada, authorities said Thursday, as fires raged amid an unprecedented heat wave, charring most of at least one town.

The province of British Columbia has recorded 62 new fires in the past 24 hours, premier John Horgan told a press conference.

“I cannot stress enough how extreme the fire risk is at this time in almost every part of British Columbia,” Horgan said.

The town of Lytton, 250 kilometers (155 miles) northeast of Vancouver, “has sustained structural damage and 90 percent of the village is burned, including the centre of town,” local MP Brad Vis said.

The village’s 250 residents were evacuated on Wednesday evening, one day after it set a jaw-dropping Canadian record high temperature of 49.6 degrees Celsius (121 degrees Fahrenheit).

The evacuation order was extended Wednesday night to residents of about 100 properties north of Lytton.

“The last 24 hours have been devastating for Lytton residents,” Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan wrote on Twitter, adding that the Canadian armed forces “are ready to support residents as we move forward in the next steps.”

Provincial authorities have not yet announced any injuries or death related to the fires, a number of which were also clustered north of the city of Kamloops, located some 150 kilometers northeast of Lytton.

Early Thursday evening, British Columbia fire authorities said the unprecedented hot and dry conditions had led them to expect another difficult day ahead.

https://www.terradaily.com

Canadian Father JAILED for Violating a Court Order to Use His Trans Child’s Preferred Pronouns

Stacey Lennox – March 18, 2021

Dr. Jordan Peterson rose to international prominence for opposing Bill C-16 in Canada in 2016. This legislation required Canadians to use an individual’s preferred pronouns amid the ever-growing list of gender identities. Dr. Peterson did not object out of “transphobia,” as many accused him of doing. Instead, he objected to the state passing a law that compelled speech, which was evident in his testimony and in every interview on the subject. He warned C-16 would be a slippery slope and result in punishment for speaking. Proponents of the bill told him that would never happen.

The bill passed into law on June 16, 2017. Dr. Jordan Peterson was vindicated when on March 16, 2021, at 10 a.m., Robert Hoogland surrendered himself to the court in response to a warrant issued for his arrest by the attorney general of British Columbia. His crime? Referring to his teen, a biological female, as “daughter,” referring to her with female pronouns, and refusing to affirm her medical transition to become a trans male. Peterson noted that this was inevitable:

Hoogland’s story, reported by the Post Millennial, is heartbreaking on many levels. He has consistently advocated for “watchful waiting” for his child. This approach means waiting until a child becomes an adult before he or she undergoes any permanent or irreversible treatment. In his interviews and court appearances, he notes that gender dysphoric children often desist as they mature. A compilation of studies shows that desistance happens frequently, although it is not predictable.

As Abigail Shrier has pointed out, watchful waiting is reasonable for young women. She explains that gender dysphoric women who wait until adulthood to undergo transgender alterations will present with a smaller stature, but the rest of the physical characteristics they seek to present as male, such as facial hair, will appear with later use of cross-sex hormones. She does note that taking cross-sex hormones is not without risk, and an adult is in a much better position to evaluate the risks and benefits.

https://pjmedia.com

Besides Locust Invasion and Coronavirus Pandemic, There’s One More Plague Going on in the World

– August 18, 2020

A locust invasion has been sweeping parts of East Africa and South Asia since the start of the year, leading to food shortages across the region. But it appears that this isn’t the only insect plague the world is currently facing – and one no less severe than the former.

More than seven hundred million cubic metres of trees were wiped out in British Columbia between 2000 and 2015 by mountain pine beetles, a tiny species native to North American forests, according to Bloomberg, as decades-worth of lumber supplies are being eradicated across the world as a result of the pest’s invasion. With around 2.2 million hectares having already been affected by beetles, the outbreak is expected to continue for the next six years.

The tiny creature, just 5mm in length, was once part of the forest cycle, but as winters grew warmer due to climate change, the beetles were able to survive in greater numbers and chew through tree bark, with flowing resin attracting even more of them. As a result, with thousands of the insects eating on the trees and laying their eggs inside, hundreds of millions of pines across Canada’s timber-rich region were doomed to die.

British Columbia is Canada’s largest supplier of logs to the United States, Bloomberg notes, with the beetle plague eventually signaling potential shortages for both the American and global housing market. The pests have already destroyed 15 years’ worth of timber supplies in the province, material sufficient to build around nine million one-family houses. According to estimates by the Vancouver-based Spar Tree Group, the allowable production in British Columbia has been reduced by 40%, as it is believed that more than half of the region’s marketable pine trees will be dead by 2020.

https://sputniknews.com