SGI Greens Newsletter – July 2024

SGI Greens Newsletter

Click here for the newsletter in PDF format, or continue reading below.
Please consider printing a 2-sided hard copy and giving it to someone that might be interested in the SGI Greens.

Sections cover Events, General Interest, On Being Green, and a Feature article.
Links to back issues, subscribe/unsubscribe, and join the SGI Greens are at the end.

Victoria Pride Parade (July 7, 2024)

The Green Party of Canada was founded on principles of social justice, and respect for diversity. Join Greens from SGI and other ridings in the Greater Victoria area for the 30th anniversary of continuous Pride parades in Victoria! Help carry our Green banners.

Celebrate diversity and have fun!

The Parade will have close to 130 entries and the runtime will be approximately 90 minutes. The Songhees Nation and other Indigenous and Two-Spirit guests of honour will be opening the parade at Fisgard and Douglas.

The marshaling areas will be on Douglas, between Fisgard and Chatham, and marshaling times will be between 9:00 and 10:30 AM. Specific details for our entry are expected soon.

The parade starts at 11 AM and ends in McDonald Park in James Bay, where the Pride Festival in the Park continues until 6 PM.

 

SGI Greens (Green Party of Canada) news and events:

July 7 – Victoria Pride Parade
Celebrate diversity and have fun! Help carry our Green banners.

August 10, 12:30 – 4:00 pm – SGI Greens Summer Picnic in Centennial Park.
The picnic is one of our biggest social gatherings of the year and we heartily welcome both familiar folks and new ones. Come and meet, eat, reconnect and  mingle with friends and visit with Elizabeth in this relaxed summer setting. We hope to have some of our seven high school scholarship winners with us for this picnic and possibly several Young Greens from UVic.

August 31-September 2 – Saanich Fair 
Fun for everyone in the community, and a chance to talk to Elizabeth, too! The Fair is a great place for youth to gain valuable volunteer hours and experience.

September 7-8 – Salt Spring Island Fall Fair
Another great opportunity for everyone to have fun.
This year’s theme: Beauty and the Beets.

October 26, 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm – SGI EDA’s Annual General Meeting

  • Our Executive Committee meets monthly and posts meeting minutes on our website.

 

BC Greens news and events: (because we’re friends)

  • The next provincial election is scheduled for October 19th and the BC Greens are busy! They need all available hands on deck (to be repaid next year during the federal campaign)! Want to learn more? The fabulous Candidates are here and the list is growing weekly. Events throughout the province are here. If you are uncertain of your electoral area (there have been changes) you can find that at Elections BC.
  • The four ridings (and their candidates) that overlap parts of the SGI area are:

Saanich North and the Islands (MLA Adam Olsen, will not seek re-election.)
Saanich South (Ned Taylor) – Join him at a coffee chat!
Oak Bay – Gordon Head (Dr. Lisa Gunderson)
Victoria – Swan Lake (Christina Winter)

 

Community Information:

The folks at Creatively United have an excellent online calendar of local events.

 

Invitation to past, present and future members:

Come to the SGI Summer Picnic on August 10!  All members, friends and guests are welcome!

Election years tend to bring folks out. Motivation often fades in the years between elections. Given that an election could be called at any time between now and October 2025, our SGI Summer Picnic is a great opportunity to re-connect or connect for the first time!

Please consider bringing one or more potential new members, so they can check out what a friendly group we are. Join Us! Be a SGI Green!

Volunteers are also needed for the Summer Picnic to transport, set up and serve food and to sell SGI swag. Please contact  Mary Leslie (mary.leslie@greenparty.ca) if you would like to help.

 

Making it happen!

Ever wonder how the Green Party (or any political party) gets stuff done? Here’s how:

Elizabeth May works for us in two ways:

  1. As Member of Parliament, with a salary paid by the federal government.
  2. As Party Leader, with no compensation. She’s a VOLUNTEER!

The Green Party, as an organization, similarly gets work done in two ways:

  1. National office has paid support staff, led by the Executive Director, Kevin Dunbar.
  2. The Federal Council (board) and the Executive for each riding are VOLUNTEERS!

It’s easy to see:  No VOLUNTEERS, no Green Party!

Flip that around and it’s very exciting: anyone that cares to can volunteer and be part of the Party that promotes Green values and makes an important difference – nationally and globally.

You can be part of making things happen! We are always looking for new volunteers.

In particular, we are hoping someone will step up to help organize events such as the SGI Summer Picnic, in preparation for more full-on involvement as they wish and feel able. We are also hoping someone with good people skills will help coordinate our volunteers. By starting soon, these volunteers will have some experience by the time our new SGI Executive is elected in October, and can then join the Executive and participate in all its decisions.

If not you, who else will make things happen? If not now, when? Please sign up or contact Tom Niemann (tom.niemann@greenparty.ca) if you’d like (or are hesitating) to be a VOLUNTEER.

Everybody has skills that can help the Greens!

 

General interest:

Good news snippets 

Renewable energy is overtaking fossil fuels!

  • Renewables provided 30% of all electricity worldwide in 2023 (Global Electricity Review).
  • Sustainable energy sources are now the most economical, resulting in previous skeptics coming on side.  Money talks!
  • China led all other countries in 2023, accounting for 51% of new solar, and 60% of new wind. In just one year, China installed more solar energy than the US in its entire history!
  • The major solar power companies are providing more energy that’s useful than Big Oil! According to Bloomberg: “At a rough estimate, only about a quarter of the energy coming out of an oil company’s wells gets turned into useful power.” Most of it is wasted as heat and noise!
  • Investments in solar power and battery storage are booming:

  • Forecasts for solar power capacity continue to hugely underestimate its actual growth:

 

Conservation efforts are making progress.

  • Thanks to the Green climate minister from Austria, the EU passed a landmark law to protect and restore 20% of Europe’s land and sea by 2030. It’s a big win for biodiversity in one of the globe’s most depleted areas.
  • Here in B.C., a large new park, the Klinse-Za / Twin Sisters Park, was announced in June to protect caribou habitat. This increased the total protected area to 19.7% of the province.

Good news you might have missed – lots of it! Watch this to get inspired.

 

Climate (and other) solutions

We have so many technologies, potential land use changes, and possible behaviour changes (diet, mode of transport, etc.) that can help us reduce our climate impact! Where do we start? Their potential total impacts range from small to huge. Their costs range from minimal to unaffordable. (Some are just expensive greenwashing.) This can make it hard to know where to start. Happily, Dr. Jonathan Foley presents a clear and sensible approach to sorting out the options: The climate solutions worth funding — now.

Some well-intentioned people, and especially doomers, say:  “The world will continue heating for another 30 years, even if we stop all emissions today. It’s baked in!” The clear implication is that you, and humanity, should just give up (and they already have). Fortunately, science says they’re wrong. If we stop greenhouse gas emissions, global warming stops. Never give up!

 

Is this greenwashing?  

 

On Being Green:

Our readers 

  • Reader CGW thanked us for an “excellent” June edition. Thanks – good to know we’re on the right track.
  • Reader JS said: “Thanks for that good, hopeful stuff.” We’ll keep it coming. There is actually a lot of good news. It’s just under-reported in the mainstream media, which usually operates on the principle: “If it bleeds, it leads.” Also, a lot of good things happen quietly in the background – see the Feature below from Bridget.
  • We really appreciate the feedback and encourage longer contributions, too.

 

Feature:

Hello SGI Greens! I am Bridget Burns, your GPC Organizer for BC. I wanted to share that in the beginning of June, I attended a conference at Hollyhock on Cortes Island, which was Activate Elections themed. I made some incredible connections with progressive change makers from all over. One group in particular, Youth Climate Corps BC, caught my attention as being particularly intriguing. Below is a little more info on who they are and the work they are doing. I hope it inspires you, and some further connections might be made.

Youth Climate Corps BC is an organization that aims to empower youth to take actions that address the climate crisis. Youth Climate Corps BC provides paid work and training to young people in climate action projects that impact their communities. Youth Climate Corps BC gets jobs done in communities that reduce emissions, build resiliency, and adapt communities to the changing climate.

Youth Climate Corps BC builds community capacity by developing a motivated, organized, and adaptable youth labour force to make climate plans a reality. Young people aged 17-30 work together for four to six months to build skills, scale up climate action projects, and develop their leadership skills and community networks.

Thank you to Tom Niemann for inviting me to contribute to this month’s newsletter. I can be reached at bridget.burns@greenparty.ca if you need help with anything, have some feedback or just want to connect.

Happy Summer!

Bridget

—

Bridget Burns (she/her)

Western Organizer

Green Party of Canada

 

Published by the Saanich-Gulf Islands Electoral District Association of the Green Party of Canada.

Please send feedback and contributions to this newsletter to sgiedanews@gmail.com.

Saanich-Gulf Island Greens publish two newsletters:

  • The monthly SGI Greens Newsletter
  • The weekly Good Sunday Morning — Elizabeth May’s perspective

Current and back issues of both are at https://sgi.edagreens.ca/news-events/

To subscribe to one or both newsletters, go to sgigreenparty.ca/signup_2020.
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Join Us! Be a SGI Green!

We acknowledge and respect the W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples, on whose territory we live.
The SGI EDA aims to work with them towards a meaningful and mutually beneficial reconciliation.