“Green Light,” My Profile of Tzeporah Berman
Posted: October 14th, 2009 | Author: James Glave | Filed under: Published Work | Tags: carbon, IPP, Renewable Energy, run-of-river, Tzeporah |
The original tree-hugger.
Berman is a Canadian climate activist of considerable influence who has inserted herself at the center of a significant green-energy backlash here in her home province of British Columbia. A fierce public debate rages here over “run of river” hydro power projects, which temporarily divert river water to spin turbines. The resulting electricity is carbon-free, but opponents of the projects claim the schemes aren’t as green as they claim to be. The fight is getting very nasty. As the story documents, at one point Berman’s support for renewable-energy development led to a threat of professional blackmail.
Check out “Green Light,” published in the November 2009 issue of Vancouver magazine.
Green Light, [Web version at Vanmag.com]
Green Light, [2.3 MB .PDF FILE]
Enlightening article and really defines a trend that I have been noticing. I’m no expert by any means on environmental issues, but it’s seemed to happen so rapidly over the past 5 years or so that people have become more environmentally concious.
The thing is how scattershot the environmental movement is. There are lots of people who want to “go green” but have no idea what movements to support.
Also with saving cute animals or a local river it’s so tangible, but it’s in the technical things like lawmaking and carbon credit systems that maybe we can keep this planet from getting anymore messed up. The problem is huge but people do want to cling to the smaller issues.
The climate crisis is only one part of the larger picture that includes the water and biodiversity crises. All are related. To focus just on GHG, although urgent, should not be an the expense of the rest.
I’m a “greenie” with an eco-footprint of less than 1.7 ha, who will never own a car and who donates to WCMC, Suzuki Foundation, Greenpeace, etc.
But I’m also a businessman or as we like to say environmental entrepreneur with interests in “questionable” areas such as carbon credits and large-scale renewable power plants.
Business and the power sector need to change. But so does individual behaviour. We need both Bremen and WCMC. The furry animals are the only (or first) link to nature for some people and nothing beats getting people outdoors, but the big changes have to happen in the board rooms, and enviros have to speak that language and take over from the inside.
They only mistake in my mind that Bremen has made is to focus too much on “power up.” It is about “power change.” And “power down” in some cases. Canada per capita is one of the most polluting and energy consuming societies on the planet. We can do a lot better and set an example to developing countries.
Sorry that should be WCWC. Brain doesn’t work sometimes.
But wait… Isn’t anything that isn’t BC Hydro evil??? Private power???
It does make me sad that people can’t open their minds to other solutions and get the education needed before actually campaigning against something.
Funny you bring up Norse Saga. Last time I was in Norway a family member was getting the permits and going through the motions to set up a green power generator on a river on his property. The goal was to take a large part of the town off of the grid. He mentioned that we should do the same thing in Canada and couldn’t understand when I tried to explain all the red tape and hypocrisy one would have to go through. To the Norwegians it just makes good sense.
We look forward to seeing his completed project on our upcoming trip back and I hope Canadians can bring themselves to get educated and get away from media hype.