The forces of yes: analyzing community-scale resistance to LNG development in British Columbia

• Main Author: Bishop, Emily Paige
• Other Authors: Shaw, Karena
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: LNG; resistance; extractivism; community-scale; climate change; fossil fuels; British Columbia; fisheries; alternative economies; solutions; fracked gas; opposition; NIMBY; Pacific; Tsimshian; Tsimshian*
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1828/11685

In this time of transition, when societies are struggling to reshape their energy systems to respond to the challenge of climate change, the role of community-scale resistance to new energy developments is particularly complex and important. The scale of needed changes is daunting: societies must not only change the energy sources they rely on, but in doing so will also change the structure and patterns of industrial societies. It is not surprising that this at times results in conflict and resistance at the community level. Opposition to proposed energy projects by communities is often dismissed as “NIMBY-ism”—a small-minded rejection of any change to local contexts—and portrayed as an impediment to progress. This thesis argues that opposition to new energy infrastructure is often a legitimate response from communities, arising not least from a connection to place, or to poor governance of energy development. Further, it argues that rather than being primarily an impediment to progress, community resistance offers important lessons to those seeking to advance rapid energy transitions to respond to climate change. Specifically, my work investigates the factors that motivated opposition to the proposed Pacific NorthWest liquified natural gas (LNG) terminal on Tsimshian territory in northwestern British Columbia. Drawing on field research including interviews with many who opposed this project, it examines the broader implications of opposition in the context of BC’s trajectory of extractive development. It finds that rather than expressing a naïve rejection of change or a resistance to progress, embedded in the resistance to this project were important critiques of contemporary governance processes; crucial local knowledge and insight about the importance of the ecology of the region and its potential to support healthy local economies under changing climactic conditions, and a nascent vision for the future of the region that was in conflict with the trajectory the project represented. As these findings suggest, ...