I am from Germany and moved to British Columbia with my wife and daughter in 2006. Our original plan was to stay for two years but we fell in love with the spectacular natural beauty of this province. No wild places like the B.C. coast remain in Germany. The idea of losing the wholeness of this landscape, First Nations cultures, the salmon, bears and whales to a catastrophic tanker or pipeline accident is heartbreaking.

Extract: The Pipeline Wars is an explosive, shocking warning that if the Northern Gateway pipeline goes ahead, it's checkmate for climate change as Earth's icecaps melt, oceans rise, and ultimately people and animals die as billions of tons of greenhouse gases are pumped into the sky.

The same U.S. foundations that fund conservation in Canada also fund American groups working towards energy security, including a foundation called Securing America's Future Energy. The name says it all. American foundations aim to reduce fossil fuel dependence to stop global warming and strengthen U.S. national, energy and economic security. That's clear. What's unclear is whether they fund conservation initiatives in Canada, in part, to foster U.S. energy security.

Apparently, American environmentalists have put huge areas of Canada off-limits to development as de facto trade barriers that enforce a U.S. monopoly on our exports, while at the same time as they want to drop our exports to the U.S. to zero. Or something. This supposed scandal has been hiding in plain sight for almost a decade, and almost none of the key facts holds up to scrutiny. A veritable cottage industry has grown up promoting one of the most politically convenient conspiracy theories in recent memory.

"Art for an Oil Free Coast" will open for just a few days on Granville Island featuring a film, book and art exhibit featuring dozens of British Columbia's most talented and acclaimed visual artists. The exhibit -- designed to stimulate discussion about the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline in Kitimat, B.C. -- will then travel to Victoria, Saltspring Island and beyond.

Proponents of the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal seem hell-bent for leather on conducting what may be the most inept natural resource project application in B.C. history. Their place in the Canadian business school textbooks is assured, under the heading "Enbridge to Nowhere."

Raincoast Conservation Foundation is excited to present the documentary film, Reflections: Art for an Oil-Free Coast, which shares the story of an expedition of artists into the truly stunning and remote landscape of British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest, weaving together the artists' work and their emotional response to a region and people at risk.