Some old habits are difficult to break. Since the global pledge to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, 30 years of half-hearted trying has not stopped them from going up rather than down. The result is exactly as scientific modelling has predicted—global temperatures are rising. The year 2023 was the hottest in about 125,000 years after temperature records were recorded for consecutive months from June to December of 2023, and then for January and February of 2024. The final calculations for 2023 indicate that we have reached 1.32°C above the pre-industrial temperature, exceeding the 2019 record by 0.4°C. Yes, it’s a warmer El Niño year, but that only accounts for 0.2°C of the 1.32°C. New 2024 calculations indicate we have reached 1.48°C above historical levels.
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The Quadra Project – A Moral Dilemma
We don’t usually consider the moral implications of our carbon dioxide emissions, but an article in The Economist (December 23, 2023) presents this issue in the bluntest of terms. How many people are dying as a result of our personal contribution to the global warming crisis?
The mathematics to calculate this are not complicated. Consider the per capita emissions of each country in the world, count the number of people globally who die as a direct consequence of climate change, and it’s possible to determine the responsibility that each person has for the death of others.
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The Quadra Project – The Log Exporting Business
In response to Quadra Islanders’ concerns about the amount of our Island’s logs that are exported internationally rather than being processed in British Columbia, Mosaic sent an explanatory website link (https://www.mosaicforests.com/about-our-business#servinglocal). This link attempts to justify the exports, but it also reveals the wider social and economic strategy that guides Mosaic’s behaviour and its logging practices on both Quadra and elsewhere. It makes informative reading.
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The Quada Project: Beyond 1.5°C
The consensus of scientists is that limiting the global temperature rise of 1.5°C is no longer reachable, but limiting it to below 2.0°C is possible, according to an analysis of global information undertaken by the Inevitable Policy Response study from Britain (Jacob Thomae, New Scientist, 2 December 2023, “Keeping our Cool”). We were once on a path to 3.5°C, which has been reduced to 2.4°C by 2100. But the IPR study thinks that we have a 90% chance of holding the temperature increase to between 1.7 and 1.8°C, primarily because of the progress that has been made on green energy since the Paris Agreement in 2015. This is the good news.
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The Quadra Project: Cop 28
The 28th session of the United Nations’ Conference of the Parties, known as COP28, concluded at the end of 2023 in Dubai of the United Arab Emirates. It was as much a success as can be imagined when a so-called “petro state” is hosting and chairing an international meeting that hoped to reduce global carbon emissions.
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