Tag Archives: BC emissions

Forests

Logging pollution is on the rise — but don’t expect to find it on the accounting books

By Natasha Bulowski, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

As the world uses more and more wood over the next few decades, the planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions associated with logging will rise, new research predicts.

Yet many of these emissions are not currently attributed to the logging industry because widely used accounting methods leave the impression that wood harvests only marginally increase carbon emissions or don’t increase them at all, according to new research published in Nature.

Continue reading Logging pollution is on the rise — but don’t expect to find it on the accounting books →
Cost of Climate Change

Highway wildfire closure drives home B.C.’s need to think big about climate measures

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

British Columbia’s enormous effort to speed the partial reopening of Highway 4 on Vancouver Island — closed for upwards of two weeks due to a wildfire — is another illustration of the dramatic costs tied to climate impacts, says an economist.

“It’s a huge hit to the restaurants, hotels, and all the services that would normally be making money at this time of year and potentially jeopardizes their whole summer,” said Marc Lee, senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

“The economic disruption and costs associated with already existing climate change is something that we don’t often think about enough.”

The province’s Transportation Ministry has been pulling out the stops to get the key transportation corridor — the only paved road serving Port Alberni, numerous First Nations and the West Coast tourist hot spots of Ucluelet and Tofino — open to single-lane alternating traffic by the weekend.

Continue reading Highway wildfire closure drives home B.C.’s need to think big about climate measures →
Energy, Indigenous Nations

Heightened need for clean energy prompts BC Hydro to put call out for new sources

By Mina Kerr-Lazenby, North Shore News, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

BC Hydro will be issuing a call for new sources of renewable, emission-free electricity, with applications to open in the spring of next year.

The call out, the first to come from BC Hydro in 15 years, has been prompted by an accelerated need for clean energy, said Premier David Eby on Thursday, at a media event at the Tsleil-Waututh Nation administration building in North Vancouver.

Eby said an additional 3,000 gigawatt hours per year of renewable energy, enough electricity to power 270,000 homes in B.C, is needed by 2028 – three years earlier than previously estimated.

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Transportation

Will B.C.’s shift to clean transportation take rural communities along for the ride? ​​​​​​​

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The B.C. government needs to ensure rural and Indigenous communities are not left in the dust as the province shifts gears to achieve a net-zero future and a clean transportation network, a coalition of climate and community groups say. 

The province is in the process of shaping its Clean Transportation Action Plan (CTAP), but so far, B.C.’s core strategy to reduce emissions is making the switch to single-passenger electric vehicles in urban areas, says Eric Doherty, a transportation planning consultant and member of Climate Justice Victoria. 

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Cost of Climate Change

The Quadra Project: Logging’s Carbon – Part 1

Click here to access part two

The global climate crisis is forcing us to restructure our thinking about almost everything we do. In the last two centuries, rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the single most influential greenhouse gas, have risen from 280 parts per million to 419 ppm, and are now threatening to literally cook us off the planet. At the seemingly modest temperature rise of 1.2°C, we are already starting to experience the disastrous effects on climate, species, ocean levels, weather patterns, food production, human health, and our general sense of physical and psychological wellbeing. Meanwhile, as carbon dioxide emissions continue to go up rather than down, the circumstances invite a paradigm shift in our thinking.

Continue reading The Quadra Project: Logging’s Carbon – Part 1 →