Tag Archives: Carbon Sinks

Energy, Forests

Talk Is Cheap, Part 1: BC Fails to Fulfill its Carbon, Climate, Forestry Promises

The government of Canada, and the BC government, state publicly that they are committed to carbon reduction and proactive responses to climate change; yet both Canada and BC remain consistently among the world’s top carbon emitters per capita. In 2019 Canada was the world’s highest carbon emitter per capita.

On the one hand, our government proposes initiatives that would improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions — in sectors like transportation and construction. But on the other hand, they continue to subsidise existing and new fossil-fuel projects such as LNG Canada and the Coastal Gaslink pipeline — to expand fracking.

Canada’s Liberal government spent $4.5B to purchase the Trans-Mountain Pipeline in 2018, only to announce in Spring 2022 that no further funding would be allocated to the project as cost overruns neared 70%. But wasting money may be the least of our problems. These fossil-fuel projects have huge carbon impacts.

Continue reading Talk Is Cheap, Part 1: BC Fails to Fulfill its Carbon, Climate, Forestry Promises →
Forests

David Shipway’s public letter to Mosaic

Attn: Colin Koszman/ Land Use Forester, Molly Hudson/ Director of Sustainability

itI started my working life in the late 60’s, surveying cutblocks and new roads with MacMillan Bloedel on many of the lands now being managed by Mosaic – up in the headwaters of the Oyster, the Quinsam, the Campbell, the Eve and the Salmon. I witnessed the last of the valley bottom old growth being logged, magnificent cedar groves that would now be considered a national treasure, and saw the montaine plateaus of Mountain Hemlock, ancient Yellow Cedar and Western Yew before anyone had touched them.

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Environment

Coastal carbon capture project aims to sink emissions in ocean floor and turn them to stone

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A team of scientists believes it has a “rock-solid” way to combat the climate crisis by sucking carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it deep below the ocean floor. 

The proposed Solid Carbon project aims to scrub vast amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and inject it nearly three kilometres beneath the ocean’s surface into basalt aquifers where it will eventually transform into rock. 

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Cost of Climate Change

Canada must deeply invest in oceans to combat climate change

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Canada must exploit the advantages its three coasts provide and stop sidelining oceans and the critical role they can play in tackling the climate crisis, marine ecologist Julia Baum says.

“We need to quit treating the ocean as a niche issue,” said Baum, President’s Chair at the University of Victoria, whose research examines the impacts of global warming on oceans and what they can contribute to climate change solutions. 

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Cost of Climate Change

Oceans will determine if we sink or swim when it comes to achieving our climate goals

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The world’s oceans suck up a huge chunk of human-caused emissions, but their role in mitigation strategies and targets is largely absent from critical negotiations underway at the UN climate conference in Glasgow, Canadian scientist Anya Waite says. 

Continue reading Oceans will determine if we sink or swim when it comes to achieving our climate goals →