John Swaan
PRINCE GEORGE, BC — A more progressive attitude toward the forest land base itself began a hesitant step forward in the region. …Harvesting and processing prime quality timber created growing volumes of wood waste. Dealing with the expanding mountains of the stuff became an increasingly urgent challenge. … John Swaan had a question: could pelletizing wood for fuel be made as feasible as pelletizing livestock food? It could but not easily. The quest took over the next 30 years or so for Swaan. Along the way, the journey took more twists and turns than an Alfred Hitchcock thriller. One of the early assists in the development came from a deal offered by Carrier Lumber in Prince George to build a standalone wood pellet mill. …This past October, John Swaan’s contributions were officially recognized by his peers at the Wood Pellet Association of Canada. He received a lifetime achievement award and was dubbed the “Godfather” of the Canadian wood pellet industry.
GATINEAU, Quebec — Federal, provincial, and territorial ministers and representatives responsible for conservation, wildlife, and biodiversity, met in Ottawa to renew their commitment toward enhancing nature conservation and sustainable use of nature in Canada. The ministers and representatives met last May 2023, when they committed to collective efforts toward halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030 and putting nature on a path to recovery by 2050. …Today, the ministers and representatives shared their respective initiatives to address biodiversity conservation and discussed the importance of accelerating the pace of action. …Heading into COP16, Canada has an opportunity to continue being a global leader in halting and reversing the biodiversity crisis. …The ministers will meet again next year to review Canada’s progress toward its objective of halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030 and putting nature on a path to recovery by 2050.
The federal government and companies that produce materials for the construction industry can play a significant role in helping to reduce the amount of carbon that is emitted each year. That’s the bottom line in a report from the Buy Clean Industry Alliance, a coalition of industry associations, think-tanks and labour and environmental groups which includes the Cement Association of Canada and Aluminum Association of Canada. The report, called Building Success: 
Summers keep getting hotter, and the consequences are impossible to miss. …One driving force behind these projections are the alternating Pacific Ocean climate patterns known as El Niño and La Niña, which can create huge shifts in temperature and precipitation across the North and South American continents. After almost a year of El Niño, La Niña is expected to take the reins sometime during the upcoming summer months. As climate change cooks the planet and the Pacific shifts between these two cyclical forces, experts say the conditions could be ripe for more extreme weather events. “We’ve always had this pattern of El Niño, La Niña. Now it’s happening on top of a warmer world,” said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, an environmental data science nonprofit. “We need to be ready for the types of extremes that have not been tested in the past.”
British Columbia’s CleanBC Industry Fund invests carbon taxes paid by large industries back into clean-technology projects that reduce emissions. …In 2023, 12 projects were approved under three funding streams for a total of $32.6 million. The recipients include… Skookumchuck Pulp in the Kootenbay region will demonstrate the direct firing of pulverized wood into its lime kiln to displace the combustion of natural gas without compromising lime production, quality or reliability. …Skookumchuk Pulp will also investigate the use of high-temperature pyrolysis on waste forestry residuals to produce high-quality/caloric content syngas while producing high-quality biochar….Canfor Pulp will explore the potential of renewable diesel as an alternative fuel to reduce emissions in the pulp industry’s transportation of raw materials. …Catalyst Paper will investigate options to enhance biofuel delivery at its Port Alberni site. Catalyst Paper will also investigate the opportunity of installing a heat-recovery system in the power boiler exhaust at its site. 
Central and southern Ontario and much of western Quebec are forecast to experience another day of sweltering weather. Environment Canada’s heat warnings say daytime highs are expected to hit 30 to 35 C, with the humidex making it feel closer to 40. And while the daytime hours are expected to be steamy, there may be some relief during the overnights. The agency says the lows can vary between 18 to 23 C. However, any benefit from the roughly 10-degree difference could very well be lost when factoring in humidex values of 26 to 30.
After more than three decades on Wall Street, Tom Montag thought he’d seen most forms of financial wizardry. Then Hank Paulson asked him to tackle carbon offsets. …The goal was to “unleash as much carbon finance as possible,” Montag said. But a string of scandals threw the anticipated boom into question. …Prices for carbon offsets tracked by MSCI peaked in 2022, when Paulson recruited Montag, and have been on a downward trajectory since. …Montag and other backers on Wall Street haven’t blinked. They’ve remained convinced companies and governments will eventually embrace carbon offsets as an indispensable climate solution in a world racing to reach net zero emissions. And last month, Rubicon signed a deal with Microsoft Corp., one of the world’s largest offset buyers, to generate credits from a tree-planting project in Panama. …Offset bulls recently scored big wins. The US just issued the US government’s first-ever official blessing of the credits.
The U.S. exported 819,341.5 metric tons of wood pellets in April, down from 938,662.3 metric tons the previous month, but up from 720,209.2 metric tons in April of last year, according to data released by the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service on June 6. The U.S. exported wood pellets to approximately 16 countries in April. The U.K. was the top destination for U.S. wood pellet exports at 500,136.1 metric tons, followed by Japan at 180,621 metric tons, France at 62,371.9 metric tons, the Netherlands at 32,400.9 metric tons and Belgium-Luxembourg at 24,717.8 metric tons.
WASHINGTON — Month after month, global temperatures are setting new records. Meanwhile, scientists and climate policymakers warn of the growing likelihood that the planet will soon exceed the warming target set at the landmark Paris 2015 climate talks. Making sense of the run of climate extremes may be challenging for some. Here’s a look at what scientists are saying. The European Union’s climate-watching agency Copernicus declared last month that it was the hottest May on record, marking the 12th straight monthly record high. Separately, the World Meteorological Organization estimated that there’s almost a one-in-two chance that average global temperatures from 2024 to 2028 will surpass the hoped-for warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times that was agreed in the Paris talks. And one more: Earth warmed at a slightly faster rate in 2023 than 2022, a group of 57 scientists determined in a report in the journal Earth System Science Data.:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/adn/3K4FWTD24BGMJJ2JXVRJRRCIHM.png)
Aymium, an innovator in renewable biocarbon solutions, has successfully secured $210 million in financing to build a new biocarbon production facility in Williams, California. Upon completion in 2025, the facility will be the world’s first large-scale, continuous operation dedicated to replacing coal with advanced biocarbon for power generation. The switch from coal to Aymium’s biocarbon is expected to cut greenhouse gas emissions by over 500,000 metric tons annually, which equates to removing more than 120,000 cars from the road each year. …In 2022, Aymium and Steel Dynamics formed SDI Biocarbon Solutions to develop a biocarbon production facility in Mississippi, which is set to become operational later this year. This initiative is poised to reduce Steel Dynamics’ Scope 1 emissions by up to 25% by replacing fossil fuels with renewable biocarbon in their steelmaking process. …Aymium’s biocarbon product is produced through an innovative non-combustion process, and is the only commercially demonstrated carbon-negative alternative to 
DOTHAN, Ala. – A site dedicated to sustainable and renewable bioenergy has made its home in Dothan, Alabama. A partnership between Rex Lumber and Brian Fehr Group led to the grand opening of Peak Renewable BioEnergy. Peak Renewables BioEnergy is a Canadian company that says it is dedicated to harnessing the power of renewable resources and sustainable practices to reduce its carbon footprint and ensure a sustainable, clean energy future. To achieve its goal, Peak Renewables manufactures fibrous utility wood pellets as an economical substitute for coal. The Dothan plant receives wood shavings from Rex Lumber plants in Alabama and Florida, then those shavings become wood pellets. After being created at the Dothan plant, the pellets are shipped to Europe. “This is just an expansion of [that] process and allows us to take our by-products and further use them in an environmental way”, said Caroline Dauzat, an owner of Rex Lumber.
Climate change is likely to drive tree species towards colder and wetter regions of their geographical distribution, a new study has shown. The research, led by the University of Alcalá, in Spain, and including researchers at the University of Birmingham, draws together data from across Europe and North America to show that tree species in the Northern Hemisphere are starting to become denser in colder and wetter regions. The study provides the first quantitative evidence that climate change is driving this change in the numbers of trees of each species across temperate forests on a continental scale. The researchers analysed data from over two million trees, representing 73 species widely distributed across Europe and the United States. …Understanding how forest species are responding to climate change through increasing their density in these more northerly regions is essential for planning ecosystem conservation, management and restoration.
…One of the key advantages of biomass is its carbon neutrality. While burning biomass does release carbon dioxide (CO2), the amount released is roughly equal to the CO2 absorbed by the plants during their growth. This creates a closed carbon cycle that significantly mitigates the impact of global warming compared to fossil fuels, which release carbon that has been sequestered underground for millions of years. Moreover, biomass energy production can help reduce waste. Organic waste materials, which would otherwise decompose in landfills and produce methane (a potent greenhouse gas), can be utilized to generate energy, experts from 
Forests are great carbon sinks. Globally, forests remove nearly all of the two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide that is currently being removed from the atmosphere every year. These days, companies can buy “carbon credits” for the carbon that is stored in living forests and offset this against their own greenhouse gas emissions. International financiers estimate that by 2050, Africa could be selling US$1.5 trillion in carbon credits per year, mainly from its forests. Environmental social scientists Constance L. McDermott, Eric Mensah Kumeh and Mark Hirons are co-authors of a