BC’s pulp and paper industry is reducing operations amid concerns of fibre shortages (Palmer) but there are solutions in plain sight (Elstone). In related news: globally, the pulp and paper industry is growing 2% annually. In other Business news: a US rail union rejects labour deal raising possibility of strike; Hurricane Ian damage estimates could reach $71 billion; and company updates on Kalesnikoff’s mass timber growth, and the Gorman Group operations.
In other news: ENGOs are suing the US Forest Service for fire retardant pollution; California’s private landowners struggle to prevent catastrophic wildfires; and researchers look to soil to understand how boreal forests store carbon, and the effects of mineral weathering on tropical forest productivity.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor
Home prices and rents will decline in the next year, on average, though different parts of the country will experience somewhat differing paths. In the aggregate, housing prices will decline for both homeowners and tenants. Before getting too glum, though, homeowners should acknowledge the 45% appreciation they have had, on average, over the last three years. Giving back a bit of that won’t be so terrible. And landlords have increased their rents by 30% in the same period; they can get by on a little less. On the owned property side, higher mortgage rates pack a very strong punch to the gut of prospective homebuyers. The recent 6.70% mortgage rate pushes monthly payments 54% higher than the 2021 average mortgage rate of 2.96% on the same loan amount. But with higher prices, buyers have to finance more. Thus homebuyers face a double-whammy pushing their mortgage payments up.
ORONO, Maine — Tropical forests can mitigate climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But as carbon dioxide levels continue to rise, some forests may not be able to sequester more of it because their habitats lack sufficient supplies of nutrients. Amanda Olsen, a University of Maine associate professor, says one way plants receive nutrients is through weathering, a process in which bedrock breaks down due to physical, chemical and biological forces and releases nutrients to soils. Determining if weathering releases minerals from bedrock fast enough to support tropical forest productivity, particularly in nutrient-poor areas, is the focus of her latest study in collaboration with Bill McDowell, a professor with the University of New Hampshire. The National Science Foundation awarded more than $311,000 for the project, which will examine chemical weathering in forested areas in southwestern Puerto Rico.
