The UN’s warning of an ‘unliveable world‘ creates a new challenge—doom talk—the feeling that nothing can be done, so why bother. In related news: forests can help; and planting is essential to carbon removal. Meanwhile: Alberta launches new wildfire dashboard; thinning offsets forest management costs in Oregon; and old growth protests return to BC streets and schools.
In Business news: the European Union to ban imports of Russian wood; war impacts US, Australian and Malaysian wood markets; court orders Nova Scotia into mediation with Northern Pulp; and Fast + App unveil hub to advance wood construction research and testing.
Finally, BC top forester Diane Nicholls joins Drax as VP of Sustainability for North America.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor
British Columbia has expanded whistleblower protection to additional agencies, boards and commissions. Effective April 1, 2022, more employees will be protected by the Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA) as part of a phased expansion that will bring more public-sector organizations under the act. PIDA allows employees to confidentially share information about a serious wrongdoing that affects the public interest with designated officers within their organizations or to the Office of the Ombudsperson. It also provides protection to employees who participate in PIDA investigations from reprisals, such as demotion, termination or other measures that adversely affect the employee’s work conditions. It also ensures employees under investigation are treated fairly. Agencies brought under the Act include: Forest Appeals Commission and Forest Practices Board…%20(1).jpg)
Since the beginning of March, Save Old Growth has been interrupting classes at SFU and UBC once a week to raise awareness for their environmental activism campaign. The campaign aims to stop old-growth logging in BC by blocking the Trans-Canada Highway. Although there are some classes selected at random, they’ve been aiming to interrupt forestry classes at UBC and environmental science classes at SFU. …“In some classes, we get applauded, in others, we get booed,” saidSave Old Growth founding member Zain Haq, “If you hand out someone a leaflet in the hallway, it’s easy to ignore, but you can’t ignore people who are non-violently interrupting classes and telling the truth about the climate emergency … nature will kill us if we don’t act now.”
As the climate crisis worsens, it becomes crucial that we protect a valuable resource for mitigating rising global temperatures. Forests are important parts of our environment, particularly for maintaining biodiversity and providing habitats for wildlife, but also because they act as carbon sinks. This means that forests take in, or absorb, more carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere than they release. This ability to act as a carbon sink is important as it provides benefits for alleviating the dangerous impacts of climate change. This occurs by decreasing atmospheric temperatures and preventing the increase of global temperatures that would rise because of greenhouse gas emissions and further worsen the climate crisis. …An action as simple as planting a tree could be a notable contribution to global efforts to combat climate change!
It’s not the end of the world. It only seems that way. Climate change is going to get worse, but as gloomy as the latest scientific reports are, scientist after scientist stresses that curbing global warming is not hopeless. The science says it is not game over for planet Earth or humanity. Action can prevent some of the worst if done soon, they say. After decades of trying to get the public’s attention, spur action by governments and fight against organized movements denying the science, climate researchers say they have a new fight on their hands: doomism. It’s the feeling that nothing can be done, so why bother. It’s young people publicly swearing off having children because of climate change. …“We are not through a threshold or past the threshold. There’s no such thing as pass-fail when it comes to the climate crisis.”
OSLO – Extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by planting forests and developing controversial high-tech industries will be essential to meet global goals to curb climate change, a U.N. report said. The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said the world could, in theory, halve emissions by 2030. But it added that radical reductions in greenhouse gases would be insufficient to achieve targets. In addition, it said, the world will need “carbon dioxide removal” (CDR) technologies – ranging from planting trees that soak up carbon to grow, to costly and energy-intensive technologies to suck carbon dioxide directly from the air. …Poorly managed, forest planting can take land from crops needed to feed an expanding world population. Trees take years to grow and are also vulnerable to loggers, land clearance, pests, disease and a hotter climate that may threaten forests like the Amazon with more droughts and wildfires.