Climate change costing billions – just for starters
By Don Elzer
The Mountain Pine Beetle presents a tremendous challenge to British Columbia and the planet right now. Recently, I toured the Blackwater River area west of Quesnel where I drove through decaying forest for hours; the BC Interior including the Okanagan sits within the largest dead forest ever recorded on the planet which is also poised to be one of the largest contributors of carbon emissions on Earth.
A new report describes the mountain pine beetle epidemic as "a slow-moving natural disaster," but says there is time to plan how to handle the economic fallout.
The challenge is daunting, as beetle killed wood begins to decay it will present serious emissions into the atmosphere, and if it should burn, it will change the face of the planet.
In a report released this month, the Cariboo-Chilcotin Beetle Action Coalition called on the federal and provincial governments to help the area head off a total economic collapse in which mills could close, 4,000 jobs could be lost and entire communities could face depopulation as people leave in search of work.
Douglas Fir’s struggle for water in the BC Interior
By Don Elzer
Everyday, we can observe our planet changing around us and scientists are confirming such observations. But as they dig deeper into the details of why our climate is changing they are discovering that the living world exists in a balance of connections all depending on one another.
Amphibians, reigning survivors of past mass extinctions, are sending a clear, unequivocal signal that something is wrong, as their extinction rates rise to unprecedented levels, according to a paper published this past month by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Humans are exacerbating two key natural threats – climate change and a deadly disease that is jumping from one species to another.
The Columbia Spotted Frog - The current extinction rate of amphibians is cause for alarm, according to biologists.
The dawn of a new generation of solar energy
Enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind
By Don Elzer
Science, technology and civilization have at least one thing in common. They all advance through small minute events and discoveries that are made up of an infinite number of choices, which collectively over time lead to fantastic advancements.
But, often as we advance, there are disastrous mistakes along the way. Our consumptive habits are now changing the planet. Today the greatest energy frontier is inside the quantum world of quarks, photons, and space-time foam.
Tiny waves or particles of energy studied within the realm of quantum physics has helped create a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source.
This past month MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.
Drainage into the Columbia River system: A two degree C warming by the 2040s is likely to lead to sharply reduced summer flows coinciding with sharply rising demand.
Recently the U.N. Environment Programme reported that data from close to 30 reference glaciers in nine mountain ranges indicated that between the years 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 the average rate of melting and thinning more than doubled.
In the BC interior these findings have real consequences. "Heavily-utilized water systems of the western US and Canada, such as the Columbia River, that rely on capturing snowmelt runoff will be especially vulnerable," says the Fourth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
This doesn’t bode well for the Okanagan, which is part of the Columbia drainage and is in a unique geographic location that doesn’t receive the benefits of a great deal of mountain snowmelt. Instead it depends largely on highland plateaus that are themselves becoming drier.
