Alberta: more bad news coming

[foenix]

Except, the plants and the oceans have had enough, saturated and can't sink anymore CO2....but sure keep pumping more out.

Evidence please

......that is the oceans ability to sink CO2 will greatly be diminished if we keep at the current rate. The pH of the oceans are already getting more acidic and affecting all sorts of marine life.

The ocean keeps sucking a colossal amount of CO2 from the air, but will it last?

At great cost to itself, Earth's vast sea has gulped up around 30 percent of the carbon dioxide humans emitted into Earth's atmosphere over the last century. Critically, scientists have now confirmed that the ocean has continued its steadfast rate of CO2 absorption in recent decades, rather than letting the potent greenhouse gas further saturate the skies.

The research, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that between 1994 and 2007, the oceans reliably sucked up about 31 percent of the carbon dioxide produced by humans, even as CO2 concentrations skyrocketed to their highest levels in at least 800,000 years. This means the ocean is now absorbing a significantly larger bulk of carbon, amounting to well over 2 trillion tons each year.

https://mashable.com/article/ocean-carb ... ate-change

[typhoon44]

Diane Francis: Canada is a giant carbon sink. Why are we not getting credit for it?

The United Nations Paris Agreement and its predecessors are a complete failure and they discriminate against Canada, which is why Canadians should demand changes immediately, or withdraw. There are two main reasons why.

First of all, the agreements exempt the world’s biggest polluters. They do not require all the countries that signed on to reduce emissions. So, of course, they haven’t: to date, of the 192 countries that signed on to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, only 37 developed countries have reduced CO2 emissions by seven per cent and the rest — led by China and India — increased emissions by 130 per cent. This is not an accord, it’s a joke.

Secondly, the agreements measure countries based on emissions, but ignore the other side of the environmental balance sheet, which is carbon absorption and offsets. Canada only emits 1.6 per cent of global carbon emissions now, but probably would not have any net emissions if its gigantic “carbon sink” — its inventory of forests, muskeg, water and soil assets that absorb carbon — were taken into consideration.

Canada, in fact, is one gigantic carbon sink — an empty land mass with very few people and an abundance of natural features that decarbonize the world.

*snip*

Environmentally, Canada has absolutely nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to correct … except for the federal government’s complete capitulation to an agreement that’s based on foreign propaganda and agendas.

https://financialpost.com/diane-francis ... dit-for-it

Except Canada isn't a carbon sink. Opinion is worthless without actual science.

[rustled]

Diane Francis: Canada is a giant carbon sink. Why are we not getting credit for it?

The United Nations Paris Agreement and its predecessors are a complete failure and they discriminate against Canada, which is why Canadians should demand changes immediately, or withdraw. There are two main reasons why.

First of all, the agreements exempt the world’s biggest polluters. They do not require all the countries that signed on to reduce emissions. So, of course, they haven’t: to date, of the 192 countries that signed on to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, only 37 developed countries have reduced CO2 emissions by seven per cent and the rest — led by China and India — increased emissions by 130 per cent. This is not an accord, it’s a joke.

Secondly, the agreements measure countries based on emissions, but ignore the other side of the environmental balance sheet, which is carbon absorption and offsets. Canada only emits 1.6 per cent of global carbon emissions now, but probably would not have any net emissions if its gigantic “carbon sink” — its inventory of forests, muskeg, water and soil assets that absorb carbon — were taken into consideration.

Canada, in fact, is one gigantic carbon sink — an empty land mass with very few people and an abundance of natural features that decarbonize the world.

*snip*

Environmentally, Canada has absolutely nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to correct … except for the federal government’s complete capitulation to an agreement that’s based on foreign propaganda and agendas.

https://financialpost.com/diane-francis ... dit-for-it

Except Canada isn't a carbon sink.

You know this, how?

Opinion is worthless without actual science.

Public policy is very often worthless without actual science, too.

We should all expect to see the actual science - a proper scientific evaluation of the amount of carbon absorbed by Canada's vast forests, agricultural land, muskeg, water, etc.

Canada has reportedly tried to make a case at the UN to fully include and properly evaluate our carbon absorption contribution, but to no avail. If true, that makes Ottawa’s negligence worse. The Government of Canada serves Canadians, not an international organization, and should never have taken no for answer.

Clearly, Canada’s federal government bought into a rigged, inaccurate system, when it should have insisted, at the very least, on an audit mechanism to quantify these carbon sinks and publish valid net-emissions figures. If done, that could become the basis for a world market for carbon-offset credits, where CO2 absorption becomes a saleable asset that polluters must buy.

Why have the UN and the Canadian government not addressed the lack of scientific evaluation? Why has the UN balked, why has our government not pressed?

Assets, liabilities AND equity. There's no point basing policy on an incomplete formula - complete the formula!

Instead, we are continually expected to willingly accept a carbon budget that we know is based on looking at only two parts of the balance sheet, while ignoring the third.

No sensible person would think it is reasonable to determine Canada's carbon contribution and the steps we must take to counteract our carbon contribution, while refusing to do the science required to calculate our carbon absorption contribution.

It's nonsense like this that convinces so many people the carbon/CAGW alarmism is entirely smoke and mirrors.

[foenix]

Ummmmm...........

But these optimistic scenarios of Canada’s carbon sequestration capacity do not withstand careful scrutiny. While Canada does have 347 million hectares of forest (just under 900 million acres), and while each hectare of mature forest can absorb about 6 tonnes of CO2 per year, unfortunately forests do not just store carbon — they also release it. Every year, millions of tonnes of CO2 is emitted as trees die and decompose, are disturbed by insects like the mountain pine beetle or are burned in forest fires. Fires in the boreal forest, for example, release about 170 tonnes of carbon dioxide per hectare burned. O’Leary’s numbers evidently don’t take carbon emissions from forests into account, while Martin’s numbers are based on a raw estimate of land mass, not a careful assessment of the relative contributions of forests, peatlands and farmlands.

Federal and provincial governments and independent scientists have carefully tracked and estimated carbon storage and emissions levels related to forestry and land use over the years, trying to determine if Canada’s forests, wetlands and farm soils are a net source or a sink of the world’s carbon. And in fact, natural and artificial carbon offsets are already part of our carbon reporting. Every year, Canada submits an estimate of carbon emissions and removals in the National Inventory Report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — the international carbon reporting framework underlying the Kyoto and Paris agreements. The results have varied widely from year to year, depending on the level of forest fire or insect activity and forestry practices. Canada’s forests have fluctuated from being a net sink of 115 million tonnes of carbon in 1992 to a net source of 221 million tonnes of emissions in 2015, with a wide range of results in years in between.

https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazine ... te-policy/

[fluffy]

We should all expect to see the actual science - a proper scientific evaluation of the amount of carbon absorbed by Canada's vast forests, agricultural land, muskeg, water, etc.

Excellent idea. That should keep those pesky environmentalists out of industry's way for another decade or two.

[rustled]

We should all expect to see the actual science - a proper scientific evaluation of the amount of carbon absorbed by Canada's vast forests, agricultural land, muskeg, water, etc.

Excellent idea. That should keep those pesky environmentalists out of industry's way for another decade or two.

If the scientists don't already know how much carbon is absorbed by similar forests, similar agricultural land, similar muskeg, similar water - and therefore cannot simply run calculations without spending a "decade or two", this tells us just how little science knows about carbon absorption.

Silly excuses for expending vast resources before we have properly determined what we need to do makes no sense to any rational person. "What does this actually do?" "We don't really know, but the UN says we should just throw a ton of our money and resources at it anyway."

It's nonsense like this that convinces so many people the carbon/CAGW alarmism is entirely smoke and mirrors.

[fluffy]

If the scientists don't already know how much carbon is absorbed by similar forests, similar agricultural land, similar muskeg, similar water - and therefore cannot simply run calculations without spending a "decade or two", this tells us just how little science knows about carbon absorption.

You read too much into my sarcasm. Scientists have been looking at this for some time now and have concluded that Canada's forests when considered as a whole, have already moved from net carbon storage to a net carbon source due to things like forest fires (more plentiful with a warming climate), insect infestations (also greater with a warming climate), human activity like removal or forests, and rotting biomass from dead and dying vegetation.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-87343-3

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/0 ... ling-drain

https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/climate-change/ ... rbon/13085

[rustled]

If the scientists don't already know how much carbon is absorbed by similar forests, similar agricultural land, similar muskeg, similar water - and therefore cannot simply run calculations without spending a "decade or two", this tells us just how little science knows about carbon absorption.

You read too much into my sarcasm. Scientists have been looking at this for some time now and have concluded that Canada's forests when considered as a whole, have already moved from net carbon storage to a net carbon source due to things like forest fires (more plentiful with a warming climate), insect infestations (also greater with a warming climate), human activity like removal or forests, and rotting biomass from dead and dying vegetation.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-87343-3

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/0 ... ling-drain

https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/climate-change/ ... rbon/13085

These are all partials, primarily considering forests and with an emphasized focus on emissions - just as the information available via the "Greenhouse gas sources and sinks: executive summary 2021, An inventory of the greenhouse gases in Canada for the year" on the government website also focus primarily on forests and emissions. Ihttps://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-ch ... -2021.html
It shouldn't escape our notice that forests are the most volatile of Canada's sinks - convenient for the dire warnings commonly associated with CAGW, the natural continuation of the "scary scenarios" and "dramatic statements" version of "doing science" these days.

There's no plain language balance sheet in your links, no clear calculation to show a bottom line. This is akin to producing ledger reports and PL statements for the shareholders and expecting us - the shareholder/taxpayers - to fail to not notice the missing section on the balance sheet, to not expect a complete accounting. Works for some, apparently!

We are expected to make do without the balance sheet because if the government or the UN actually HAS a balance sheet, they can't - or won't - show it. Which, again, is why so many people see the policies purported to address CAGW/carbon/etc. as smoke and mirrors.

[foenix]

Except Canada isn't a carbon sink.

You know this, how?

Opinion is worthless without actual science.

Public policy is very often worthless without actual science, too.

We should all expect to see the actual science - a proper scientific evaluation of the amount of carbon absorbed by Canada's vast forests, agricultural land, muskeg, water, etc.

Canada has reportedly tried to make a case at the UN to fully include and properly evaluate our carbon absorption contribution, but to no avail. If true, that makes Ottawa’s negligence worse. The Government of Canada serves Canadians, not an international organization, and should never have taken no for answer.

Clearly, Canada’s federal government bought into a rigged, inaccurate system, when it should have insisted, at the very least, on an audit mechanism to quantify these carbon sinks and publish valid net-emissions figures. If done, that could become the basis for a world market for carbon-offset credits, where CO2 absorption becomes a saleable asset that polluters must buy.

Why have the UN and the Canadian government not addressed the lack of scientific evaluation? Why has the UN balked, why has our government not pressed?

Assets, liabilities AND equity. There's no point basing policy on an incomplete formula - complete the formula!

Instead, we are continually expected to willingly accept a carbon budget that we know is based on looking at only two parts of the balance sheet, while ignoring the third.

No sensible person would think it is reasonable to determine Canada's carbon contribution and the steps we must take to counteract our carbon contribution, while refusing to do the science required to calculate our carbon absorption contribution.

It's nonsense like this that convinces so many people the carbon/CAGW alarmism is entirely smoke and mirrors.

That's the problem of falling for an article written by a decent journalist who doesn't seem to know her subject too well. It's clear Ms Francis thinks Canada is still considered a carbon sink but we haven't been that since 2011. We are now a carbon source so her whining about how Canada is getting ripped off by the UN misses it's mark by a wide margin.....in fact it's a swing and a big miss.

It's also clear from my link that there has been numerous studies and all sorts of science to attempt to track and quantify our carbon footprint which is passed along each year to determine our "assets", "liability" and "equity" to the UN. I'm sure some climate deniers will complain about the UN's process and the method of doing that but that's the system that is in place in which the participating countries signed on for but to write that there is no science behind Canada's effort in determining our carbon footprint is ridiculously wrong.

Federal and provincial governments and independent scientists have carefully tracked and estimated carbon storage and emissions levels related to forestry and land use over the years, trying to determine if Canada’s forests, wetlands and farm soils are a net source or a sink of the world’s carbon. And in fact, natural and artificial carbon offsets are already part of our carbon reporting. Every year, Canada submits an estimate of carbon emissions and removals in the National Inventory Report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 

[fluffy]

I see no background support in any of the posts claiming that our forests are a significant carbon sink either. It doesn't make sense, given the level of deforestation by fire, insect blight and resource extraction it's a no brainer that there are fewer trees today than there were before, and it's also a no-brainer that our man-made GHG emissions have grown hugely, of course we have pushed things out of balance. I'm much more inclined to beleive the science in the links I provided than to believe someone with an agenda for "business as usual" in our fossil fuel production and consumption.

[fluffy]

Regenerative agriculture: A better way to farm?

“It’s the soil that’s motivated me to look at things a little differently. The challenge is how do we turn that into profit?” said Boyd. “Obviously the traditional wheat-canola system has been very profitable. When you look at that, why would you bother trying to do anything different?

“But I’m at the beginning of my career and looking at the long game. We can do better, so we should be trying.”

https://www.albertafarmexpress.ca/crops ... y-to-farm/

I find this sort of thought encouraging, the future belongs to those who can look ahead, not those fixated on preserving an unsustainable status quo.

[ckil]

I see no background support in any of the posts claiming that our forests are a significant carbon sink either. It doesn't make sense, given the level of deforestation by fire, insect blight and resource extraction it's a no brainer that there are fewer trees today than there were before, and it's also a no-brainer that our man-made GHG emissions have grown hugely, of course we have pushed things out of balance. I'm much more inclined to beleive the science in the links I provided than to believe someone with an agenda for "business as usual" in our fossil fuel production and consumption.

There are more trees today than there was 100 years ago, but please provide me proof I am wrong. Insect and fire is a natural phenomenon that actually create cleaner and stronger forests. Give it up fluffy. Your world of Carbon is the devil simply is not true.

[Ka-El]

Yup, good old CO2. You do realize though that it is not the CO2 itself that is presenting the risk, but the fact the increased CO2 in the atmosphere is reflecting heat back at the planet and holding it there.

I realize that there is unproven scientific hypothesis, ….

The “greenhouse effect” we learned about in high school is an unproven scientific hypothesis? Oh my. Note, I never said anything about climate change being man caused if that was what you mistakenly thought I was saying. You should read the posts you reply to before responding.

[rustled]

I see no background support in any of the posts claiming that our forests are a significant carbon sink either.

Perhaps you missed them? These authors carefully choose their words to support the preferred narrative, referencing the NIR when the meat of the NIR is unavailable. Why?

You've also chosen to fixate on forests - again. Muskeg and agricultural land and water are all carbon sinks, too.

It doesn't make sense, given the level of deforestation by fire, insect blight and resource extraction it's a no brainer that there are fewer trees today than there were before, and it's also a no-brainer that our man-made GHG emissions have grown hugely, of course we have pushed things out of balance.

These are the forest-focused talking points to support the "scary scenarios" and "dramatic statements" narrative.

Several people have pointed out we should rely on the science, not on talking points and our own opinions. There's only partial science shared about Canada's carbon sinks. Why?

I'm much more inclined to beleive the science in the links I provided than to believe someone with an agenda for "business as usual" in our fossil fuel production and consumption.

I've not suggested anyone should disbelieve the science in the reports - simply called your attention to the science that's missing from the equation you're relying on for your opinion.

And my agenda is, as always, the full truth - you saying my agenda is "'business as usual' in our fossil fuel production and consumption" is incorrect, and repeating it won't make it the truth, either.

When some of the science necessary for a proper assessment of what should be done isn't available, I ask why.

Albertans who ask why are sensible people. IMO.

[foenix]

I see no background support in any of the posts claiming that our forests are a significant carbon sink either. It doesn't make sense, given the level of deforestation by fire, insect blight and resource extraction it's a no brainer that there are fewer trees today than there were before, and it's also a no-brainer that our man-made GHG emissions have grown hugely, of course we have pushed things out of balance. I'm much more inclined to beleive the science in the links I provided than to believe someone with an agenda for "business as usual" in our fossil fuel production and consumption.

There are more trees today than there was 100 years ago, but please provide me proof I am wrong. Insect and fire is a natural phenomenon that actually create cleaner and stronger forests. Give it up fluffy. Your world of Carbon is the devil simply is not true.

Pretty easy to find.....let me help.....

Every year, Canada submits an estimate of carbon emissions and removals in the National Inventory Report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazine ... te-policy/