Congratulations to Arthur Williams for presenting two logical editorials on greenhouse gas (GHG). It is by understanding GHG and managing emissions that we can make improvements. Co2, the most referred to GHG, is both necessary and beneficial - the same as fire. Plants need a minimum of 150m ppm just to survive and prefer 1,000 ppm. The world CO2 average is now 400 ppm.
CO2 concentrations vary during the year, increasing September through April then significantly decreasing May through August while plants are growing in the Northern Hemisphere. One might consider that the vegetation in Canada, and B.C. specifically, is responsible for a significant amount of the summer CO2 reduction. Canada would absorb 20 - 40 per cent of the world CO2 emissions while producing 1.9 per cent. It is easy to conclude that Canada is a net-negative producer of CO2.
One way to promote world GHG reductions is to encourage CO2 production in B.C./Canada where the CO2 can be absorbed instead of in some barren seaside country where there are no restrictions and no vegetation and CO2 exists only as a GHG - until it finds its way to Canada.
CO2 is an asset when converted to fibre. We need it for food production. Those grains you eat - they contain carbon from CO2. The trees we harvest - the fibre is carbon from CO2. Like fire, CO2 is both necessary and advantageous - it is our ability to manage that is the issue. We can start managing by promoting CO2 production where and when it is a benefit - here in B.C. - not in some foreign land.
How about a copper smelter for the north? We have natural gas electricity for the process instead of coal and we have forests. Further, the overseas transportation of concentrate and coal would be eliminated. It's time to move on from intellectual identification of a problem and time to focus on workable solutions.
Gerry Lundquist
Prince George
