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Sherry Heschuk's avatar

For this reason we have more power if we have the opportunity to share this information with those who are still experiencing impacts by polluting industry.

Thirteen oil and gas corporations operating or based in Canada are also on the list of 88 big carbon polluters being called out for a major share of the forested lands lost to wildfires in North America between 1986 and 2021.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/acbce8/pdf

I am in Southern California and will be visiting the University perhaps to ask this researcher about her study. The letter provided some really devastating statistics. Watch her video on the link above it is only 1 minute. Her last statement is very eye opening.

See the video by Kristina Dahl.

“What we found is those fossil fuel producers and cement manufacturers are responsible for almost 40% of the area of western US and southwestern Canadian forests that burned since the mid 80’s. And they are responsible for about half of the increase in fire danger conditions that’s happened over the last century”.

Previous research has linked fires and it’s human causes by these extraction industries oil and gas and cement manufacturers. This letter was published in Feb 2023. So I hope to hear back about the issues. My colleague, Dr. David Ellison has a power point from our last Task Force meeting with the United Nations and his assessment of forests from his two studies recently published.

Kristine Dahl’s email is

kdahl@ucsusa.org

David Ellison’s email is

ellisondl@gmail.com

Both Kristine’s letter and David’s presentation are available in the attachments below.

To learn more please visit the UN’s webpage dedicated to the Safe operations and closure of coal mines will find an agenda.

https://unece.org/sustainable-energy/events/fifth-meeting-task-force-safe-operations-and-closure-coal-mines

Links to these studies include a reference to coal mines and water resources

Quantifying the contribution of major carbon producers to increases in vapor pressure deficit and burned area in western US and southwestern Canadian forests

To cite this article: Kristina A Dahl et al 2023 Environmental Research Letters https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/acbce8

On the Objectives of Landscape Restoration: Forest Carbon, Water, and Energy Cycle Synergies & Nature-Based Solutions

DAVID ELLISON Natural Resource Group (NARP)

Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich Land systems and sustainable land management (LS-SLM) Geography Institute U. Been UNECE, Geneva Switzerland June 11, 2024

https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2024-07/Ellison_On%20the%20Objectives%20of%20Landscape%20Restoration_UNECE_June_11th_2024_0.pdf

Two of his studies are available Even cooler insights: On the power of forests to (water the Earth and) cool the planet https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.17195. Some conclusions are

Each tree is a carbon sink, each tree is a cooling tower, each tree is a potential source of future rainfall.

Degraded landscapes contribute to the land heat sink and promote additional warming

Degraded landscape restoration is necessary to reverse warming and improve the cooling power of trees, forest and vegetation cover.

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Sherry Heschuk's avatar

“Adopt a cumulative effects strategy in the regulations that adequately addresses the consequences of numerous and ongoing industrial impacts on the landscape, and how these negatively affect water quality. Currently, the regulations fail to consider the impact that multiple coal mines have on a watershed. They also fail to effectively address the impacts of other activities on the same landscape; assessing multiple uses at a landscape-level is integral to understanding how coal mines further exacerbate regions that are already under pressure. This includes capturing the effects of forestry, agriculture, and recreational activities, in addition to those contributed by a current or future mine.”

These were my comments at the first meeting for the Task Force on June 14, 2023 and by the fourth meeting I had received confirmation to have a receipt of his study submissions. Page 3 (k) Some new ideas were also presented mine is above (ii)

https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2023-07/20230614%20TF%20on%20Safe%20Operations%20and%20Closure%20of%20Coal%20Mines%20-%201st%20meeting%20-%20Summary%20v2.pdf

For the second meeting of the Task Force on Safe operations and closure of coal mines https://unece.org/info/events/event/383387

Two case studies one from Poland and my case study from Cardinal River Mine in Canada were presented. https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2023-11/20231026%20TF%20on%20Safe%20Operations%20and%20Closure%20of%20Coal%20Mines%20-%202nd%20meeting%20-%20Summary.pdf

My case study was of Cardinal River Mine (shared in folder for UNECE attendees only) on SharePoint so information is available in my Google drive https://docs.google.com/file/d/1YCu4YtmeS8cngMdc_hOpKB6Zh3qrkKTE/edit?usp=docslist_api&filetype=msword I have since included the methane portion of the project

We understood that water was to be addressed and therefore we made our request. On the fifth meeting he made the presentation to the attendees and it was the last meeting of the task force.

The fifth and final meeting on June 11, 2024 was the presentation by Dr. Ellison.

You can just google First meeting of the Task Force on Safe Operations and Closure of Coal Mines and fourth meeting.

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David William Jackson's avatar

The current coal royalty act in Alberta is 1 dollar per tonne. One loonie per tonne. Sellers beware as the coal sells for 150 dollars a tonne.

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Jill's avatar

Commenting on Spray Lakes logging practices, Tim Juhlin said, "It’s beneficial to wildlife to have a natural disturbance – something that logging actually helps with. We’re trying to go into this area, make a fairly significant disturbance and then stay out of there for many years.”

Juhlin also said said he couldn’t comment on whether the trout stream had been impacted.

Not sure why he thinks he's qualified now.

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