In the 1970s, there was an enigmatic statement made by Paul Ehrlich, the eminent Stanford University ecology professor.

He said the worst thing that could happen to humanity would be to find a clean, cheap, limitless source of energy. It seemed odd at the time and it still does. Yet, its truth is obvious when one thinks about it.

Energy is defined as “the ability to do work.” Our current climate crisis is due to the profligate use of energy by wealthy countries. A big part of the problem is the production of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, still our most important source of energy.

Renewable energy sources are growing rapidly every year and our use of fossil fuels are predicted to reach a peak before 2030 and then decline. Yet climate change is not just due to fossil fuels, nor is their decline necessarily going to end climate change.

In the last 20 years in B.C., we have been unable to substantially reduce our fossil fuel use due to a lack of political will, a growing population and the growing LNG industry. However, there is a bigger source of greenhouse gases, bigger than the GHGs reported by the B.C. government. That is our forests, once a major carbon sink.

Until 2003, our forests absorbed more GHGs than........

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