Smokestacks and tailpipes aren’t the only major source of emissions.
Credit: Wikimedia user: Dori
Although most people envision smokestacks and tailpipe exhaust when thinking about greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation is an often underreported component of our human contribution to climate change. Most estimates place carbon emissions from deforestation at somewhere between 12-25% of all human emissions at [...]

Today is World Water Day. With high temperatures scorching much of the United States and Canada many of you may be turning World Water Day into World Water Park Day, but regardless of how you spend it we should all spend a minute to appreciate the ultimate source of life on earth.
The UN’s theme this [...]

While many were excited to see Punxsutawney Phil, the famous groundhog of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, rise out of his hole facing his own shadow this morning (it looks like we’ll have 6 more weeks of winter), many others around the world are celebrating a separate event: World Wetlands Day.

Wetlands within the James Bay Lowlands of Ontario
Credit: [...]

Peatlands in Canada’s boreal forest.
Credit: Garth Lenz

Peatlands, those luxuriantly moss-capped, squishy, vast open spaces in the boreal underlain with yards-thick layers of undecomposed plant material, may not be the first habitats that people think of when talking about climate change. But they should be.
Though spanning only 3% of the Earth’s land area, peatlands store approximately [...]

We have noticed that as new scientific papers appear in the evolving field of climate change it can be easy to get confused about the difference between carbon uptake and carbon storage.
We, and many others have pointed out in numerous scientific papers, reports, letters, blogs, and other outlets the fact that there is more carbon [...]

Peatlands and wetlands store around one third of the world’s terrestrial carbon.
Credit: Garth Lenz
While the subject of peat may not conjure up the most passionate of responses from your average Joe, its global significance in the role of climate stability is undeniable.
Peatlands, traditionally wet accumulations of partially decayed vegetation which can someplaces be over ten feet thick, store exorbitant [...]

Intact  natural  forests are vital to climate regulation.
Credit: Garth Lenz
Until quite recently, a major factor increasing global warming problems had been largely ignored in the debates and discussions around climate change and what to do about it.
Emissions from land-use change, which mainly come from industrial development such as logging, mining, peat extraction and draining, and [...]

Take a quick guess – what is the most protected large forest landscape in the world?

Credit: Garth Lenz
Hint: It’s not the mighty Amazon, and it’s not the humid tropical forests painted across much of Southeast Asia.
If you guessed Canada’s Boreal Forest give yourself a pat on the back.
Last week at the 24th International Congress for [...]

The boreal forest circles the northern hemisphere like a “green scarf”
Credit: Global Forest Watch
The boreal forest is back in the news again for its increasingly recognized ability to absorb and store massive amounts of carbon. In addition to being an enormous breeding region for migratory birds, boreal forests are vitally important in efforts to mitigate [...]

Last week US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced the release of the 2010 State of the Birds Report, a collaborative report conducted by the DOI as well as several other notable bird and conservation groups. This year’s State of the Birds Report followed up on the troubling findings from the 2009 report, which [...]