This article was written by Seth Borenstein and was published in the Toronto Star on August 9, 2023.
Now that last month’s sizzling numbers are all in, the European climate monitoring organization made it official: July 2023 was Earth’s hottest month on record by a wide margin.
July’s global average temperature of 16.95 C was a third of a degree Celsius higher than the previous record set in 2019, Copernicus Climate Change Service announced Tuesday.
Normally, global temperature records are broken by hundredths or a tenth of a degree, so this margin is unusual.
The United States is now at a record 15 different weather disasters that caused at least $1 billion (U.S.) in damage this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Tuesday.
It’s the most mega-disasters through the first seven months of the year since the agency tracked such things starting in 1980, with the agency adjusting figures for inflation.
“These records have dire consequences for both people and the planet exposed to ever more frequent and intense extreme events,” said Copernicus deputy director Samantha Burgess.
There have been deadly heat waves in the southwestern United States and Mexico, Europe and Asia. Scientific quick studies put the blame on human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.
The previous single-day heat record was set in 2016 and tied in 2022. From July 3, each day has exceeded that record.
It’s been so warm that Copernicus and the World Meteorological Organization made the unusual announcement that it was likely the hottest month days before it ended. Tuesday’s calculations made it official.
“We should not care about July because it’s a record, but because it won’t be a record for long,” said Imperial College of London climate scientist Friederike Otto.
“It’s an indicator of how much we have changed the climate. We are living in a very different world, one that our societies are not adapted to live in very well.”
“It’s a stunning record and makes it quite clearly the warmest month on Earth in 10,000 years,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research in Germany. He wasn’t part of the Copernicus team.
‘‘ We should not care about July because it’s a record, but because it won’t be a record for long.
This article was written by Steve Lorteau, Audrey-Ann Deneault, and Jean-Francois Bureau, and was published in the Globe & Mail on August 9, 2023.
Children watch heavy smoke from the Eagle Bluff wildfire in Osoyoos, B.C., in July.
More than 78 per cent of young Canadians say climate change has affected mental health
Steve Lorteau is an SJD candidate in the faculty of law at the University of Toronto.
Audrey-Ann Deneault is a postdoctoral research fellow in the department of psychology at the University of Calgary.
Jean-François Bureau is a professor in the school of psychology at the University of Ottawa.
The Canadian wildfires over the last few months serve as a stark reminder of the far-reaching consequences of climate change.
Children, especially those with asthma, face heightened health risks owing to wildfire smoke. In some regions, concerns about decreased air quality have led to school closures and cancelled extracurricular activities. Distressing videos of smoke-filled cityscapes have gone viral on social media.
As climate change intensifies, wildfires, along with floods, droughts and extreme temperatures, will be increasingly common.
As researchers in climate law and psychology, we believe that it is critical for parents, caregivers and educators to consider discussing climate change with children and youth.
All United Nations member states, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and more than 99 per cent of climate scientists, accept that human activities cause climate change.
As climate change intensifies, future generations will inherit a profoundly altered planet. They will inhabit a planet with poorer air quality, heightened risk of illnesses like Lyme disease and a myriad of other detrimental medical conditions.
Given its drastic effects, climate change can prompt understandable feelings of anxiety about the future. A recent worldwide study found that 84 per cent of 16- to 25-year-olds expressed at least moderate worries about climate change. In Canada, more than 78 per cent of young people have reported that climate change has affected their mental health.
Children with such anxious feelings are more likely to feel depressed, sad and less motivated in their lives.
Since younger generations are likely to experience the more drastic effects of climate change, they also need to be part of the solution. Thankfully, young people have already emerged as trailblazers.
This is important because children concerned with the effects of climate change can inspire pro-environmental behaviours in themselves and others.
Young activists, including Australia’s Anjali Sharma, Canada’s Sophia Mathur, Germany’s Luisa Neubauer, Sweden’s Greta Thunberg and the United States’ Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, have led legal challenges urging governments to accelerate climate response efforts.
These legal challenges show the increasing concerns about the effects of climate change on Generation Z and future generations.
Given that children and youth suffer the consequences of climate change and are called to play a key role in mitigating its effects, it is important to engage in discussions about climate change with them, even when it’s hard.
Parents and caregivers may have different reasons for not discussing climate change with their children. Some may find it difficult to explain technical climate science facts, particularly to young children. Others may intuitively want to shield their children from the worrying effects of climate change, thus avoiding the topic.
Despite these concerns, it is important to have open and honest discussions with children about climate change.
Climate change is having major consequences on our world, sparking conversations in classrooms and on social media. It is important for parents to join these discussions to help instill values and create an open space for children to discuss their thoughts and feelings about climate change.
Sometimes, this may mean having honest conversations about the upcoming challenges. At other times, this may mean providing comfort and reassurance about the future.
THE THREE ES
In thinking about how to discuss climate change with children and youth, remember the three Es: engage, educate and empower. This can help parents and caregivers instill hope and resilience in the next generation.
1. ENGAGE
You can engage your kids through conversation. UNICEF advises initiating discussions about children’s understanding of climate change and their feelings toward it. The recent wildfires provide an easy example of how climate change affects our daily lives.
These conversations open avenues for parents and caregivers to delve into their child’s hopes and fears regarding our changing environment. They also provide space to explore our values and moral obligations.
By actively participating in these conversations, adults can gain valuable insights and broaden their own knowledge alongside their children.
For example, with young children, you can discuss the impact of small actions like reducing waste and respecting the environment. With school-going children, you can start exploring the basics of climate change. With preteens and teens, you can talk about climate action and how we should respond to climate change.
2. EDUCATE
Often, climate change can be a topic of much confusion and division. To avoid perpetuating these effects on future generations, it is important to rely on trustworthy sources.
The 2023 IPCC policy makers report offers an accessible summary of the latest climate science. NASA also offers child friendly resources explaining the science of climate change. Climate Kids offers games and quizzes for middle-school children. Many books have also been released on climate change catering to school-aged children, preteens and high school students.
Practical education, like walking in green spaces, can provide an invaluable educational opportunity to reflect on how climate change has and will continue to change our surroundings.
To guide this reflection, the Prairie Climate Centre offers an atlas of climate effects across Canada to help understand the direct effects of climate change on our surroundings.
3. EMPOWER
The first step to empowering your kids for the future is to help them take on actions to help the environment. This can start right at home through actions like taking shorter showers, reducing food waste or conserving electricity. It can also be done by involving them in family decisions that use a climate-friendly lens to discuss topics like family vacation plans and gifts.
Young people can also build communities through local and global environmental organizations. Some organizations engage in local actions such as the creation and maintenance of community gardens.
Parents and caregivers can encourage the next generation to pursue careers in the green economy sectors, including renewable energy, forestry and urban planning.
The health and well-being of our children and our planet are contingent on climate action. It is the responsibility of the adults in children’s lives to foster discussions that ensure this effort is possible.
This article was originally published on The Conversation, an independent and non-profit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. Disclosure information is available on the original site.
This editorial was written and published by the Globe & Mail on August 8, 2023.
Remember the goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius? That, of course, was the basis of the Paris Agreement in 2015 – the landmark global deal to limit human-caused climate heating to, ideally, 1.5 C, or, at worst, well below 2 C. The numbers weren’t conjured out of nothing. Every fraction of heating matters. The latest science shows July, the hottest month on record, breached 1.5 C. Extreme heat everywhere, Antarctica melting, wildfires and floods: Welcome to the future. Now picture what heating of more than 2 C would be like. That’s the current trajectory, propelled by the ongoing bonfire of fossil fuels.
What’s necessary, scientists have long argued, is “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented” changes in how countries operate, starting with energy production. The technology, led by wind and solar power, is ready and affordable. Change is happening – the International Energy Agency expects, for the first time, more global spending on solar power this year than on oil. But it’s not enough.
This is the essential context for the broiling climate debates in Canada. At the fore is the federal Liberals’ pending clean electricity regulations, a set of rules that aim to cut emissions from fossil fuels out of power generation by 2035. Canada has a huge head start, with more than 80 per cent of power in the country generated by hydro, nuclear and wind.
Cleaning up the rest – alongside expanding the grid as sectors like transport are electrified – is an essential part of Canada meeting its Paris treaty commitment to slash emissions. Despite the urgency, provinces are failing to deliver.
In the business of electricity, Canada is 10 different countries. The provinces export more power to the United States than to each other. But instead of a new spirit of collaboration and innovation, the provinces are saying no to the goal of clean power by 2035.
Ontario is adding more fossil fuel power. Saskatchewan flat-out rejects Ottawa’s goals. In Manitoba, which is already almost 100 per cent clean with its bounty of hydro, the province last week somehow concluded that to clean up the rest of its grid by 2035 is “not feasible.”
The absence of ambition is staggering.
The worst, however, may be Alberta. The province, with its open power market driven by private investments, is Canada’s wind and solar leader. Renewables produced 17.3 per cent of Alberta’s power in 2022, almost double four years earlier. Many more billions of dollars of investments in solar, wind and energy storage have been proposed.
So what does Alberta do? Last week it halted development of new solar and wind projects until next winter. The United Conservative Party government claims it may need to step in and slow progress, because things are happening too fast. The UCP is all for the free market, but doesn’t like what’s happening in the free market.
It’s the same in Texas. The state’s open power market led to a boom in renewables. Right-wing lawmakers this year fought back to favour fossil fuels and discourage renewables.
Alberta is a “natural gas province,” Premier Danielle Smith says. A top UCP goal is to resist Ottawa’s clean power rules. Like every province, Alberta has reasonable concerns about the impact of overly rapid changes in the electrical grid. Reliability and affordable costs are key. But the province’s opposition ignores its potential. Change is possible. In 2015, about two-thirds of Alberta’s power came from coal. The Alberta NDP put the province on a path to get off coal by 2030; it’ll happen this year.
After that successful, and fast, shift, the UCP now insists Alberta has to rely on natural gas for years to come. What it should do is start building the grid of the future, decentralized, interconnected across Western Canada, able to handle intermittency with an abundance of storage, and able to manage through peak demand in the coldest months of winter. Rather than rise to the challenge, the message Alberta broadcasts is: It can’t be done.
It can be done. The Pembina Institute and the Canada Energy Regulator in recent months have detailed how. Whether it all happens exactly by 2035 is a distraction. Fighting over a deadline, rather than figuring out solutions, isn’t the answer.
The mission and urgency are clear. Clean power, aside from zero emissions, promises lower electricity bills. The challenges brought on by rapid change can be overcome. There are more opportunities than risks. The provinces need to stop resisting change and get to work.
This editorial was written and published by the Toronto Star on August 5, 2023.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres began a news conference last month with what sounded like good news — until he completed his thought.
“The era of global warming has ended,” Guterres said. “The era of global boiling has arrived.”
Indeed, July 2023 was the planet’s hottest month on record, each day offering fresh headlines about heat-provoked horrors.
Soaring temperatures and forest fires in Greece forced the evacuations of villages. At least 25 people have died of heat-related causes in scorching hot Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix. That city just recorded the hottest month on record for a U.S. city, according to the state climatologist.
Here at home, Canada is experiencing its worst wildfire season on record, as well as devastating flooding on the east coast.
Fires raged across the country this summer, killing firefighters, blanketing cities in hazardous smoke, and forcing Canadians to wear their leftover pandemic masks outdoors. In British Colombia, a boy died of an asthma attack that his parents said was made worse by the wildfire smoke. In June, Toronto’s air quality ranked among the worst in the world.
“Humanity is in the hot seat,” Gutteres said last month. “The air is unbreathable, the heat is unbearable, and the level of fossil fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable. Leaders must lead. No more hesitancy, no more excuses, no more waiting for others to move first. There is simply no more time for that.”
We couldn’t agree more. This summer should be a wake-up call for Canadians who see climate change as a faraway crisis. It isn’t. It is here and making its effects felt near and far, from the warming Arctic and soaring ocean temperatures to record-breaking heat waves and burning forests.
Skeptics like to argue that the underlying cause of recent extreme weather events is El Niño, a natural phenomenon associated with warming ocean temperatures. But scientists counter that the extreme weather we are seeing now and into the future can be attributed to both El Niño and human-caused climate change: a dangerous and sometimes lethal combination.
“I think it’s fair to say that with an El Niño that is occurring in a background state of global warming, that extreme weather will become more extreme,” John Gyakum, a professor in McGill University’s atmospheric and oceanic sciences department, told the CBC.
Some scientists balked at Guterres’s use of the term “global boiling” to describe the trend of dangerous heat waves, calling it over the top and unscientific.
However, it is an appropriate description of heat events that quite literally kill people. It is also an apt way to alert an easily distracted public to this urgent crisis.
Whatever one wants to call the epic problem before us, the truth remains that a status quo approach will not solve it.
What’s needed are strategies that both curtail climate change and adapt to the climate reality. On the latter point, that would include measures to better protect communities from the weather extremes — wildfires and floods, hot weather and violent storms.
The impacts of a warming planet on our daily lives are many. The adaption strategies will need to be equally ambitious.
The imperative to curb human impact on climate is well known. According to the United Nations landmark report on climate change released earlier this year, the world must cut greenhouse gas emissions by almost half by the end of this decade if we are to have any chance at slowing a catastrophic rise in temperatures.
This means that governments and businesses must put people and planet before politics and profit.
We are optimistic about the federal government’s long-awaited, recently announced plan to phase out the fossil fuel subsidies it gives to oil and gas companies. But like many environmental groups we are concerned the plan doesn’t go far enough.
According to Climate Action Network Canada, the new policy does not apply to public financing. “With billions of domestic public financing given to the Trans Mountain and Coastal GasLink pipelines, this is a crucial next step.”
As well, the government’s plan is scheduled to be implemented in fall 2024, “but with the country on fire, a plan that sets deadlines further down the road is not enough,” the group states. Again, we couldn’t agree more.
Governments and corporations have the money and power to move the needle on climate change. They must use their resources to act right now, not later.
But the voting, spending public has more power than it knows. Whether it’s a call to end subsidies to environmentally unfriendly corporations or a call to fund new neighbourhood bike lanes, everyday Canadians can use their influence to help us face this monumental challenge.
This summer of floods, fires and heat has provided a sobering wake-up of how monumental and urgent that challenge is.
This opinion was written by Tom Rachman and was published in the Globe & Mail on August 5, 2023.
When politicians flirt with anti-environmental claptrap, they jeopardize the public consensus about what is genuine
In the Inferno, Dante wrote his enemies into scenes of hell, plotting torments for the brutes and charlatans who besmirched 14th-century Italy.
If he wrote today, Dante could find plenty of fresh characters, not least among the political leaders so venal that they will worsen the climate crisis for personal advancement.
A troubling case unfolds today in Britain, showing how precarious is the effort to slow environmental destruction – and how flawed are democracies when politicians worry more about their polls than about their souls.
In recent years, both major British parties – the Conservatives and Labour – have promised serious climate action. The governing Tories even made it law, pledging “net-zero” greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050, and a ban on selling new fossilfuelled vehicles by 2030.
Yet something is shifting. Elections are expected next year, and the Conservatives are forecast to lose humiliatingly. After 13 years in power, the Tories have worsened the country by most measures, championing the disaster of Brexit, ravaging public services, and clouding these isles with the drizzle of national failure.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak – a talented and wealthy go-getter, unaccustomed to flops – is frantic to retain power. And he appears to smell an opportunity: undermine environmental protections.
Even as Europeans roasted in this summer’s heatwaves (including thousands of British tourists evacuated from Greek wildfires), Mr. Sunak’s administration was making it cheaper for companies in the United Kingdom to pollute. At last, he’d found a competitive advantage over the European Union! What possible downside could there be?
He also stepped into a debate over the fee levied on drivers who enter London city centre in polluting vehicles, challenging such “anti-car schemes,” and assuring motorists that he was on their side. Next, Mr. Sunak said he would grant hundreds of new licences for oil and gas extraction in the North Sea.
The strategy is evident, as is the desperation: Make the Labour Party’s environmental policies seem like a drag on the economy that nobody can afford in hard times. (Never mind that the hard times are because of Conservative misrule.)
An unwitting accomplice in Mr. Sunak’s strategy is the protest movement Just Stop Oil, whose activists specialize in P.R. disasters, such as throwing soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and blocking rush-hour traffic that stopped a mother from driving her newborn to hospital, and impeded low-wage workers from reaching their jobs.
The right-wing press – craving a bloody chunk of outrage ever since they lost their longtime chew toy, the EU – devours such scenes, characterizing climate activists as out-of-touch granola-chompers who needn’t work for a living. Net-zero policy is “a Trojan horse for the total destruction of Western society,” one newspaper headline proclaimed.
Certain environmentalists “don’t want to save the planet so much as to control its inhabitants,” columnist Allister Heath warned in The Telegraph. “They are eternally disappointed by real-life human beings and their individualism … They dislike freedom and don’t want us to choose where to live, shop, eat or send our children to school.”
Yes, demons walk amongst us! Only, this time they’re green!
When politicians flirt with such claptrap, they inflict damage beyond the irresponsible policies themselves. They drag the debate into absurdity, jeopardizing the public consensus about what is genuine, and which dangers are urgent.
In the United States, the politicized denial of uncomfortable facts has created a portion of the electorate that hears the alarm of scientists, and sneers, considering it fiddlesticks from culturewar dupes. British politics risks degenerating in this direction, if opportunists persist down this reckless path.
But the larger lesson is this: All politics are becoming climate politics. Even when global warming is not the point, it is lurking. How can we grow the economy? Can we agree on facts any more? Does politics allow for honesty?
In recent years, Britain has sunk far because of wishful thinking. The coming electoral campaigns of both the Conservative Party and Labour will reveal whether politicos here believe you can level with the public, or if truth is just a losing issue.
Before manmade climate change, Dante made hell. In its eighth circle, he wrote, you’d find the scoundrels who exploited positions of power for personal profit, forever plunged into boiling tar (fittingly, a product of coal or petroleum).
But a contemporary Dante wouldn’t need to imagine the hellfire down below. The inferno is coming to us, up here on Earth.
This opinion was written by Gary Mason and was published in the Globe & Mail on August 2, 2023.
It isn’t difficult to see why so many Albertans think poorly of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his federal Liberals. It’s a mindset drilled into them almost every day.
Premier Danielle Smith can barely conceal her contempt for the PM. Neither can most of her ministers. They seemingly have carte blanche to disparage Mr. Trudeau using any language they wish.
The other day, Jason Nixon – Alberta’s cabinet minister responsible for seniors, community and social services – chatted with Calgary columnist Rick Bell about what a menace the Prime Minister is to the province. His words were about as incendiary and, frankly, delusional, as you’ll find coming from the mouth of a Canadian politician.
He accused Mr. Trudeau of wanting to break up the country.
He said Albertans were sick of the “abuse” and “disgusted” and “horrified” by the “continued attack on the very way of life we live.”
“He’s trying to force his ideological views down the throats of Albertans. … He’s trying to destroy how we make a living.”
There were other comments equally as untethered from reality but you get the idea. Mr. Trudeau is trying to kill Alberta and its oil industry because he is a woke environmentalist singularly focused on climate change at the expense of everything else. Blah, blah, blah.
There is one story people like Ms. Smith and Mr. Nixon don’t talk about: the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. That would be the same project Mr. Trudeau rescued in 2018 after the original owners, Kinder Morgan, decided they wanted no part of it. Rather than see the undertaking get mothballed, the Prime Minister stepped in and rescued it from imminent death, despite the deep reservations of many in his own government, not to mention broad swaths of the country itself.
Mr. Trudeau said the project was in the “national interest.” What that meant was, if it didn’t go ahead, Alberta would freak out and claim the country was out to get them – again. This, despite the legitimate concerns of environmentalists.
Trans Mountain, the company managing the project, estimates the pipeline will generate 630 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, largely due to the electricity needed to power the compressor stations. This does not include the emissions produced when the oil being transported is eventually burned.
The project is now nearing completion – wildly overbudget. What was supposed to cost $7.4billion when Ottawa took it over will now cost $30.9-billion. It will be shocking if the final number isn’t higher.
It’s hard to envision Ottawa ever recouping its investment. Companies with locked-in contracts to ship oil through the pipeline are protected from any overruns. In other words, those costs can’t be passed along to the users. In a report, the Parliamentary Budget Officer concluded that the pipeline would not be profitable at a construction cost of $21.4-billion – a number long since passed.
Most believe the tolls that Trans Mountain is planning to charge shippers are too low to pay for operations. The Tsleil-Waututh Nation, which has taken an active interest in the pipeline given that it crosses its land, says the tolls being proposed would leave Ottawa $16.2-billion in the hole.
A number of economists who have looked at the current landscape can’t imagine a scenario in which the federal government isn’t forced to write off a big chunk of debt. This would make it a multibillion-dollar subsidy of the oil industry – the same industry through which Jason Nixon insists Mr. Trudeau is trying to drive a stake.
Goodness knows oil companies could use a break. Last week, Shell reported second-quarter earnings of US$5.1-billion. Who wouldn’t be seeking corporate handouts after making that paltry amount?
The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion was supposed to allow Alberta oil to reach foreign markets like China. Except Asia will likely not have any interest in oil from Canada as long as it can get it at a discount from Russia. So the oil from our new pipeline will mostly go to the U.S., where most of Alberta oil goes now anyway. So much for best laid plans.
What won’t change is the untold billions the pipeline will deliver to the Alberta economy in the form of royalties. I’m sure politicians like Jason Nixon will heap unfettered praise on Mr. Trudeau for being the architect of their good fortune. Or not.
More likely, Mr. Trudeau will continue to be vilified by the province’s politicians looking to score cheap points with constituents by telling them the same lies they’ve been telling for years. The truth is, Alberta is about to hit the motherlode, again, this time because of a pipeline Mr. Trudeau had built and which Canadians will pay for – in more ways than one.
This editorial was written and published by the Globe & Mail on August 2, 2023.
The city of Delta, south of Vancouver, is home to 110,000 people. As the city’s name attests, Delta is surrounded by water. It is protected from a potential inundation of floodwaters, from either the Fraser River or the Salish Sea, by 67 kilometres of dikes.
The protection, however, is inadequate. The dikes are in – at best – mediocre condition. Long stretches likely could not hold back serious floodwaters. The estimated bill to repair and bolster the system is $1.9-billion. The city’s total annual budget is $350-million.
Start multiplying that sort of money across the country to come up with the sum needed to tackle exposure to floods – the country’s costliest disasters – and wildfires, a worsening hazard. The cost starts at vertiginous and gets dizzier from there. This is what’s on the table as Canada tentatively begins to face the challenges of adaptation to an ever-hotter climate.
The impact of climate heating metastasized this summer. Scientists call 2023 uncharted territory: the hottest June on record was followed by the hottest month ever recorded, period. It is Canada’s worst year for wildfires, by far. Smoke chokes major cities; research suggests smoke contributes to thousands of deaths each year. There is no safe place. Extreme heat, in the United States, Europe, China, becomes a normal part of summer.
Amid these lashings – heat, floods, wildfires – the urgency of climate adaptation has come to the fore. The federal Liberals published Canada’s first national strategy in June, after a draft was issued last fall. It’s a valuable document, a wideranging and solid start, but what it most of all shows is how much there is to grapple.
The idea of adaptation is pragmatic. Climate heating will be a central fact of life for decades to come. The No. 1 response must be to cut greenhouse-gas emissions as fast as possible. For everyone who says Canada is a small part of the problem, remember that Canadian per-capita emissions are threequarters greater than China’s.
Adaptation is equally challenging. It can be about everything – about all the infrastructure in every province. The document in June was several years in the making. That’s how long it took to get to the starting line.
A key message is that every dollar invested today will pay off big in future, in disaster losses avoided. One example Ottawa cited is potential gains from bolstered building codes that adhere to stricter flooding and wildfire standards. Each dollar spent now could save $12 later.
The strategy includes worthy goals, such as all levels of government working together to make sure at least 200 areas at higher risk of flooding are properly mapped. That’s supposed to be achieved by 2028.
This illustrates two things: first, Canada is still figuring out the basics; second, climate adaptation is about triage. The Climate Institute, a research group, and others advocate a focus on biggest risks, because a successful plan cannot hope to plug every hole in every dike. Ottawa’s adaptation strategy nods in that direction; it says protecting the most vulnerable communities “should be prioritized.”
But adaptation ultimately includes everything, and that’s part of the problem. A list of what can be done could fill numerous editorials. Think of even ordinary measures, such as the availability of cellphone service. It was a problem during last month’s flooding in Nova Scotia. Large coverage gaps exist along major highways and in populated places across the country. Wireless service is essential, given there’s also a need for a better alert system for floods and extreme heat.
One option has to be retreat: Stop building in places where floods or wildfires are likely. But that’s easier said than done. The water and the forest lure people. It’s valuable land. After Calgary was flooded in 2013, the option of buying out homeowners living near the city’s rivers was rejected when the cost was ballparked at more than $2-billion.
The task of adaptation is so massive that it’s easy to point to Ottawa’s strategy and say it’s not enough, and that more is needed. But what’s also clear is that, of the two top federal parties, only the Liberals have addressed the issue. They offered a bunch of ideas during the last election; the Conservatives barely mentioned adaptation.
Adaptation is in part conceding defeat. The climate will batter us for years to come. Existing infrastructure has to be girded. Anything new must be built for climate extremes. And there’s no finish line in sight.
Mobilize, Canada! 