Six ways climate change is affecting Canada
More fires and floods, less food and ice: How climate change is affecting all of us
Canada is getting hotter and our weather is getting weirder. From record-high temperatures, unprecedented flooding and massive ice loss, our country is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. As the climate crisis progresses, we're already witnessing a lot of change.
Forest fires are heating up
"A spark can light a raging inferno," says University of Alberta wildfire expert Mike Flannigan.
Fires have always been an essential part of Canada's ecosystems, but now they're becoming more dangerous. With every year, fire becomes more devastating in western Canada; British Columbia experienced its worst fire on record in 2017, when almost 900,000 hectares went up in smoke. In 2016, one of the most destructive fires in the country swept through Fort McMurray, destroying nearly 2,500 buildings forcing the evacuating of 90,000 citizens. It was the costliest disaster in Canadian history.
MORE: New Science tells Us Why Fire is a Growing Threat
Wetter winters mean more grass grows in the spring, and prolonged summers with higher temperatures intensify the fire season. Hot, dry weather turns the grass into a flammable fuel source. This turns our forests into powder kegs, ready to burn. Flannigan describes what we're facing: "The warmer we get, the more fire we have. The more fire we have, the more greenhouse gasses that are released. The more gasses that are released, the warmer we get. A vicious cycle."
These fierce fires burn deep into the soil, where most of the boreal forest's carbon is locked. Jill Johnstone, a University of Saskatchewan professor, says, "These forests are part of the lungs of the planet. The boreal forest stores about 50% of the global carbon that is in the soil." As fires become more intense, this carbon is released straight into the atmosphere, continuing the warming cycle.
Sea ice is 'an endangered species'
"Scientists suspect that the Arctic Ocean will be free of summer sea ice in my lifetime," says explorer and extreme diver, Jill Heinerth. "And that inevitability may come sooner than we think. Each photo that I take [of ice] might one day be viewed in a gallery of mass extinctions."
While the effects of global warming are felt around the world, nowhere is experiencing such drastic changes as the Far North: the Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on the planet.
In June 2018, Heinerth and the Under Thin Ice team arrived in Ikpiarjuk (Arctic Bay), 700 km north of the Arctic Circle, to find temperatures hovering around 8 C — too warm for late spring.
In order to reach their filming location, they had to weave their snowmobiles around breaks and leads in the ice, testing the surface to make sure they wouldn't fall through.
Even their camp near the floe edge had to be moved twice due to meltwater flooding their tents. "Climate change is happening. It's easy to see it in the North," says Heinerth. "How we address and adapt to our changing climate in the next few years will determine the future of our civilization."
Trading water for food
Try buying produce from your local supermarket and you'll find that a lot of it is grown in California.
California, the sunshine state, is has been gripped by a multi-year drought. As winters have become shorter, the snowpack in the mountains has shrunk. Less snow means that come spring, less water melts into the rivers and valleys where the farmland is located.
California's agricultural industry has been devastated. Much of North America's produce is grown here, and many of California's citizens are complaining that they're exporting their own precious water to feed others around the world.
The state has already received water as a commodity from Tahiti or Hawaii, with proposals in place to tanker it in from Alaska too. Geologist Nick Eyles predicts that in the future, Californians will want water from their northern neighbours in Canada, in return for the fresh produce we enjoy. "Water for vegetables; it may come to that," says Eyles.
Backyard rinks may be a thing of the past
A citizen science project called RinkWatch collects data from participants across North America, who provide snapshots of winter weather and skating conditions at their backyard rinks or favourite outdoor skating spots.
With the information submitted so far, Dr. Robert McLeman, a professor of Environmental Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University and co-founder of RinkWatch, and his fellow researchers are forecasting fewer outdoor skating days for Canadians in the future. "The skating season, that's going to shrink by about 30 to 40 per cent between now and the end of this century."
"The backyard rink is sort of a cultural icon," says Dr. McLeman. "It's part of what being a Canadian is all about, and it would be a real shame if we lost that."
Canada's grey jay and other wildlife in trouble
Climate change is already impacting the wildlife that lives in the boreal forest across Canada. Here's just one example of the many species that are in trouble.
The grey jay is a plucky little bird that stays here all winter long. It uses trees like a refrigerator to stash morsels of food during winter. But warm winters are spoiling their larders early. By spring there's nothing left to feed their hungry chicks.
We have reached a tipping point — and now is the perfect time to act
Hotter summers, ocean acidification, more frequent and more deadly forest fires, rising sea levels — our planet is in trouble.
Acclaimed journalist and environmentalist George Monbiot laments the environmental exploitation of the last few decades. "We've lost 30 years or more … during which we could affect a gradual transition out of the destructive, extractive economy into a far more benign one," he says. "But now, we find ourselves at the cliff edge."
But after COVID-19 shut economies around the world down for months, there may be hope. If the global shutdown of economies showed us anything, says Monbiot, it's that we actually can adapt quickly and live with dramatic change.
The pandemic has given us the opportunity to build a new world, says Monbiot, "an economy which respects the lives of future generations and doesn't sacrifice those lives for the wealth of current generations; an economy that can be sustained without trashing our life support systems."
And it's time we seize the moment. "As we come out of this pandemic, we can build on that mutual aid to create the better societies that we need."
