Canada and the climate crisis: a state of denial 3

Although we are still not in summer, the Donnie Creek wildfire burning southeast of Fort Nelson is already the largest in BC history, having already burned 5,344 sq. kilometres greatly aided by the drought and high temperature conditions brought on by climate change. On CBC News Network, a regional fire expert says it is fully expected to continue burning into the fall and quite possibly right through the winter into next spring. Every day the effects of the climate crisis become more evident while Trudeau continues to provide the largest per capita subsidies to fossil fuel companies in the world. "Canada has lavished at least C$13.8 billion per year in public financing on oil and gas projects since signing on to the Paris climate agreement, making it the fossil industry’s highest per capita source of public finance in the G20, and their second-largest overall benefactor after China, according to a blistering new report issued today by Oil Change International and Friends of the Earth U.S." (https://www.theenergymix.com/2020/05/26/breaking-canada-leads-g20-in-per....)

The Donnie Creek wildfire burns in an area between Fort Nelson and Fort St. John, B.C. in this undated handout photo provided by the BC Wildfire Service. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-BC Wildfire Service

The Donnie Creek wildfire in northeastern British Columbia has now surpassed the 2017 Plateau fire as the largest individual fire, by area burned, ever recorded in the province's history.

It was sparked on May 12 by lightning, according to the B.C. Wildfire Service (BCWS), and covers an area of 5,343.88 square kilometres as of 10 a.m. PT on Sunday. It is still not responding to suppression efforts and remains out of control, according to the BCWS. ...

The wildfire is burning 136 kilometres southeast of Fort Nelson, and 158 kilometres north of Fort St. John, in the province's Peace River region.

Drysdale said that if the 948-kilometre-long perimeter of the fire was stretched out, it would go from Fort St. John in northeast B.C. all the way to Kamloops in the Central Interior.

While the blaze isn't burning near major population centres, it has resulted in evacuation orders for a sparsely populated region primarily used by the forestry and oil and gas industries.

It was burning two kilometres away from the critical Alaska Highway route at a point north of Trutch, B.C. Evacuation orders and alerts are in place for a 160-kilometre stretch of the road. ...

The Donnie Creek fire now covers an area 1.8 times the size of Metro Vancouver. Drysdale said the Peace region began early May facing drought conditions, and there hasn't been the precipitation that would have helped ward off large fire starts in the spring.

"The fire started in May, which is during what we call spring dip. So, the area hadn't greened up and vegetation hadn't accepted the moisture that it normally does," she said.

"We saw 30 degree temperatures in the spring. And we've had high and continuous winds throughout." More than 80 fires are burning across B.C. as of 12 p.m. PT on Sunday, and 25 of them are considered out of control.

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/weather/severe/donnie-creek-wi...

In the Yukon, salmon are vanishing from its streams and rivers because of the drought and heat conditions brought on by climate change. This is of special concern to indigenous communities that have relied on the salmon as a staple of their food supply for thousands of years. Ryan Peterson, a councillor for the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in Nation in Dawson City, said "It’s no mystery as to the causes of salmon losses ... Climate change, habit destruction and overfishing." (https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/04/06/news/yukon-river-salmon-runs...) The higher temperatures brought on by climate change also make the spread of disease easier. 

A dried-up section of the Fishing Branch River in the Old Crow, Yukon, area, in spring 2022. Dewatering has happened before on the Fishing Branch River but now it is an annual event. (Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation)

Yukon River chinook and chum salmon in the Old Crow region of the territory are being hit with the perfect storm — not only are this year's runs expected to be dismal, but the life cycle of the salmon is being broken.

Over the last several years, lower numbers of chinook and chum salmon have made the long journey from the ocean to creeks and streams at the mouth of the Porcupine River, spawned, and then died. The small fry would then make their way back to the Bering Sea in spring. 

But now many of the fertilized eggs left behind in the rivers are dying because large stretches of river are drying up in the early spring — and it's not exactly clear why. 

"In the last few years what we have been seeing, particularly this last year, is that dewatered area was much, much, much larger than it had been in the past," said Elizabeth MacDonald, vice chair of the Yukon Salmon Sub-Committee, a non-government advisory body. "So that is concerning, that now there is a larger section of the river where fish are dying and eggs are dying." The Vuntut Gwitchin government in Old Crow, which is about 800 kilometres north of Whitehorse, says a 33-kilometre stretch of the Fishing Branch River, a tributary of the Porcupine, was dewatered upstream of Bear Cave Mountain, between Old Crow and Dawson City. ...

Dewatering has happened before on the Fishing Branch River but now it is an annual event. The Vuntut Gwitchin government has noticed increasingly larger areas this spring that have dried up, leaving the salmon eggs and tens of thousands of salmon fry for birds and mammals to feast on.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/chinook-chum-salmon-porcupine-river...

New Jersey is the first state in America to adopt standards for learning about climate change in each grade and across several different subjects, even physical education. It's time we did the same  in Canada to start preparing Canadian students for the future they will face instead of the Trudeau and provincial governments burying their heads in climate denial and making Canada the #1 fossil fuel subsidizer in the G20. (https://www.theenergymix.com/2020/05/26/breaking-canada-leads-g20-in-per....)

But like the US, we can expect climate change deniers to come out in droves to school board and legislatures dealing with providing climate change education, just as they have on sex education, gender discussions and race issues. But polls show these loud voices are the minority around the world.

A portrait of Ugandan climate activist Evelyn Acham by Evelyn Lansing, a high school senior at Hopewell Valley Central High School in New Jersey. The assignment is part of a climate curriculum that includes the art classes of Carolyn McGrath. Evelyn Lansing

New Jersey is the first state in America to adopt standards for learning about climate change in each grade, from K through 12, and across several different subjects, even physical education. 

Initially these additions didn’t draw much political heat, possibly because sex education standards were being updated at the same time. But this year, the standards in the core subjects of math and English language arts came up for revision. Proposed draft revisions also include climate change. This is important, advocates say, because these are the core subjects that students are tested on, and for which schools and districts are held accountable.  

And this time was different. At the May 3 public hearing, in front of two members of the State Board of Education, supporters of the changes, including McGrath, were blindsided and well outnumbered by organized right-wing activists who testified against teaching climate change. 

It’s one meeting, but it could be a bellwether. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, school boards have become ground zero for the culture wars, as they have been at times throughout American history. Right-wing activists tapped into discontent over school closures, growing awareness of LGTBQ+ rights, and the backlash to the Black Lives Matter movement. The resulting brouhaha has buoyed many political fortunes, notably that of Republican presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Now this same political machine may be turning its focus to climate education, just as the movement to teach it is getting off the ground. 

The anti-climate-change voices at this meeting were clearly veterans of the culture wars. Several who spoke at the meeting identified themselves as part of Team Protect Your Children, or Team PYC. This New Jersey-based group has spent years organizing against “the unsuitable normalization and glorification of abortion and the homosexual lifestyle” in public schools, in the words of one woman who spoke. 

“Climate change is based on weak science,” said a Team PYC member named Kathleen Kirk, citing a roster of discredited scientists and a climate-denying documentary available on YouTube. “This global warming theory is very scary for little children.” 

 “Encouraging activism is not why we send our children to school,” said another, Dawn Flynn, from Morris County, New Jersey. “The topic of climate change has become very divisive. Politicians and even scientists are unable to agree on the causes and effects.”

“My concern is that the kids are not indoctrinated,” said Ray Bovino, who added, on a slightly different topic: “If teachers want to teach creationism instead of the theory of evolution, should they not have that freedom?” 

John Tomicki of the League of American Families, a vocal activist for decades opposing abortion, same-sex marriage, and interracial marriage, spoke against the standards. Also registered to attend was Pnina Mintz, the chair of the Cherry Hill, New Jersey, GOP committee and part of a national group called No Left Turn in Education, which has been called “one of the largest groups targeting school boards” regarding critical race theory. (Mintz, Tomicki, and Team Protect Your Children did not respond to requests for comment.)

But their views do not represent most New Jersey residents. A May 15 poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University found 70 percent of the state’s residents favor requiring education about climate change in public schools. This figure included 96 percent of Democrats; Republicans were evenly split, with 45 percent in favor and 45 percent against. 

In nationwide polls, too, large majorities say students should be learning about climate change in school. And there are signs of momentum. Currently, 20 states have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards, a voluntary project to improve the teaching of science created by states and a coalition of science organizations. These standards include climate change starting in middle school — but that doesn’t mean the topic is covered comprehensively. Connecticut followed New Jersey in requiring climate learning across grade levels, a law that takes effect next month. Oregon and California are considering similar bills.  ...

Climate lessons in kindergarten, she said, don’t have to be scary or complicated. They might build on familiar classroom activities like a weather chart, introducing the concept that climate is different from weather. That lays the groundwork for understanding in later grades how humans might be influencing the climate. 

But the educators trying to advance the teaching of climate change are worried that organized political opposition, even from a minority, could still create a chilling effect. Madden’s forthcoming survey research finds teachers are saying they need more resources, training, and support to bring climate into the classroom. She also found, surveying dozens of New Jersey educators, that since the standards took effect, the percentage who said that some teachers might avoid the topic because it is “too controversial or politically sensitive” jumped, from nearly 10 percent to 17 percent. 

There’s a growing awareness not only in the United States but around the world that climate literacy is about more than science and that it needs to be introduced early and often, as it is starting to be in New Jersey. 

https://grist.org/politics/culture-wars-come-for-climate-education-new-j...

Cuts to firefighting budgets In Canada have played a mjaor role in the inadequate response to the climate response despite years of rapid increase in wildfires in Canada and around the world. As a result we are dependent on the more than 1,200 foreign firefighters who have come here to fight the fires and that this is still far from enough. Furthermore, 70% of our firefighters are volunteers, leaving us with a totally inadequate professional full-time firefighting force as the number and intensity of wildfires grow exponentially, thereby forcing more than 100,000 people from their homes. 

The ill-conceived cuts to emergency fire services have only exacerbated the challenges firefighters are facing in Canada as climate change causes ever more wildfires. (Lance McMillan / Toronto Star via Getty Images)

As wildfires burn across Canada, the struggle to contain the damage has intensified for fire crews. The severe cuts to emergency fire services in recent years, driven by right-wing policies, have led to a failure to prepare for this crisis.

Last week, as wildfires raged across Northern Ontario and smoke billowed south, fire crews struggled to contain the damage. Unfortunately, Canada’s right-wing provincial governments have failed to support these emergency workers in their crucial efforts due to cuts made to emergency fire services. As is so often the case, these cuts were driven by the Right’s relentless pursuit of “efficiencies” within provincial budgets.

In the eyes of Conservative provincial governments, emergency reserves are inefficient. That is, of course, until they’re desperately needed. The ill-conceived cuts to emergency fire services only exacerbated the challenges firefighters faced, further hindering their heroic efforts in battling the flames.

The Damage Done

Last week, across Canada, and much of the northeast United States, cities were surrounded by orange skies and apocalyptic plumes. Nova Scotia experienced a staggering escalation in its fire season. The record-breaking destruction of 3,390 hectares witnessed last year has been eclipsed by an even more devastating 22,000 hectares this year. In Quebec, over one hundred fires burned over 900,000 hectares. Ontario witnessed a significant surge in wildfires compared to the previous year. The number of wildfires doubled from 2022, while the area consumed by these fires soared from just over 2,000 hectares to a total of over 33,000 hectares. And, in Alberta and British Columbia, the fires have set new records. As the BBC observed: “Fires across Canada have already burned an area that’s 12 times the 10-year average for this time of year.”

All told, over one hundred thousand people have been forced to flee their homes. According to The Washington Post, should the fires continue to rage at their current pace the country will suffer the worst wildfire season in its recorded history and many more people will be displaced. “It is, in a word, sobering,” Canada’s natural resources minister Jonathan Wilkinson said.

In Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, the ministry of natural resources said, over the weekend, that there are sixty-eight wildfires burning across the north of the province. Evacuation orders have been issued across northern communities already and the anticipated rainfall, according to experts, is not expected to calm the fires.

Wildfires are stochastic — they are unpredictable and random. With forests covering roughly one-third of Canada’s landmass and a larger share of Ontario’s landmass, they happen and will continue to happen. But as climate change leads to increasingly hot and dry temperatures, they increase in frequency and intensity. As Nature summarized it recently: “Hot, dry weather and human carelessness have led to a huge burnt area — and to a choking haze that is affecting millions of people.” ...

Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, blames campfires for the fire. But, as the opposition has noted, his government cut the province’s emergency firefighting budget by 67 percent — or $142.2 million in 2019 — and never restored the funding.

Ontario isn’t alone in this. In Alberta, cuts have been similar. The United Conservative Party government cut the wildfire budget from $130 million in 2018–19 to $100 million this year.

Even British Columbia’s nominally left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) government has been remiss in wildfire preparation. Although the government spent $801 million fighting forest fires in 2021’s summer wildfire emergency, this year the NDP budgeted only $32 million dollars for the permanent service.

Federally, too, budget cuts implemented by the 1990s Liberal government, as part of one of the deepest austerity programs in the industrialized world, also shrank the Canadian Forest Service’s staff size — from twenty-two hundred in the 1990s to seven hundred today. “People were mortified,” Edward Struzik, a fellow at the Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy at Queen’s University, told the New York Times. “We have this situation that’s unfolding, this new fire paradigm, and the forest service’s just getting chump change to address it.”

All told, owing to past cuts, more than eleven hundred firefighters from around the world have been dispatched across Canada to help combat the country’s raging fire season. This including groups from France, Chile, Costa Rica, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

While the fires raged across Northern Ontario, forcing communities to evacuate, Ford denied any link between the crisis and climate change. “I’m actually in shock that the Leader of the Opposition is politicizing wildfires. It’s staggering, really,” Ford said. “But nothing surprises me with the opposition.”

Regardless of whether Ford acknowledges it, there exists a positive feedback loop between climate change and forest fires. Each fire releases the sequestered carbon from Canada’s vast forests, further exacerbating the impact of climate change.

Environment and Climate Change Canada have found that, from 2001–2016. Canada’s forests acted as “more as a source than a sink” of carbon. In British Columbia, the province’s extreme fire years, in 2017 and 2018 alone, each produced three times more greenhouse gases than all other sectors of the province combined.

“People sometimes say, ‘Is this the new normal?’ And the answer is unequivocally this is not the new normal,” saysWerner Kurz, a senior research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service said. “We’re on a trajectory of continuously worsening situations due to climate change. Our emission reduction targets literally go up in smoke as a result of these wildfires,” he warns.

Elsewhere, researchers have observed a concerning trend: fires are causing lasting impacts on the composition of Canada’s boreal forests. The destruction of black spruce trees through burning is hindering their ability to regenerate and recover. Increasingly, as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) put it, wildfires are transforming these winter forests into savannas, with huge implications for biodiversity and carbon storage.

Merritt Turetsky, director of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado Boulder, told CBC News: I would anticipate that what we’re seeing now is going to play out as really severe burning fires. […] We know that when a lot of organic matter — in the trees, but also on the ground in moss and peat layers — when a large amount of that is consumed during a fire, sites don’t regenerate back to what they were prior.

Ford’s failure to prepare Ontario for the current disaster is unsurprising. He is, after all, the same premier who vowed to do all he could to open up Ontario’s carbon-rich “Ring of Fire” — the mineral-rich peatland’s in the north of the province. Despite the sensitivity of the region, Ford is committed to developing it, vowingthat, “If I have to hop on a bulldozer myself, we’re going to start building roads to the Ring of Fire.”

The premier has also worked with housing developers to expand construction into the province’s “greenbelt,” which serves as another massive carbon sink. In between, Ford has been actively cutting funding for health care, housing, and other vital social services, thereby increasing the vulnerability of working individuals and placing them at greater risk in the face of future crises.

The federal Liberal government, while paying lip service to the dangers of climate change, is little better in this regard. While doing all it can to greenwash its policies, for example, it has promoted massive offshore drilling projects, doled out ever-increasing subsidies to the country’s oil bosses and maintained roughly comparable cuts to federal emergency services.

In the lead up to the wildfires, Ford promised to find “efficiencies” in the public sector. In practice that has and will continue to mean cutting programs to reduce the “tax burden” on corporate profits. In the eyes of Ford and his party, it is too costly to maintain reserve funds “in case” of emergencies because those come at the expense of profit.

Notably, Ford has successfully garnered the support of the mining and construction industry leaders in the province. The shortsighted, profit-first calculus employed by Ford and his party jeopardizes the province’s ability to effectively respond to emergencies, such as the wildfires, leaving communities vulnerable and highlighting the prioritization of corporate interests over public welfare.

The urgency of combating wildfires in Canada necessitates a collective effort to challenge austerity measures and the erosion of essential public services, such as well-equipped and well-staffed firefighting teams and other emergency services. The preservation of robust public goods and community safety should take precedence over short-term gains. The last several weeks have vividly underscored the dire consequences that arise from neglecting these priorities, providing us with a stark glimpse into the potential nightmare that can ensue.

https://jacobin.com/2023/06/cananda-wildfires-emergency-fire-services-fo...

Multnomah County in Oregon is suing 17 oil and fossil fuel companies for $51.5 billion US because of the heat dome their fossil fuels created that killed 800 people in the Pacific Northwest. The death toll included 597 people in Metro Vancouver. So why aren't Vancouver and BC and Trudeau governments doing the same?

A member of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington state paused in the 110 degree-plus heat after fighting a small wildfire just north of Mattawa in June 2021.Credit...Grant Hindsley for The New York Times

The Oregon county that includes Portland on Thursday filed a lawsuit against several fossil fuel companies and their business partners in an effort to hold them responsible for a deadly heat wave in 2021.

Multnomah County is suing oil and gas companies including Exxon Mobil, Shell and BP, as well as the American Petroleum Institute, Koch Industries and the consulting firm McKinsey & Co.

The lawsuit claims that greenhouse gas emissions produced by the companies played a significant role in causing the so-called heat dome, which blanketed the Pacific Northwest in stifling temperatures for several days in June and July 2021. It notes that scientific studies determined that the heat dome would not have occurred without the global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/22/climate/oregon-lawsuit-heat-dome.html

• Multnomah County in Oregon is suing oil and gas companies Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips and related organizations for the damages caused by the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome. 
• The heat caused 69 people to die, property damage and was a draw on taxpayer resources, Multnomah County says.
• Multnomah County is seeking $50 million in actual damages, $1.5 billion in future damages, and an estimated $50 billion for an abatement fund to "weatherproof" the city, its infrastructure and public health services in preparation for future extreme weather events.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/oregon-county-sues-oil-gas-com...

Smoke, as well as the wildfires themselves, from climate crisis wildfires  is threatening the  Fort Albany First Nation and Kashechewan First Nation causing evacuations from these communities in northern Ontario. The Doug Ford government response to this has been very slow, in part because it has cut wildfire funding and in part because these are First Nations. "NDP MP Charile Angus said  “It’s taken a while to get that in place and what it tells me, in future, given the climate instability we’re facing, we need to get better at this and move quicker and certainly in Treaty 9."

Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus said Friday the wildfire raging near Fort Albany First Nation has become a traumatic experience for people who live in that community and in nearby Kashechewan.

Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus said Friday the wildfire raging near Fort Albany First Nation has become a traumatic experience for people who live in that community and in nearby Kashechewan.

Angus said around 480 people have been evacuated from Fort Albany, but now he said the issue is getting people out of Kashechewan as smoke blowing into the community is a threat to residents' health, especially elders and children.

He said community leaders asked him for assistance and in turn, he has requested that the government send military planes as soon as possible to evacuate Kashechewan.

 “I’m hoping today some of that rigmarole will start to clear with the Canadian military coming in,” Angus said. “It’s taken a while to get that in place and what it tells me, in future, given the climate instability we’re facing, we need to get better at this and move quicker and certainly in Treaty 9, I think people are much more feeling that they want to be more in the driver seat of looking after evacuations because they’re living this reality all too often.” He said the plan is to send evacuees to the Toronto area and to other northern communities such as Timmins and Kapuskasing. 

https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/smoke-from-wildfires-threatens-kashec...

Stand.earth has called out Cargill, the world's largest the largest agribusiness corporation in the world, for its failure to keep its promises and stop cutting down tropical forests and thereby increase greenhouse gas emissions, noting in the process that "The greatest driver of deforestation is agriculture". When your plans to reduce emissions are so weak that private sector companies like Walmart and Nestle, significant greenhouse gas emission producers in their own right, say that the plan would make them unable to meet their own greenhouse emissions targets, you know the plan is a joke of a coverup of future emissions. 

In a file photo, a Cargill facility on the Tapajos River in Santarem, a town on the trans-Amazonian highyway, in Brazil's Para state. Credit: NELSON ALMEIDA/AFP via Getty Images.

Last week, thousands of pages of documents landed on the doorstep of an office in an affluent Minneapolis suburb containing details that accuse the country’s largest privately held company of continuing to drive planet-warming deforestation across the globe. The delivery of the documents, assembled by the group Stand.earth, coincides with the publication of full-page letters, printed in the New York Times and Minneapolis Star-Tribune, that call on the owners of Cargill, the largest agribusiness corporation in the world, to pressure the company into keeping its promises to stop cutting down tropical forests.

“The greatest driver of deforestation is agriculture,” said Mathew Jacobson, a campaign director with the group. “Agriculture drives deforestation, Cargill drives agriculture. So if we’re going to address deforestation, we have to deal with Cargill.”

And Stand.earth’s latest tactic for dealing with Cargill is to publicly call out its elusive owners, members of the Cargill-MacMillan family — the fourth-richest family in the country with the most billionaires on Earth. Twenty members of the family own nearly 90 per cent of the company. Cargill, with record revenues of more than $165 billion last year, is the biggest force in global agriculture and food, controlling massive amounts of the market in soy, palm oil, meat, cocoa and eggs, among a long list of commodities. Almost every American has consumed a Cargill product, whether they know it or not.  “They don’t have a public interface. Nobody buys from Cargill. You buy from McDonald’s, you buy from the supermarket, and you get a Cargill product,” Jacobson said “Most people don’t know who they are.” ...

The company has long been in the cross-hairs of environmental groups, mostly for its role in cutting down swaths of climate-critical tropical forests in South America and Southeast Asia. Responding to pressure campaigns over the last two decades, the company has also garnered high praise from these same environmental groups for its successes in reducing deforestation in two of its major sourcing areas.  Cargill was a founding member of the Amazon Soy Moratorium, which has significantly reduced deforestation in the world’s largest rainforest. It is also a member of the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil, which has been credited with radically lowering deforestation in southeast Asia.

But the company has since lapsed, its critics say, especially with its more recent pledges to eliminate deforestation in its supply chains and a commitment to end child labor in its production of cacao in Africa.  In 2014, Cargill said it would end deforestation across the entirety of its supply chains — including all of South America and Asia — by 2020. In 2018, the company, along with others, was fined by the Brazilian government for illegal deforestation in the Cerrado region, a massive savannah ecosystem adjacent to the rainforest. The following year, Cargill admitted it, along with other companies that had made similar commitments, would not reach its goal.

While the company had made commitments to stop deforestation in the Amazon, it said it would not support a similar effort in the Cerrado, where deforestation rates have skyrocketed. Nearly half the region is now deforested. “More than 50 per cent has been bulldozed for animal feed and cattle and it’s in desperate need of help,” said Glenn Hurowitz, CEO of Mighty Earth, a Washington-based advocacy group that’s not connected to Stand.earth but has done extensive work tracking Cargill’s links to deforestation. “It’s an emergency situation.”  Hurowitz noted that there are fewer government and legal protections against deforestation in the Cerrado, making “private sector action that much more important.” ...

In 2021, at the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Cargill, along with other agricultural giants, pledged to halt “forest loss associated with agricultural commodity production and trade.” But the following year, when it revealed its plan to meet that pledge, Cargill’s customers, including giants such as Wal-Mart and Nestlé, said the plan was so weak it would prevent them from meeting their own climate and deforestation targets if they continued to buy raw materials from Cargill. ...

A major challenge, Jacobson noted, is that many buyers of Cargill’s commodities are forced to buy from the company — regardless of its environmental record — because its share of the market is so massive and consolidated. ...

It comes after another novel attempt to go after the company — this one last month, when an environmental group, London-based ClientEarth, filed a first-ever complaint against Cargill, alleging it had breached a set of rules set by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).  The OECD guidelines say that companies have to adhere to a certain set of practices to ensure they’re contributing to sustainable development.  “We’ve done a full review and Cargill doesn’t appear to be conducting any due diligence whatsoever to be sure that the soy passing through its ports isn’t linked to deforestation,” said Laura Dowley, a ClientEarth attorney. ...

Todd Paglia, executive director of Stand.earth, said the group was simply calling on Cargill to uphold its pledges.  “We’re not asking for anything Cargill hasn’t already promised to do,” he said. “We’re asking for the fulfilment of those promises.”

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14062023/cargill-deforestation-brazil...

Northern Ontario climate crisis induced wildfire smoke has drifted into Manitoba causing health problems there. 

Winnipeg sky, smoky from northern Ontario wildfires 

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) has issued a special air quality statement for Winnipeg and southern Manitoba.

Smoke from wildfires in Northwest Ontario has drifted into southeastern Manitoba with the easterly wind. ECCC said the smoke should dissipate throughout the day Sunday.

People with lung disease such as asthma or heart disease, and people who work outdoors are at higher risk of experiencing health effects caused by wildfire smoke. Older adults, children, and pregnant people are also susceptible.

Residents are advised to reduce their activity level if breathing becomes uncomfortable or if they feel unwell.

https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/northern-ontario-wildfire-smoke-drifts-into-...

The closure of Highway 4 on Vancouver Island that cut off Port Alberni, Uculet and Tofino from food and supplies for two weeks in a province that lost $17billion due to massive flooding across the province just one and a half years ago is illustrating the huge economic costs that come with the climate crisis and resulting in demands for more than one route in and out of isolated communities in the province.

Debris is strewn across Highway 4 on Vancouver Island in a Tuesday, June 13, 2023, handout photo. Highway 4 on Vancouver Island was reopening Friday afternoon after being closed for more than two weeks over wildfire concerns. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure

British Columbia's enormous effort to speed the partial reopening of Highway 4 on Vancouver Island - closed for upwards of two weeks due to a wildfire - is another illustration of the dramatic costs tied to climate impacts, says an economist. “It's a huge hit to the restaurants, hotels, and all the services that would normally be making money at this time of year and potentially jeopardizes their whole summer,” said Marc Lee, senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). “The economic disruption and costs associated with already existing climate change is something that we don't often think about enough.”

The province's Transportation Ministry has been pulling out the stops to get the key transportation corridor - the only paved road serving Port Alberni, numerous First Nations and the West Coast tourist hot spots of Ucluelet and Tofino - open to single-lane alternating traffic by the weekend. The route was closed for safety reasons June 6 after a wildfire tore across steep, rocky bluffs above the highway stretching along Cameron Lake, dropping charred trees and large rocks hundreds of feet onto the roadway.

Canadians, and B.C. residents in particular, have become acutely aware of the huge costs associated with the climate crisis, and the need to radically cut oil and gas emissions and invest in adaptation and resilience measures, Lee said. The impacts on the B.C. economy due to the combined effects of the 2021 heat dome, savage wildfire season, and widespread fall flooding likely cost more than $17 billion, making it the most expensive climate disaster in Canadian history, a CCPA study by Lee showed. Workers, households and businesses collectively lost an estimated $1.5 billion to $2.6 billion as a result of the cumulative emergencies, the study said.

The province's costs to repair Highway 4 from the wildfire won't be anything near those incurred two years ago. But they will still be significant and are another example of the increasingly expensive and frequent problems associated with the climate crisis, he said. And the province's costs won't reflect the financial impacts on workers, businesses and the tourism operators affected by the two-week highway closure, Lee said.

The highway reopened Friday at 3 p.m., and pilot cars will lead the single-lane alternating traffic on a rotating basis 24/7 along the two-kilometre Cameron Lake stretch of road, the province said, adding drivers should expect lengthy delays and ensure they have sufficient fuel, water and food. A crew of 50 people, four cranes, two excavators and 25 other pieces of equipment were deployed on the route during the week to string up large metal mesh nets to keep any debris from falling on the highway and to set up roadside concrete barriers. MacMillan Provincial Park (Cathedral Grove) and the day-use parks at Cameron Lake and Beaufort in Little Qualicum Falls are temporarily closed to ease traffic congestion until the highway fully reopens mid-July.

To maintain the supply chain for essential goods to the isolated communities, the province established a twice-daily piloted convoy for commercial vehicles and made road improvements along a four-hour-long detour route using gravel forestry roads that will remain open until the highway is fully open. Approximately 1,000 vehicles, including commercial trucks, have been travelling the detour route, ensuring that food, fuel and medical supplies arrive in the affected communities, the province said. However, when asked by Canada's National Observer, the Transportation Ministry could not provide any details, estimates or insights on the costs incurred to date, or those expected in the future, for the highway repairs or the detour route. “It's too early to provide an estimate of the costs and the breakdown,” the ministry said in an email. “The full estimate is being calculated as we are still completing the works along Highway 4.”

Beyond the costs of climate impacts, the provincial and federal governments need to be investing more aggressively in reducing fossil fuel use, particularly liquefied natural gas (LNG) provincially, and into large-scale, prioritized adaptation measures, particularly around public infrastructure like highways, bridges and dams to make them more resilient, Lee said. B.C. has treated the fossil fuel industry, particularly natural gas, with “kid gloves,” he said. LNG production has more than doubled since 2007 despite the province making little headway on reducing emissions, he added.

Although Lee can envision a future where personal electric vehicles dominate, gains in commercial transportation and public transit investments are slow, as is major investment for zero-emission buildings, he added. The province and the federal government have committed a lot of funding to rebuilding communities and public infrastructure after 2021, but not much beyond that in terms of ensuring climate resilience on a broad scale. “We really need to start thinking hard about what our investment plan is around adaptation,” Lee said. “We're now seeing the impact of climate change, and these conversations around resilience and adaptation may lead us to push harder for reducing our emissions and changing our ways,” Lee said. “At least, that's the hope.”

https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/highway-4-wildfire-closure-drives-hom...

You know when wildfires in Canada are covered in the Hindustan Times the situation is horrendous. Furthermore, it is made worse by an unwillingness to train sufficient wildfire firefighters in the past and the difficulty of recruiting them now as wildfires grow in number and intensity. Prince Edward Island woke up to the danger when it realized it had only 12 firefighters trained to fight forest fires although it has had only one small so far. It has started a program to add six times as many. That's the good news. The bad news is the first half if and only if enough are recruited, is that they only start training in the fall when the worst of this wildfire season is hopefully over. The second hald don't even start training until next year. Furthermore, the lack of Canadian firefighters is a big and growing problem everywhere. Even with 1,700 international wildfire firefighters there isn't enough. Sounds like the rest of our climate crisis plan. The article sounds like a first world country reporting on a third world country but its the reverse. 

Quote:

Limited resources could threaten Canada's ability to douse fires, which are expected to get bigger.(AFP)

Canada is wrestling with its worst-ever start to wildfire season, but recruiting firefighters is becoming increasingly difficult due to tight labor markets and the tough nature of the job, provincial officials say.

Limited resources could threaten Canada's ability to douse fires, which are expected to get bigger and fiercer in future as a result of fossil fuel-driven climate change, risking more damage to communities and disrupting the country's oil and gas, mining and lumber industries.

A Reuters survey of all 13 provinces and territories showed Canada employs around 5,500 wildland firefighters, not including the remote Yukon territory, which did not respond to requests for information.

That's roughly 2,500 firefighters short of what is needed, said Mike Flannigan, a professor at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia and wildfire specialist.

"It's hard work, it's hot work, it's smoky work, and there are real issues with health impacts longer-term," Flannigan said. "It's getting harder to recruit and retain people."

This year Ontario extended its application period, boosted marketing efforts and started covering training costs to secure more recruits. Applications were down in British Columbia and Nova Scotia, and Alberta had to do several rounds of recruitment to fill its ranks, officials said.

Canada's provinces and territories share crews and equipment as required and call on international partners and the military in times of extreme need. But this year record-breaking blazes flared up simultaneously in the east and west, sparking competition for firefighters and aircraft.

"This was the worst-case scenario that everyone dreads - multiple areas of the country burning at the same time," said Scott Tingley, forest protection manager for Nova Scotia.

Wildfire crews work 12-14 hour days, up to two weeks at a time, in smoke-filled, high-stress environments, often in remote wilderness areas.

The seasonal work, longer fire seasons and uncompetitive basic pay - ranging from C$30 an hour in British Columbia to C$18 an hour in Manitoba - also deter people.

"We're in competition with a whole bunch of other labour markets. It's demanding physical work and it's mentally taxing," said Rob Schweitzer, executive director of BC Wildfire Service.

A week of cooler weather and rain eased some fires across Canada but 6.5 million hectares (16 million acres), an area the size of Lithuania, have already burned this year and unusually hot weather is expected to return.

FILLING THE GAPS

This year record fires have resulted in Canada deploying around 550 armed forces personnel and more than 1,700 international firefighters, paid for by the provinces, to beef up its stretched crews. As more wildfires threaten communities, provincial agencies are also increasingly leaning on structural firefighters to help protect homes.

But of the 126,000 structural firefighters in Canada, 90,000 are volunteers, according to the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, who are bearing the strain of protecting their own communities while also holding down day jobs.

At the height of the fires in May and June some provinces appealed for extra wildfire recruits. Alberta deployed 157 people who answered a government call-out, Nova Scotia sent out its first 30-person crew of volunteers last week and Quebec trained up an extra 300 volunteers and forestry workers who are not usually part of its wildfire service.

The extra manpower is not cheap. Annual national wildfire protection costs topped C$1 billion for six of the last 10 years, according to federal government data and have risen about C$150 million per decade since 1970.

Most experts expect them to keep climbing.

The federal government is spending C$38 million towards hiring, training and retaining firefighters and C$256 million over five years into an equipment fund, and working on a pilot project training structural firefighters. An Emergency Preparedness ministry spokesperson said the government recognizes the need for more investment.

"The men and women that fight wildland fires are doing a tremendous job but the fact is there's not enough of them," said Ken McMullen, president of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/canada-wildfire-canada-firefig...

Smoke and haze from northern Quebec wildfires now extends as far south as Kentucky prompting air quality alerts, illustrating how climate crisis events in one place have devastating effects thousands of miles away once again.

Quote:

Air quality levels in Kentucky were worsening Wednesday as smoke from the Canadian wildfires continues to drift through the United States. The Kentucky Energy and Environmental Cabinet requested an air quality alert to be issued for the entire state of Kentucky, according to the National Weather Service. The alert was set to last until at least midnight Thursday morning. “Everyone may experience health effects,” the NWS said in the alert. “Members of sensitive groups may experience more serious health effects.”

Sensitive groups include the elderly, children, people with lung and heart disease, and people with asthma or other breathing problems, according to the NWS. Lexington had an air quality index of 169 at 10 a.m. Wednesday, according to online data from the Environmental Protection Agency. The AQI is measured from 0 to 500, with higher numbers reflecting worse air quality. An air quality reading between 151 and 200 falls under the red category of the index, which is described as unhealthy. The EPA said some members of the general public may experience health effects and medically at-risk people may experience more severe symptoms.

Medically at-risk people are encouraged to avoid strenuous outdoor activities or keep activities short, according to the EPA. Everyone else is encouraged to consider shortening the amount of time spent outside or choosing less strenuous activities. The air quality in Lexington has progressively worsened since 7 p.m. Tuesday, when it was at 72. The AQI Tuesday peaked at noon when it hit 113, according to the EPA.

WAYS TO STAY SAFE WHEN AIR QUALITY IS POOR Aside from staying indoors, federal officials say there are other ways to limit poor air quality exposure when necessary, including: Leaving doors and windows fully closed. Not lighting candles or other devices that produce additional smoke. Running an air filter if you own one. Checking and replacing filters on devices, like your HVAC, in your home. People who must be outside could also wear a respirator. The EPA says a N95 or P100 mask is recommended to reduce intake of poor air quality.

Equinor’s  ‘Delay’ of three years in starting the Bay du Nord Newfoundland offshore oil project looks increasingly like a cancellation in delivered in slow motion. The announcement came just days after the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported a dramatic drop-off in investment in new project development by many of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies and  two years after the IEA’s landmark Net Zero by 2050 analysis called for no new oil and gas fields in a decarbonized future. Unfortunately, neither Liberal Prime Minister Trudeau and Liberal Premier Furey, who were providing massive subsidies for the project, seem to have gotten the message about the future of fossil fuels, just like Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and Conservative Premiers Smith and Moe. 

An illustration of the Bay du Nord proposal off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. Photo courtesy of Equinor

There’s growing speculation that the decision to “postpone” work on the giant Bay du Nord oil and gas project off the Newfoundland and Labrador coast is actually a cancellation moving in slow motion. Norwegian state fossil Equinor announced at the beginning of June that it was suspending plans to develop the C$16-billion Bay du Nord megaproject in the province’s offshore for up to three years.

Equinor revealed the surprise “strategic postponement” of the project in a news release Wednesday, while the province’s annual energy industry conference was under way in downtown St. John’s. It said Bay du Nord had seen significant cost increases in recent months, mostly due to volatile market conditions.

Though the company had not yet confirmed it would make the full investment necessary to carry the project through to completion, there was early-phase work under way, including concept studies and assessments, spokesperson Alex Collins told The Canadian Press in an email. She said the company would use the delay to “optimize” the project and work toward a “successful development.” The five sites that make up the Bay du Nord project are believed to hold a total of 979 million barrels of recoverable oil, according to recent estimates from the province’s offshore oil regulator, CP writes.

After Equinor’s bombshell announcement, Premier Andrew Furey put a brave face on the announcement and said he was confident the oilfield would still be developed. “Of course we’re disappointed in the delay, but I would caution everybody that it’s just that: it’s a delay,” he told media, adding that Equinor has not given any indication it was interested in walking away from the development. “The resource is still there,” Furey said. “It’s not going anywhere.”

As it happens, though, the announcement came just days after the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported a dramatic drop-off in investment in new project development by many of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies. The report shows the companies investing far less in new extraction projects—and next to nothing in self-styled low-carbon initiatives like biofuels, hydrogen, and carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS)—despite an “extraordinarily profitable” year that saw them take in US$4 trillion in profits in 2022. Oil and gas capital expenditures will stand at 48% of total spending in 2023, down from 61% last year, 73% in 2020, and highs of 93% and 94% in 2016 and 2010. “Uncertainties over longer-term demand, worries about costs, and pressure from many investors and owners to focus on returns rather than production growth mean only large Middle Eastern national oil companies are spending much more in 2023 than they did in 2022,” the IEA said. “And they are the only subset of the industry spending more than pre-pandemic levels.”

Bay du Nord’s opponents quickly declared the win and said they had no plans to slacken the pressure against the project, beginning with a request for judicial review led by Vancouver-based legal charity Ecojustice. But they say the tough market conditions Equinor is facing aren’t likely to improve over the next three years—and if the project is destined to disappear, it’s unfair to keep offering Newfoundlanders false hope of jobs and economic gain.

“There are various ways you can interpret that statement,” Ecojustice Program Director Alan Andrews told The Energy Mix, citing Equinor’s reference to volatile market conditions. “Taken at face value, it seems to be about rising costs associated with production. However, another way to look at it is around market volatility when it comes to the demand for oil and gas. While we’re obviously seeing a big spike in demand and prices in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the medium- to long-term outlook is much bleaker for oil, and that may well be playing into Equinor’s decision here.”

Speaking two years and 14 days after the IEA’s landmark Net Zero by 2050 analysis called for no new oil and gas fields in a decarbonized future, Andrews said the Paris-based agency’s conclusion “is only strengthened in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine, as we’ve seen Europe really double down on its energy transition.” If Equinor is hoping that lower inflation will cut the costs of some of the equipment and services it needs for Bay du Nord, “it’s hard to see how the demand side of the equation will get any better for them in three years,” as competing oil and gas projects take advantage of the same cost savings and fossils as a whole continue losing ground to renewable energy and energy efficiency.

With the IEA’s analysis as a guidepost, “the long-term outlook for demand for oil, and gas, particularly for Canadian oil and gas, has got to be grim,” Andrews added. “And the longer they delay, the worse that is going to get for them.”

https://www.theenergymix.com/2023/06/01/is-equinors-bay-du-nord-delay-a-...

A study of the BC heat dome in 2021 concludes that the vast majority of those who died were poor. Unsurprising. Now the drive is on to get those living in poverty air conditioning before the next have hits and causes more deaths among those who live in poverty, such as Q Lawrence, a 26-year-old disability justice advocate, in poorly designed buildings in terms of dealing with the climate crisis. Those on government assistance died at more than twice the rate of the rest of the population. Research in Washington state on the heat dome had similar conclusions.

The BC NDP government has provided $10 million to buy 8,000 conditioners, but the estimated number needed is 382,000.

Q Lawrence, a 26-year-old disability justice advocate, sits on the porch outside their home in Chilliwack, B.C., where they survived unbearable heat during the 2021 heat dome. (Andrew Lee/CBC) 

When a blanket of oppressive heat smothered B.C. in late June of 2021, Q Lawrence and their roommate began sleeping in the coolest place they could find — the kitchen floor. Temperatures in their Fraser Valley community of Chilliwack soared to record highs, reaching above 40 C for days in a row.

"I honestly felt quite trapped," Lawrence recalled. "The house would just build in temperature throughout the day, and then at night there wouldn't even be a subtle drop. It would just stay the same temperature, and then the next day it would start to build again." The 26-year-old gets by on less than $1,400 a month in disability assistance from the B.C. government, with small additions from conducting disability justice workshops, so buying an air conditioner was out of reach. Wildfire smoke made it risky to open the windows or stay outside for long.

The consequences were deadly for hundreds of British Columbians. An estimated 619 people died from the heat during the 2021 heat dome — Lawrence knew three of them. That's why they say it comes as no surprise to learn poverty created the biggest risk of death during the heat dome, placing people in greater danger than any chronic health condition or disability, according to unpublished research from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC). "I think it's unsurprising to most poor people. We're aware of how much community death we're surrounded by," Lawrence said. "It's angering, because this is something that can be changed. It's something that is an external factor that actually, with enough political will, is changeable."

The findings are prompting calls from advocates, scientists and doctors for governments to do more to keep people safe from the extreme heat events that are becoming more common because of human-caused climate change. That includes going beyond a recent government pledge for air conditioners to create permanent systems providing units to people who can't afford them, improving building standards and setting maximum allowable temperatures for indoor spaces. Sarah Henderson, the BCCDC's scientific director of environmental health services, said it's imperative to act now. "I'm scared of summer," she told CBC News. "They describe this as a one-in-1,000-year event. I don't buy that. I will not be surprised if we see another temperature anomaly like this within the next decade and I fear for the people in the province who are so at risk."

The new research from the BCCDC shows that people who died during the heat dome were more than twice as likely to receive government income assistance than a comparable sample of people who survived. "That was the biggest risk factor for mortality during the heat dome, followed very closely by evidence of having schizophrenia," Henderson said.

The vast majority of these deaths happened inside, in private residences, she added. The BCCDC has tracked data from smart thermometers showing that in homes without air conditioning, temperatures remained dangerously high at night for days on end during the heat dome, unlike outside, where there was some relief. The chance to cool down at night is key, because without it, the body faces extra strain trying to regulate body temperature. To determine who among the 619 deaths depended on government assistance, the researchers used data from B.C.'s Pharmacare program, tracking prescriptions that had been filled during the previous year. 

They were able to tease out whose prescriptions were paid for under "Plan C," which covers the full cost of eligible drugs for people who receive benefits and income assistance through the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction. About 15 per cent of the people who died during the heat dome had filled prescriptions through Plan C, compared to six per cent of those who survived.

Henderson said there could be a number of reasons for this discrepancy. People living below the poverty line are more likely to be disabled and to live in substandard, multi-unit housing with little control over the temperature inside, and they often don't have the resources to take emergency measures during a crisis. "If I get really hot in my house, I'm going to go out and buy an air conditioner," she said. "We have to be very clear that those options are not available to a very large segment of the population."

Joan Casey, an assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Public Health in Seattle, described the BCCDC research on poverty and heat deaths as "spot on." Casey has also been tracking deaths from extreme heat across the Pacific Northwest, and said the findings in B.C. illustrate a fundamental truth about climate change. "It's going to really exacerbate existing health disparities," she said. "We really need to buckle down and start to take this seriously, because we're going to, more than ever, start to see this widening [between] who can stay healthy and who gets very sick or dies unless we as a society take some steps."

She recently published research showing a spike in injury deaths in Washington state during the heat dome — things like gun violence, drownings and car crashes that weren't directly linked to heat exposure. Casey's team found 159 excess deaths from injury over three weeks during the 2021 heat wave as compared to previous years.

Similar research has yet to be completed in B.C., according to the provincial coroner. But Casey said previous research has shown increases in violence, collisions, workplace accidents and alcohol consumption as temperatures rise. "It makes me wonder what this will look like in the future if we don't take steps to slow climate change and respond to really extreme temperatures, particularly for people that are really vulnerable," she said.

In the two years since the tragic events of the heat dome, there have been growing calls for government funding for residential air conditioning in a province where it has traditionally been unnecessary. Just a little more than a third of all households in B.C. had air conditioning in 2021, compared to 84 per cent in Ontario, according to Statistics Canada. On Tuesday, B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix announced $10 million for B.C. Hydro to provide approximately 8,000 air conditioners to medically vulnerable low-income households over the next three years. He said including some other programs operated by the public utility, about 10,000 units will be made available in all.  Asked whether this would be enough to meet the need, Dix replied, "Our view was that this would be an important place to start. It's a very significant investment." But Vancouver physician Dr. Karina Zeidler described the commitment as "grossly inadequate." An estimated 382,000 British Columbians are living in poverty, according to the B.C. Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction. ...

The City of Toronto, for example, funds portable air conditioners for low-income earners with certain medical conditions.  The B.C. government conducted a review of the idea in response to June 2022 recommendationsfrom a coroner's death review panel, with the expectation the findings would be public by Dec. 1, 2022. That did not happen. A report was finally released on Thursday morning, recommending funding for the recently announced B.C. Hydro programs instead. ...

As for Q Lawrence, they and their roommate now have an air conditioner strong enough to cool one room in their house, thanks to fundraising efforts. They want the same for all disabled and poor British Columbians, including those who aren't lucky enough to have the strong community support they enjoy.

"There's the idea that air conditioning units are bad for the environment, and to that I say disabled people's lives are not on the chopping block," Lawrence said.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/bc-heat-dome-poverty-connection-1.6891461....

As scientists warn that there can be no new fossil fuel projects if we are to avoid the worst of the worst problems from the greenhouse gas emissions of the fossil fuel industry, this industry is turning to Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in an effort to persuade the public that they have a solution that allows the creation of new oil and gas projects. This is despite the failure of past CCS projects to do so including the largest in the world. "Chevron’s Gorgon gas plant in WA is the world’s largest attempted CCS project in the world, which has been a big, expensive failure, plagued by leaks, cracks as well as frequently evacuated. ... When attached to polluting coal and gas projects, CCS is simply a licence to ramp up emissions and will never be a ‘zero-emissions’ solution. " (https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/ccs-will-not-solve-this-prob...’s%20Gorgon%20gas%20plant%20in%20WA%20is%20the,emissions%20and%20will%20never%20be%20a%20‘zero-emissions’%20solution.)

 Prime Minister Trudeau and Premiers Smith of Alberta and Moe of Saskatchewan not only supporting them but subsidizing them. Climate crisis activists around the world are fighting to stop these CCS projects, knowing that they are just an excuse for more emissions, including a group in Texas who are trying to stop the $10 billion CCS Rio Grande LNG project. As usual, the fossil fuel company, Next Generation misleads the public on what CCS can do claiming CCS will "reduce its CO2 emissions by more than 90 percent" in the cooling of natural gas "Only 6-7 percent of the overall emissions associated with such projects are generated during the process of cooling the gas".

Activists protest against NextDecade's Rio Grande LNG project planned for the Texas Gulf Coast. Credit: Gaige Davila

Dina Nuñez called to order a meeting of women grassroots activists in a modest home in the heart of Port Isabel, Texas. Top of her agenda: how to stop a Houston-based oil and gas company from building a $10 billion project to export liquefied natural gas on a nearby stretch of coast. For Nuñez and her friends, the fight against the scheme — known as Rio Grande LNG — is about protecting their community from air pollution; preserving shrimping and tourism; and defending habitats for pelicans, endangered ocelots, and aplomado falcons at the project site on unspoiled wetlands between Port Isabel and the larger city of Brownsville.

The claim by developer NextDecade to be building the “greenest LNG project in the world” has thrust the women to the forefront of a global struggle. At a time when scientists warn there can be no new fossil fuel developments if the world is going to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis, oil and gas executives are turning to a technology known as carbon capture and storage, or CCS, to convince investors, politicians, and the public their expansion plans are climate-safe….

A prime example of the ups and downs of the American liquefied natural gas industry, plans to build Rio Grande LNG faltered in 2020 as demand for energy cratered during the Covid-19 pandemic, and concern over its climate impact grew. But the scheme has been resurrected thanks to a European scramble for LNG triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and a new twist on the original design — the use of CCS to portray the facility as a source of “clean” energy. These claims hinge on a proposal by NextDecade to use CCS to capture more than 5 million tons a year of the carbon dioxide (CO2) produced during the process of supercooling the gas for loading on to specialized tankers for export. The company says it will be one of the biggest CCS systems in North America — and the first LNG terminal to reduce its CO2 emissions by more than 90 percent. …

Opponents point out there’s a big catch, however. Only 6-7 percent of the overall emissions associated with such projects are generated during the process of cooling the gas, according to a 2019 study by the Department of Energy. That means that the proposed CCS plant could only ever mitigate a small fraction of Rio Grande LNG’s total climate impact. And that impact could be considerable. The Sierra Club estimates that building Rio Grande LNG could generate up to 163 million tons of CO2 equivalent emissions a year — comparable to 44 coal plants, or more than 35 million cars. That analysis factors in the potential emissions of CO2 and methane, a powerful climate pollutant, associated with the production, transport, and end-use of the natural gas. …

“Carbon capture is like trying to put a Band-Aid on a bullet hole,” said Bekah Hinojosa, a Brownsville artist, community organiser, and Gulf Coast campaign representative for the Sierra Club. “The project itself is highly destructive in so many different ways, and would still release a tremendous amount of toxic air pollution into our impoverished brown and Indigenous community.”

https://www.desmog.com/2023/02/03/rio-grande-lng-carbon-capture-greenwas...

Canada has already broken the records for the area of the country burned by wildfires, the number of people forced to evacuate because of wildfires and the amount of money spent on fighting wildfires even though we are just at the start of summer. We also lead the G20 in fossil fuel subsidies. I think it's called karma. 

FILE - Smoke billows from the Donnie Creek wildfire burning north of Fort St. John, British Columbia, Canada, Sunday, July 2, 2023. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)

Wildfires raging across Canada have already broken records for total area burned, the number of people forced to evacuate their homes and the cost of fighting the blazes, and the fire season is only halfway finished, officials said Thursday.

“It’s no understatement to say that the 2023 fire season is and will continue to be record breaking in a number of ways,” Michael Norton, director general, Northern Forestry Centre, Canadian Forest Service, said during a briefing.

A health expert also warned that smoke from the fires can cause health problems for people living in both Canada and the United States.

“When you’re emitting large amounts of fire smoke into the air, and that smoke is reaching populated areas, there will be health effects,” said Ryan Allen, a professor of health sciences at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia.

Norton said warm weather and dry conditions across Canada indicate the potential for higher-than-normal fire activity through July and August.

“Drought is a major contributing factor affecting parts of all provinces and territories, intensifying in some regions,” he said. “When coupled with forecasts for ongoing above normal temperatures across most of the country, it is anticipated that many parts of Canada will continue to see above normal fire activity."

As of Wednesday, there were 639 active fires burning in Canada with 351 of them out of control. So far this year there have been 3,412 fires, well above the 10-year average of 2,751, said Norton.

The fires have burned 8.8 million hectares (27.7 million acres) an area about the size of the state of Virginia. This already exceeds the record of 7.6 million hectares (18.7 million acres) set in 1989 and is 11 times the 10-year average experienced by this date.

“The final area burned for this season may yet be significantly higher,” said Norton. “What we can say with certainty right now is that 2023 is a record-breaking year since at least since 1986 when accurate records started to be kept.”

Allen said the fine particles found in fire smoke not only have the ability to penetrate deep into airways, they also can travel long distances meaning they could drift far into the U.S.

There have been reports that fires in Eastern Canada and Quebec are affecting air quality in Europe.

Allen said higher concentrations of smoke increases health risks to the lungs, brain, cognitive functions and even fetal development.

“As you get very far away, it’s unlikely the concentration would be as high as they are in close proximity to the fire and therefore the health risk would be lower, but the health risk is probably not zero,” he said.

Norton said the fires have forced an estimated 155,856 evacuees, the highest number in the last four decades. Currently about 4,500 people remain under evacuation orders across the country with about 3,400 in Indigenous communities.

Fighting the fires has taken on a global proportion.

There are about 3,790 provincial firefighters battling the blazes across the country being assisted by Canadian Armed Forces personnel. Another 3,258 firefighters from Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, the U.S., Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, South Korea and the European Union have travelled to Canada to fight fires.

Norton said the cost of fighting wildfires has steadily grown and is approaching about CDN$1 billion (US$750 million) a year.

“With the scale of this year’s activity and the fact we’ve still got three months left, there’s no question in my mind the direct cost of suppression will be a new record,” he said.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/wildfires-canada-broken-r...

Each of the last three days has set a new global average temperature record and the last week has been the hottest ever globally. Redefinging global warming on a daily basis. Of course this also creates other problems as the following picture suggests. But maybe you can use it to cool off mentally.

A man watches waves caused by high tide hit his house on the shore of the Arabian Sea in Mumbai, India, Thursday, July 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

Sweltering heat is blanketing much of the planet, and one unofficial analysis says the past seven days have been the hottest week on record, the latest grim milestone in a series of climate-change-driven extremes. 

On Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration distanced itself from the designation, compiled by the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, which uses satellite data and computer simulations to measure the world’s condition. That metric showed that Earth’s average temperature on Wednesday remained at an unofficial record high, 62.9 degrees Fahrenheit (17.18 degrees Celsius), set the day before. ...

And for the seven-day period ending Wednesday, the daily average temperature was .08 degrees Fahrenheit (.04 degrees Celsius) higher than any week in 44 years of record-keeping, according to Climate Reanalyzer data.

Though the figures are unofficial, many scientists agree they indicate climate change is reaching uncharted territory. And the White House said the data show the need for legislative action. 

“The alarming extreme weather events impacting millions of Americans underscore the urgency of President Biden’s climate agenda and the absurdity of continued efforts by Republican lawmakers to block and repeal it," spokesman Abdullah Hasan said.

NOAA, whose figures are considered the gold standard in climate data, said in a statement Thursday that it cannot validate the unofficial numbers. It noted that the reanalyzer uses model output data, which it called "not suitable” as substitutes for actual temperatures and climate records. The agency monitors global temperatures and records on a monthly and an annual basis, not daily.

“We recognize that we are in a warm period due to climate change, and combined with El Nino and hot summer conditions, we’re seeing record warm surface temperatures being recorded at many locations across the globe,” the statement said.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the latest numbers help prove "that climate change is out of control."

"If we persist in delaying key measures that are needed, I think we are moving into a catastrophic situation, as the last two records in temperature demonstrates,” he said.  More frequent and more intense heat waves are disrupting life around the world and causing life-threatening temperatures.

In Timbuktu, Mali — at the gateway to the Sahara Desert — 50-year-old Fatoumata Arby said this kind of heat is new. “Usually, at night it’s a bit cool even during the hot season. But this year, even at night, it’s been hot — I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Arby, who rarely leaves her hometown. “I’ve been having heart palpitations because of the heat. I’m starting to think seriously that I’m going to leave Timbuktu.”

Last week, Egypt experienced one of its many summer heatwaves, with temperatures soaring above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 degrees Celsius), according to the country's national weather forecaster. To combat heat and humidity, children on Thursday frolicked in the Nile River while pedestrians hunted the shade.

People are also feeling the effects in Nouakchot, Mauritania’s capital city, on the shores of the Atlantic. For Abdallahi Sy, a 56-year-old farmer who works in the market gardens, environmental changes have reduced his already-meager income. “I have a small shelter built from wooden poles and scraps of cloth. I take refuge there when the heat becomes unbearable," said Sy, who tries to work from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m., or noon at the latest. “After that ... I practically can’t move because of the heat.” Customers don't venture out until 5 p.m. or later to buy fertilizer and vegetables. He cited a scarcity of water and quality feed for livestock as causes for illness and even miscarriage among animals: “It is clear that we are facing profound changes in our environment. The earth is becoming less fertile and less generous."

Overall, one of the largest contributors to this week's heat records is an exceptionally mild winter in the Antarctic. Parts of the continent and nearby ocean were 18-36 degrees Fahrenheit (10-20 degrees Celsius) higher than averages from 1979 to 2000. “Temperatures have been unusual over the ocean and especially around the Antarctic this week, because wind fronts over the Southern Ocean are strong pushing warm air deeper south,” said Raghu Murtugudde, professor of atmospheric, oceanic and earth system science at the University of Maryland and visiting faculty at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

Chari Vijayaraghavan, a polar explorer and educator who has visited the Arctic and Antarctic regularly for the past 10 years, said global warming is obvious at both poles and threatens the region's wildlife as well as driving ice melt that raises sea levels.  “Warming climates might lead to increasing risks of diseases such as the avian flu spreading in the Antarctic that will have devastating consequences for penguins and other fauna in the region," Vijayaraghavan said.

Katharine Hayhoe, The Nature Conservancy chief scientist and a climate scientist at Texas Tech, said: “This is one more reminder of the inexorable upward trend that will only be halted by decisive actions to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, invest in nature, and achieve net zero.”

https://www.richmond-news.com/environment-news/earth-hit-an-unofficial-r...

Meanwhile, in Canada, we do very little to stop deforestation whether through logging or the record 2023 wildfire season while the Amazonian countries are tackling this head on as described in the last post. Now between the emissions from logging fossil fuels, transportation etc. are being exponentially increased emissions this year from the record "8.8 million hectares (27.7 million acres) an area about the size of the state of Virginia" (https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/wildfires-canada-broken-r...) that have already burned even though we are not even half way through the wildfire season. "In 2018, for example, net emissions into the atmosphere totalled 240 MtCO2. That was more climate pollution than even our oil and gas or transportation sectors emitted that year." (https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/11/02/opinion/co2-forestry-Canada-...) Below is a look at the greenhouse gas emissions Canadians have released just from logging during the Harper and Trudeau governments that has accelerated the number and intensity of wildfires that in turn create more emissions. 

Canada's vast managed forest lands used to be critical allies in our climate fight and efforts to build a sustainable, carbon neutral forestry economy. That's because these forests used to be healthy enough to absorb the huge amounts of CO2 created by the logging industry's harvests — plus lots more.

This huge forest carbon sink benefited us in many ways in addition to climate safety.

The logging industry benefited because it allowed them to promote their wood products as both sustainable and carbon neutral. But now they find themselves cutting more than is growing back — putting both their economic advantages and social licence at risk.

Other carbon-intensive industries, like oil and gas and aviation, have been counting on a large and enduring forest carbon sink to supply carbon offsets to meet climate targets. Without millions of tonnes of these hoped-for Canadian forest carbon offsets, these industries face faster, deeper and more expensive cuts to their own climate pollution.

Unfortunately for all of us, our forests' deep and valuable carbon sink has nearly dried up. Decades of human abuses — from climate disruption to clearcutting — have left them too battered and weakened to even keep up with business-as-usual logging. Put simply: Our continent-spanning managed forests are now being cut down faster than they are growing back.

The result has been a rising flood of CO2 pouring out of our managed forests and accumulating in our atmosphere — worsening both the climate and ocean acidification crises.

My first chart shows how extreme this has become over the last decade.

The rising black line shows the cumulative CO2 emitted by the logging industry's harvested wood over the last 10 years. These logging emissions added up to more than 1,200 million tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2).

Now compare those emissions to what our managed forests were absorbing over those same years. That's the faltering lower dashed line. The forests absorbed less than 100 MtCO2 — not even one-tenth of what the logging industry emitted.

The remaining 90 per cent of those logging emissions, shown by the red area, have been accumulating in our atmosphere, intensifying climate disruption. The decision to keep cutting more than is growing back has resulted in more than a billion tonnes of excess CO2 emissions — so far. And, the long-term trend lines show the problem growing increasingly worse. ...

This net CO2 exchange with the atmosphere is what our climate system reacts to. On my chart, it's shown by the bold black line.

As you can see, back in the 1990s, the CO2 balance was mostly down in the green area. That means our forests were overall CO2 absorbers (carbon sinks). They grew back faster than they were logged and helped slow climate change.

But since then, the CO2 balance has moved increasingly upwards into the red zone. In these more recent years, our managed forests became CO2 emitters (carbon sources). That means the growth rate couldn't keep pace with logging. This has intensified climate change.

In 2018, for example, net emissions into the atmosphere totalled 240 MtCO2. That was more climate pollution than even our oil and gas or transportation sectors emitted that year. This is not a climate threat we can safely ignore.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/11/02/opinion/co2-forestry-Canada-...

There is increasing evidence that the Arctic Ocean could be ice free by the 2030s, which will force enormous changes in living conditions for those in the Arctic, cause a lot of housing to be destroyed on the neighbouring Arctic tundra, endanger many species adapted to the region of which the polar bear is only one, and even increase national security and sovereignty problems for Canada as other countries claim much of the Arctic Ocean is international water and as a resource mineral ocean 'gold rush' starts. However, those changes will impact the entire planet as well.

Denser water is pushed across the planet's polar regions by deep currents while warmer waters closer to the surface are affected by wind and pushed toward the poles in what's known as the "global conveyor belt." NOAA

There, at the Earth's northern extreme, the Arctic is experiencing an increase in temperatures two to four times higher than anywhere else in the world, and sea ice has decreased by about 12% per decade since the beginning of the satellite era. About 548,000 square miles of sea ice has been lost since 1979, equivalent to losing an area of ice roughly half the size of India. It's seen a more rapid decline since 2000. 

It's one of the most obvious signs that greenhouse gas emissions are shifting the planet's equilibrium. Researchers say we can take steps to slow the changes, but we need to act with urgency. 

The 4 million people who call the Arctic home rely on the Arctic Ocean for food and transportation. The Indigenous peoples of the Arctic, who make up about 10% of the population, have a vibrant and longstanding cultural connection to the region that is slowly dripping away as regions become free of sea ice for the first time in millennia.  

Meanwhile, the distribution of wildlife is shifting and behaviors are changing, altering the interactions between predators and prey. The Arctic's famous polar bears rely on the ice to hunt and now have to travel further to eat, whereas the narwhal, a near-mythic, tusked whale, faces increased threats from killer whales lingering in exposed, warmer waters and disruptions to its migratory patterns. 

Our best models currently predict the Arctic will be "sea ice free" within the next few decades, perhaps as soon as the 2030s. Antarctica's sea ice is more of a mystery. But at both poles, sea ice is disappearing at an unprecedented rate. And when the ice ends it's not just the ends of the Earth that will change. It's the entire planet. ...

For decades, scientists have tried to pinpoint when the total extent of Arctic sea ice will drop below 1 million square kilometers (or about 386,000 square miles) — the marker denoting a "sea ice-free" summer. In 2009, for instance, one study used climate models to determine that this mark would be hit by 2037. Other research has shown that the timing is unpredictable, with analyses suggesting we might still be decades away. 

In June, a study in the journal Nature Communications analyzed 41 years of satellite data, from 1979 to 2019, reiterating that human greenhouse gas emissions are the dominant force in reduction of Arctic sea ice. It also generated a flurry of worrying headlines focused on the first ice-free summer, citing the near end of a range that it said had shifted to as early as the 2030s to 2050s. But those headlines gloss over a critical point: The current losses of summer sea ice are already having devastating effects. ...

"Although the first ice-free Arctic summer has constantly been a point of interest for understanding and communicating climate change, it's more a symbolic threshold in some sense," says Zachary Labe, a climate scientist at Princeton University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Arctic climate change is already happening now and in all months of the year." ...

What happens when the ice ends 

The great white sheets at either end of the Earth are particularly good at reflecting sunlight. Sea ice covers about 15% of the world's oceans across the year, and up to 70% of the heating energy is reflected back into space. Cover that ice with a dusting of snow and up to 90% can be reflected.   

When the sea ice disappears, the energy is absorbed by the ocean, raising its temperature. "In a positive feedback loop this ocean warming leads to even more ice loss and global warming," says Heil. She suggests conceptualizing the impact of sea-ice loss by thinking about sea ice as the air conditioning unit of the Earth. 

When the sea ice disappears, our planetary AC unit is being switched off. It becomes harder to reflect that heat into space and we lose the ability to "self-regulate" the Earth's climate.

The change doesn't affect just the ocean surface and the Earth's air temperatures, though. Sea ice also plays one of the most critical roles on the planet in the ocean's depths. As seawater freezes into ice, salt is expelled, making the surrounding water denser. This heavier, colder water sinks and gets whisked around the planet. Warmer waters are predominantly pushed by wind into the polar regions, then freeze up into ice. The cycle is known as thermohaline circulation. ...

As the oceans continue to warm at both poles and sea ice extent decreases, this deep ocean current is likely to be disturbed. The knock-on effects could disrupt the polar ecosystems as nutrients and ocean biogeochemistry are altered, particularly in the Southern Ocean, where circulation is also heavily influenced by Antarctic meltwater and the currents already show signs of slowdown.  ...

It now seems highly unlikely that the current declines can be stopped but Heil, and her colleague Melinda Webster from the University of Washington, say "it's possible to slow and mitigate further detrimental effects of a warming climate by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and implementing ways to reduce existing atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations to levels that can sustain a habitable climate."   On June 16, Heil and Webster, and more than 60 other polar scientists responded to the changes to the poles by calling for "urgent intensification of national and international research and observational capabilities in view of rapid Arctic and Antarctic change."

"Action is required now," she says, "to give future generations a fighting chance to mitigate the negative consequences of a warming climate."

https://www.cnet.com/science/climate/as-a-sea-ice-free-arctic-looms-the-...

Canadian climate scientist warns that "A “perfect storm” is unfolding this summer, one climate scientist told CNN, as atmospheric ingredients combine to create deadly flooding in the Northeast US and record-breaking heat in the Southwest US and around the world."

Downpours flood portions of Douglas Ave., in North Providence, Rhode Island, on Monday.

Deadly flooding inundated parts of the Northeast, trapping people in their homes and killing at least one womanwho was swept away by the fast-moving water. Rivers in Vermont rose quickly in the torrential rain on Monday to levels not seen since Hurricane Irene in 2011. 

On Sunday, more than 7.5 inches of rain fell at West Point, New York, in just six hours — a 1,000-year rainfall event for the area, according to a CNN analysis of data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A 1,000-year rainfall event is one that is so intense, it only happens on average once every 1,000 years.

The climate crisis is stacking the deck in favor of more intense weather events like the heavy rain and flooding in the Northeast, said Michael E. Mann, a climate scientist and distinguished professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

“Sure, weather is weather. It’s going to happen — rainfall, flooding events are going to happen,” Mann told CNN. “What climate change is doing is it’s supercharging them, so when you get one of those weather systems that’s producing large amounts of rainfall, you get more rainfall.”

There’s another, more surprising way that the climate crisis could be driving these extreme rainfall events, Mann said, and it’s something on the forefront of climate research: The jet stream could be getting “stuck” in positions that prolong these kinds of extreme events.

The jet stream is the fast-moving river of air high in the atmosphere that ushers weather systems across the globe. Importantly, it’s fueled by the extreme difference in temperature between the equator and the poles.

But the planet is not warming equally in all locations, Mann explained. The Arctic is warming much faster than the Lower 48, for example, which “reduces the temperature difference from the equator to the pole.”  Scientists suspect that this decrease in temperature difference is changing how the jet stream behaves. “The jet stream basically stalls and those weather patterns remain in place — those high and low pressure centers remain in place,” Mann said. “And we’re seeing more of these sort of stuck, wavy jet stream patterns that are associated with these very persistent weather extremes, whether it’s the heat, drought, wildfire or the flooding events.”

Last week, the planet’s average daily temperature climbed to record levels in data tracked by two climate agencies in the US and Europe. Climate scientists told CNN that the global temperatures were likely the highest in at least 100,000 years. Meanwhile, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service found that last month was the hottest June by a “substantial margin” above the previous record, which was set in 2019.

Given the exceptional heat, scientists are concerned that 2023 could be the hottest year on record.

Mann said that El Niño is “adding extra heat, extra fuel to the fire.” El Niño, which is a warm phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean, is combining with the climate crisis “and what you get is new record levels of heat at the planetary scale.” But Mann said without the climate crisis, which is caused by burning fossil fuels, “we simply wouldn’t be seeing these extreme events.” “Those are conspiring. They’re combining,” Mann said. “The steady warming combined with an El Niño; extreme weather events related to those changing jet stream conditions – it all comes together, if you will, in a perfect storm of consequences, which translates to truly devastating and deadly weather extremes that we’re dealing with here right now.”

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/11/weather/flooding-heat-perfect-storm-clima...

A new report entitled Canada’s Energy Future 2023 by the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) forsees for both Western and Newfoundland's oil production. It predicts Newfoundland's oil production dropping sharply by the early 2030s and by 99% by 2050. Although its predictions for Western Canadian oil production are not as grim, "in the event either Canada or the planet achieve net-zero emissions, production in Alberta and Saskatchewan is expected to decline at a much slower rate than in Newfoundland and Labrador."

The CER assumed the Bay du Nord project would start production would start producing oil by 2030, but its owner, Equinor, at the end of May has already "delayed" its start for three years as oil prices drop and may never start up, making the CER scenario look even more optimistic than today's condtions warrant. 

This illustrates the risk that the Trudeau, Smith, Moe, and Furey governments are putting these provinces in by focusing on greatly expanding oil production through large subsidies. Since it takes years for new oil production to ramp up, the danger would be that the as production was starting to grow signficantly, prices would drop as the world shifted away from fossil fuels because of the catastrophic damage greenhouse gas emissions produce during the climate crisis. 

The Hercules drill rig is anchored off of Bay Bulls, N.L. before heading offshore to drill an exploration well for ExxonMobil Canada and its partner, Qatar Energy. (Danny Arsenault/CBC)

Oil production in Newfoundland and Labrador is slated to drop sharply within the next decade, peaking at the latest by the early 2030s, according to the Canada Energy Regulator (CER).

In fact, offshore oil drilling could have nearly disappeared by 2050, according to a reportreleased last month by the federal agency.

The CER's report charts how oil production in the province's offshore would evolve in three scenarios:

• If the planet reaches net-zero by 2050.
• If Canada reaches net-zero, but the rest of the world lags.
• If current measures are maintained, but not reinforced.

The agency projects that if the planet reduces its emissions to net-zero, oil production in Newfoundland's offshore is set to fall off a cliff, dropping 99 per cent by 2050, according to the report.

But even in the event Canada announces no new measures and misses its net-zero target, production in Newfoundland would still drop 80 per cent.

In each of the scenarios studied, the CER assumes Equinor's Bay du Nord project will come into service by the end of the decade. However, in May, the Norwegian energy giant postponed the project three years due to mounting costs. ...

Bay du Nord is the only new project included in the CER's analysis, despite early-stage exploration work from oil companies, including ExxonMobil and BP.

In an interview with Radio-Canada, CER chief economist Jean-Denis Charlebois said production will peak in Newfoundland and Labrador "around 2025, maybe a little sooner" if Bay du Nord is cancelled.

Three of the four fields currently in production have been pumping oil since the 1990s or early 2000s and Charlebois said if Bay du Nord is cancelled, the existing fields would follow a "natural decline."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/oil-production-repo...

In the Yukon " officials are dealing with a blaze west of Whitehorse that has grown to 14 square kilometres and crews are protecting the Alaska Highway and homes on the northern flank, building guards to ensure flames cannot move closer to the city. Environment Canada has also posted air-quality statements for much of central and northern B.C. and parts of Yukon as far north as Faro, with conditions not expected to ease for at least the next day or two." (https://ca.news.yahoo.com/more-evacuations-alerts-reflect-difficult-1724...)

However, the 17 wildfires that are currently burning in the Yukon are just one of the problems that the climate crisis is creating there. A new virtual reality (VR) program,  Qikiqtaruk: Arctic at Risk, is allowing Yukoners  to witness "a permafrost thaw slump, rising floodwaters and shrubs take over Qikiqtaruk or Herschel Island" to help them understand the climate risks they now face. 

Richard Gordon tests out the virtual reality environment on Qikiqtaruk, Yukon, in an undated handout photo. The VR project Qikiqtaruk: Arctic at Risk is transporting people to Yukon's northernmost point without ever having to leave home. (Isla Myers-Smith/The Canadian Press)

Surrounded by chirping birds, buzzing mosquitoes and waves gently lapping on the shore, viewers travel through time, witnessing a permafrost thaw slump, rising floodwaters and shrubs take over Qikiqtaruk or Herschel Island. The virtual reality project Qikiqtaruk: Arctic at Risk is transporting people to Yukon's northernmost point without them ever having to leave home. Using real visuals and sounds, including the cracking and popping of permafrost thaw, the National Geography Society-funded project provides an immersive experience into the effects of climate change on the island in the Canadian Arctic.

"There's a lot of changes that I've seen over my 20 years working on Herschel," said Richard Gordon, senior park ranger for Qikiqtaruk Territorial Park with Yukon Parks. Gordon said the coast is rapidly eroding, ice is going out earlier and it's getting more difficult for elders to read the weather when travelling. He said black guillemots, with the island home to the largest colony of the seabirds in the western Arctic, are also declining as there are fewer of the fish they feed on. Gordon said the VR project aims to help youth, tourists and others understand what is happening on Qikiqtaruk first-hand, and the importance of working with researchers on management decisions. "It really gives you a good reality as to what is happening with climate change as it's happening," he said. "If you could see it happening on a small island within your homeland, it's happening all along that North Slope coast." ...

Qikiqtaruk, which is approximately 116 square kilometres and located five kilometres off the north coast of Yukon in the Beaufort Sea, is an important cultural heritage site with Inuvialuit using the island for thousands of years. It's home to a variety of animals and plants including Porcupine caribou, Arctic terns and Arctic lupine. ...

Qikiqtaruk was established as a natural environment park in 1987 under the Inuvialuit Final Agreement, allowing for traditional Indigenous use to continue. Isla Myers-Smith, a scientist at the University of Edinburgh and University of British Columbia, has been researching tundra and plants on Qikiqtaruk since 2008. She said since the 1980s, there has been an increase in shrubs and grasses on the island, along with rates of permafrost thaw and erosion.

Myers-Smith said the idea to develop the VR project came about during the pandemic when researchers were unable to travel to the island. "I think for a lot of people around the planet, they hear about climate change but they don't necessarily understand what that means and what it might mean in an Arctic context," she said. "For those of us who spend time on the island, it's amazing how you can make it true to life," she said of the VR project. "When I have the headset on ... I feel like I am in those places." 

It also helps bridge an empathy gap, he said, connecting people from far away to the island in the Canadian Arctic. "If we can use this to at least start some conversations or to tie people more into the connection that they have to the island, that's a great thing, in a way that perhaps pictures can't," he said. Last month, the project won "best in category: visualize" at the XR Prize Challenge: Fight Climate Change at the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara, Calif. The competition featured projects from around the globe that used augmented and virtual reality to help fight climate change. Myers-Smith said the project has been shared with community members in Aklavik, N.W.T., to gain feedback and plan to release it later this year or next spring.

Jeff Kerby, a researcher and science photographer at Aarhus University in Denmark, said "seeing is believing" when it comes to changes on the island, the most obvious of which he said is the formation of huge permafrost thaw slumps. He said the VR project brought together Gordon, researchers and immersive content creators. He said the project helps address accessibility challenges, as travelling to Qikiqtaruk requires chartering a plane, which is expensive, or taking a long boat ride.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/vr-project-herschel-island-1.6903769

In a sign of the future that is coming everywhere in the world, Farmer's Insurance is abandoning Florida because it forsees the insurmountable damage that is coming from the climate crisis. Already ten insurance companies have went bankrupt in Florida paying out on climate crisis claims and Farmer's Insurance is the fourth insurance company to abandon the state over climate crisis payouts. What is the immediate trigger is that ocean waters are in the 90s Fahrenheit around Florida and hitting 96 near the Florida Keys, providing massive energy boosts to the upcoming hurricanes which is already in its early 2023 season. Unfortunately, Farmers is also part of the problem: "as Farmers Insurance exits Florida due to concerns over increasing risk from severe weather, the insurance industry continues to prop up the fossil fuel industry. Farmers has held significant investments in fossil fuel companies, and its parent company, Zurich, remains a top global insurer of oil and gas," Carly Fabian of the consumer rights group Public Citizen noted.

Governments will become the insurers of last resort and they even have limits on what they will spend as we saw in Quebec in 2019. "Speaking to media in Gatineau last week while touring the flood-stricken area, Premier Legault said the provincial government will not be able to afford offering compensation “every year to solve problems, but only on a temporary basis.” (https://www.lavalnews.ca/legault-flood-compensation/#:~:text=Speaking%20....”)

An aerial view of Ft. Myers Beach, Florida taken after Hurricane Ian hit in September 2022 shows homes, businesses, and property destroyed by the storm.

 (Photo: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

In a move the will affect roughly 100,000 policyholders, Farmers Insurance announced Tuesday that it would stop covering property in Florida, a business decision the company said was taken to "effectively manage risk exposure" amid increasingly frequent extreme weather disasters fueled by human-caused global heating.

Farmers informed Florida officials that it would no longer write new home, auto, or umbrella policies in the state, making the company the fourth insurance giant to quit the Florida market over the past year,according to the Tampa Bay Times. 

Some of the companies have cited rising risks from hurricanes as their main reason for leaving. A study published earlier this year showed how rapid sea-level rise in the southern U.S.—which is happening faster than scientists previously understood—is intensifying hurricane damage in coastal cities.

The administration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—a struggling 2024 Republican presidential contender who said in May that he rejects the "politicization of the weather"—and the GOP-controlled state Legislature worked hard but ultimately failed to convince Farmers to keep doing new business in the state. ...

Carly Fabian of the consumer rights group Public Citizen noted in a statement Wednesday that "as Farmers Insurance exits Florida due to concerns over increasing risk from severe weather, the insurance industry continues to prop up the fossil fuel industry. Farmers has held significant investments in fossil fuel companies, and its parent company, Zurich, remains a top global insurer of oil and gas," she noted.

"Insurers pulling out of vulnerable markets continue to prioritize fossil fuels over homeowners and auto insurance policyholders, creating a crisis," Fabian continued. "This is reckless behavior by an industry that the public will be increasingly reliant on as the climate crisis intensifies."

"Regulators must push insurers to mitigate climate-related risks by reducing the industry's financing and insurance of the fossil fuel industry," she added. "Florida regulators and elected officials continue to stick their heads in the sand by criticizing financial firms who move away from fossil fuels."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/farmers-insurance-florida

With the wildfire season only half over, this year Canada has already lost more than 100,000 sq km to wildfires, which is more than twice Nova Scotia's 53,338 sq km. (https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-largest-and-smallest-canadian-pr...). We have also lost two firefighters and others are at risk. 

How bad is the climate crisis here? "In 2018, for example, net emissions (from logging) into the atmosphere totalled 240 MtCO2. That was more climate pollution than even our oil and gas or transportation sectors emitted that year." (https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/11/02/opinion/co2-forestry-Canada-...) 

Wildfires this year are now producing far more emissions than logging or any other economic sectore thereby exponentially accelerating the climate crisis in a positive feedback loop that is getting worse every year. 

When are the vast majority of Canadians going to make the major changes in the lifestyle, including abandoning the overwhelming amount of their fossil fuel production and consumption? Is it already too late?

Quote:

British Columbia's coroner has issued a public safety bulletin about wildfire smoke as it confirmed a nine-year-old boy died from a medical condition aggravated by the smoke. The Donnie Creek wildfire burns in an area between Fort Nelson and Fort St. John, B.C., in this undated handout photo provided by the BC Wildfire Service.

Quote:

Canada’s record-breaking wildfire season has now seen 100,000 square kilometres of land scorched as blazes continue to burn out of control across the entire country.

The total area burned is roughly the size of Lake Ontario, Lake Erie and Lake Michigan combined.

Canada surpassed the record set in 1989 for total area burned in one season on June 27 when the figure totalled 76,000 square kilometres, and communities have faced evacuation orders, heat warnings and poor air quality for months.

The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre says the majority of blazes are now in Western Canada, and British Columbia has the greatest number with 373 active fires.

Based on forecasted conditions, Natural Resources Canada expects the wildfire season will continue to be unusually intense throughout July and into August.

Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair says the good news is that conditions are expected to improve significantly in Eastern Canada.

Some bad news for Canadians, according to a new study in Advancing Earth and Space Sciences. With the longest coastline in the world by far (2.0 times longer than second place Indonesia [https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-most coastline.h...), the news that sea level rise is coming faster than previously thought will be particularly problematic and hazardous for Canadians.

The study concludes "The latest projections indicate that sea-level rise (SLR) is certain to exceed 2 m in coming centuries, and a rise by 4 m is considered possible. ...We conclude that in many regions the time available to prepare for increased exposure to flooding may be considerably less than assumed to date, and that better elevation data will support timely preparations." https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022EF002880

 Preparing for the effects of sea level rise depends on having good data. As measurements of coastal elevation improve, those projections are getting more refined, which may require decision-makers to update plans. Photo AgeFotoStock/Alamy Stock Photo

Around the world, communities are bracing for sea level rise: the Netherlands is stabilizing its dikes, Senegal is relocating neighbourhoods, Indonesia is moving its entire capital city. These projects are hefty, expensive and slow.

But they may need to pick up the pace. As new research shows, in many places, sea level rise will cause coastal flooding and other disruptions much sooner than anyone realized. It’s not that the water is rising faster; it’s that the land was lower to begin with.

Calculating when a rising sea will flood any one place involves a lot of math: you need to know the height of the water, the range of the tide, the elevation and slope of the land, the pace of sea level rise, and how much the land itself is rising or falling, among myriad other factors. As with all of science, the accuracy of these predictions is only as good as the data flowing into them.

The problem, according to the new study by Ronald Vernimmen and Aljosja Hooijer, two data analysts working on flood risk in Southeast Asia, is that time after time, the measurements of coastal elevation that scientists feed into their models have been wildly inaccurate. In tropical forests, says Vernimmen, these misinterpretations can be off by 20 metres or more. “Obviously, you can’t use that,” he says.

The problem stems from limitations in the technology typically used to measure elevation: radar. Radar blankets an area in radio waves, then measures how long it takes the waves to bounce back. But radar isn’t precise enough to separate treetops from terra firma, and a patch of pines or cluster of condos can easily exaggerate the elevation. Many studies of sea level rise still use radar elevation data collected by the space shuttle in 2000.

Lidar is a lot like radar, but it uses lasers instead of radio waves. A lidar detector like the one on the ICESat-2 satellite, which NASA launched in 2018, can send up to one million pulses each second, firing lasers that can pinpoint the gaps between buildings and trees to more accurately gauge the elevation of the land underneath. Analysts still need algorithms to filter that barrage of information into a functional map, but the results are far more precise.

Vernimmen and Hooijer spent the past few years filtering the new satellite data for Earth’s immense coastline, comparing elevation estimates gathered from radar with the newer lidar-based measurements. It wasn’t pretty.

The scientists’ big finding is that forests and buildings along the coast have skewed radar maps, presenting planners with inaccurate elevation data. Lidar showed coastlines often lower than first realized. This has two important implications: the same amount of sea level rise will be able to reach much farther inland, and it’s going to happen a lot sooner than expected.

The scientists’ new lidar-based estimate predicts that roughly 482,000 square kilometres of land will be submerged with one metre of sea level rise, nearly triple the 123,000 square kilometres predicted by radar-based projections. That’s an extra Cameroon-sized chunk of Earth, currently home to roughly 132 million people, that will be underwater by 2100 under a high-emissions scenario.

The risk is greatest for river deltas in tropical regions where the land is flat, the population is often high and the data tends to be old. With two metres of sea level rise, by around the year 2150 under a high-emission scenario, the Niger Delta in West Africa and Myanmar’s Irrawaddy Delta will have five times more land underwater than the older radar-based estimates suggested. The same is true for the Chao Phraya delta, which spans metropolitan Bangkok, Thailand’s capital of 11 million.

To Vernimmen, the recalculation means society needs to rethink some things. “There are huge construction projects underway in areas that really should not be built on,” he says.

The researchers made their elevation data set publicly available in hopes that governments take note of the new timeline, adds Hooijer.

Mir Matin, a remote sensing expert at United Nations University in Ontario who was not involved in the study, says these estimates could be made even more accurate by using airborne lidar — the type attached to drones or airplanes — rather than passive satellite-based readings. Though more accurate, airborne lidar is also more expensive, requiring pilots, planes, and planning. Some rich countries and large cities have shelled out for airborne lidar surveys, but Matin says developing countries would benefit as well.

Rich countries — responsible for the bulk of global warming — could cover the cost, he says. “At the end, climate change is a global phenomenon,” Matin adds.

https://hakaimagazine.com/news/coastal-flooding-will-be-more-extensive-s...