On the drive to our cottage here in June, my wife and I collided with the dense wall of Canadian wildfire smoke. The clear spring air began turning a sickly orange in the Adirondack Mountains, the sun was reduced to a red spot, and by the time we reached Montreal the skyline was barely visible from across the St. Lawrence River. On that day, June 25, Montreal had the worst air quality in the world.
Up at our lake, we soon learned to track the sheets of smoke online as they swept across Canada, down into the United States and even across the Atlantic Ocean.… Seguir leyendo »
Canada is on fire from coast to coast to coast. Thousands have been evacuated, millions exposed to air pollution, New York a doom orange and even the titans of Wall Street choking.
Catastrophic flooding in Pakistan, back-to-back cyclones in the Pacific islands and droughts in Africa haven’t been enough to create a tipping point for action. Now that climate impacts have hit the economic capital of western power, will it spur governments in the global north to get serious?
A lack of scientific knowledge about climate change is not the barrier. Nor is a lack of cleaner, safer, cheaper energy alternatives.… Seguir leyendo »
Las elecciones federales en Canadá serán en octubre, así que el primer ministro Justin Trudeau tiene menos de cinco meses para revertir las tendencias: su reelección está en peligro. El motivo no tiene que ver con el entusiasmo que generan sus rivales o con la economía (los expertos señalan que va por buen camino). En realidad, es consecuencia de una suma de escándalos, resultados discretos y problemas de comunicación de su gobierno.
Un descalabro de Trudeau en las urnas a manos de los conservadores cortaría un proyecto que, pese a sus errores, ha mostrado compromiso con las minorías y ha buscado apuntalar distintos mecanismos de protección social.… Seguir leyendo »
Last month, to protest the start of the Canadian government putting a price on carbon emissions, right-leaning politicians across the country posted photographs of themselves on Twitter resolutely filling up their S.U.V.s, minivans and pickup trucks with gasoline.
The next day, federal scientists announced that climate change is warming Canada twice as fast as the rest of the world. The findings in their terrifying report on April 1 help to explain the ocean acidification that’s threatening killer whales, why pine beetles are chewing a path of destruction through North America’s boreal forest, the disappearance of sea ice that has supported Inuit communities for millenniums and the exposure of millions of Canadians every day to ticks carrying Lyme disease.… Seguir leyendo »
En la lucha contra el cambio climático, el dióxido de carbono atrae la mayor parte de la atención de los reguladores. Pero, si bien el CO2, con su larga vida, es un factor clave para el aumento de las temperaturas, no es el único culpable. Otros súper contaminantes de corta vida también calientan el planeta, y ninguno tiene una mayor necesidad de ser reglamentado que el metano.
Según el Grupo Intergubernamental de Expertos sobre el Cambio Climático (IPCC), el metano es 86 veces más potente que el CO2 en su calidad de gas que atrapa el calor a lo largo de un período de 20 años, y es responsable de aproximadamente una quinta parte del calentamiento causado por los humanos.… Seguir leyendo »
The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Lima, Peru, is wrapping up Friday after 12 days of negotiations on global carbon emissions.
Yet, even as we work through the complexities of an international agreement, it would be a mistake to miss the extensive change that's already taking place here on North America's Pacific Coast. Last year, our four governments — the states of California, Oregon and Washington and the Province of British Columbia — reached a landmark agreement to align climate and energy strategies for 54 million Americans and Canadians.
The Pacific Coast represents the world's fifth-largest economy, with a GDP of $2.8 trillion.… Seguir leyendo »
When George Monbiot wrote his searing judgment of Canada's recent descent into what he claimed is a "petro-state," he was talking about Canada's global reputation. But what he was actually addressing is a long history of domestic inter-governmental and inter-regional strife, currently embodied by Stephen Harper, Canada's prime minister. Monbiot's article left many Canadian heads spinning: how did we get to this point?
Highway 22 in southern Alberta skirts along the barrier between flat prairie to the east and rolling foothills that quickly give way to the towering front range of the Rocky Mountains to the west. And on that highway, somewhere between Longview and Millarville, is a large white sign displaying a message in tall blue letters: "More Alberta, Less Ottawa."… Seguir leyendo »
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