Tag: climate change

Things are heating up

Photo by Sippakorn Yamkasikorn on Pexels.com

I want you to act like your house is on fire, because it is.

Greta Thunberg

When I first saw this young woman leading climate change protest events, I was moved by the many youth activists showing leadership on environmental sustainability from around the world. Once the pandemic began, their movement was transformed and not as vocal or visible. My hope is that youth are able to rally and come back stronger than before. We need their voices and we also need to begin to take action with meaningful impact.

As we move out of isolation and lockdowns into our new “normal”, it has been a harsh lesson to realize that we haven’t dialled down the impact of climate change while we have been spending time at home. Weather events in Western Canada have been serving as a harsh reminder that we have yet to make a dent in addressing our responsibility to be good stewards of our natural environment. As I was writing this blog post, our power went out and it was frightening how quickly the heat moves into a home when there is no way to circulate air.

This unprecedented heat, termed a “dome” has blanketed much of this vast country. As the risk for forest fires becomes dangerously extreme and the heat wave extends, more people are experiencing heat exhaustion, heat stroke and even sudden death. With the climate crisis knocking at our front doors, the need to respond seems more urgent than ever.

Conditions are ripe for a summer of fire and extreme heat while we attempt to resume our normal lives. Looking out for others around us who are vulnerable or living on their own, needs to become a community priority. Indeed, keeping ourselves and those we care about safe during these unbelievable temperatures will take all of our energy and fortitude. Forest fires, drought on our farmlands, flooding and severe weather events have become a stronger aspect of our summer seasons.

We really do need to find ways to collectively take action to effect change in our climate. Before it gets worse. I hope the young people are able to gather together again and mobilize to bring back their activist leadership. It is desperately needed and definitely missed. Let’s hope it is safe for them to do so and follow their lead.

Stay safe, healthy, keep cool, and commit to as many environmentally sustainable actions as you can.

Writer’s Block and the Polar Bear Project

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I’d rather write about polar bears than people

Mary Oliver

Procrastination. That’s what led to my discovery of a fascinating citizen science program close to home. I was stumped by a writing project that up until that day had been progressing nicely. Suddenly words which normally flow, first became fleeting, and then seemed to have simply vanish. Vaporized. So I tried going for a walk. That normally helps. But nothing. In desperation, I sat in front of the television and mindlessly perused the listings when a program about the polar bears in the Canadian arctic appeared.

Intrigued, I soon learned that February 27 marked International Polar Bear Day and our national broadcasting corporation was debuting a new program about the impact of climate change in the Arctic on Canadian Polar Bear populations. Scientists have been signaling concerns about climate change and its impact on the wildlife in the arctic for years. The species that has become the most vulnerable to the devastation of climate change are the polar bears. The area surrounding the town of Churchill, Manitoba located on the Hudson’s Bay is home to one of the largest populations of Canadian Polar Bears.

Changes to Arctic sea ice as the climate on earth becomes warmer, have created dire challenges for the polar bears as they are now forced to wait for longer periods of time to get out on the sea ice to hunt seals which are their primary source of food. Typically, female bears hunt and store enough food to see them through the annual birthing process that may mean they go six months without food or water. Changes to the sea ice mean they now may be fasting as long as eight months.

It also places the humans living close by at risk as the bears venture into the town of Churchill when they seek out the sustenance they badly need and are attracted by the variety of urban smells that signal food is available. Conservation projects have been created to prevent the destruction of these majestic creatures using methods to contain and then release the bears back into the wild. Scientists researching the impact of warmer water and less sea ice are working to collect data to inform the current understanding on the impacts of climate change.

Writer’s curiosity kicks in and I begin a stumbling search on the internet to learn more about conservation in the Far North and search engine magic leads me to The Arctic Bears Project. Citizen scientists are being recruited to assist with data analysis to help answer several research questions through a web-site called Zooniverse.org Researchers from the University of Saskatchewan are seeking volunteers to help analyze data from trail cam photographs about polar bears and other Arctic animals from the Hudson Bay area.

What an amazing opportunity to not only make volunteer contributions to this research but to learn more about parts of our natural world that we will likely never visit. Who knew that having a minor bout of writer’s block would lead down such an interesting path? Check it out – there are projects from around the world on this site that need volunteer citizen scientists. I am thankful this fascinating detour was all that I needed to jumpstart my writing process. And a necessary reminder about the impacts of climate change on the natural world that surrounds us.

Stay healthy and safe!

Climate change: Up way too close and personal

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We’re in a giant car heading towards a brick wall and everyone’s arguing over where they’re going to sit.

David Suzuki

Last week, we endured one of the most bizarre winter storms ever seen on the Canadian prairies. Unusually warm weather has been with us since the new year, almost unheard of in the month of January which normally is referred to as “frigid”. Our day began with rain, lots of it, coating everything in ice as the day progressed and winds picked up and snow began to fall. This arctic blast continued to escalate as day became evening and soon the wind outside our house began to sound like a freight train.

Winds battered houses, toppled trees, mangled traffic lights, wreaked havoc on outbuildings in rural areas, and culminated in a province wide power outage. Meterologists who measure wind speed gave this particulate blizzard an EF-1 wind rating normally used for tornadoes. There were hundreds of stranded drivers on highways across the province and many accidents. Given our hospitals are full of people with COVID-19, it was incredibly fortunate that there were no serious injuries.

But the power outages lasted for hours and hours as the winds continued to howl and blow with phenomenal speed rendering it impossible for anyone to fix the lines. Our power company claimed that “galloping lines” were to blame, meaning power lines were blown into each other with many toppled and exploding. Hour after hour, homes became colder and colder as the day progressed and the storm continued to rage on.

Those of us living on the Canadian prairies routinely experience the wrath of mother nature especially during the months of January and February. Usually temperatures this time of the year are bitterly cold and any amount of wind results in what is known as “windchill” which can result in frostbite within minutes. So we are not strangers to harsh weather where your nostrils typically feel like they are melded together when you venture outside and lack of moisture content in the air makes your skin dry and peel.

But this weather system seemed markedly different. Arctic blasts with lots of snow, and whiteout wind conditions knocking out part of our power grid has definitely happened before. But this one seemed so unusual. Rain coating everything on the Canadian prairie is not typical. Nor are winds sustained at tornado levels for more than a few hours rendering it impossible to restore electricity and power.

Hours dragged on with no way to contact the power company and no way to know how long houses would be without electricity. Rows of houses sat silent, and dark, and growing increasingly cold as day became another night. A global pandemic with escalating active cases meant not many places for people to go and warm up. You’d think this would be a wake up call for all of us. How could we live on the cold, Canadian prairie without the means to heat our homes.

These types of weather events have increased in the past few years around the globe but the strangeness of this storm should help quell the rhetoric from the local climate change deniers. At least until the spring. Then we will like see a resurgence of protests against carbon taxes, green initiatives, and demands that more resources go into the fossil fuel sector. Good grief!

One can only hope that following the pandemic, we turn our collective attention to climate change and begin to pay heed to what nature is demanding we work to reverse. This storm was an awfully unpleasant wake up call that was too close for comfort. Let’s hope we move to action to reverse or at the very least, halt the devastation that we have done to our planet.

Stay healthy and safe!

Choosing a social media platform for blogging?

One of my newfound favourite activities since I retired from full time work, is to listen to afternoon radio while cooking a meal or baking something. Recently, I listened to a technology piece on a public broadcasting station about the carbon impact of commonly used social media platforms. My ears perked up when this part of the segment was aired as I have been following blogs and tutorials on the importance of using social media platforms to encourage blog readership.

I am somewhat of a luddite when it comes to social media and to date, I seem to have avoided learning how to use any of these platforms. In today’s world, apparently it very common for people to use numerous different platforms for many different purposes. When you don’t, people tend to find this odd and sometimes, I have actually been shamed for not using certain types of social media. So I have been cautious about choosing the best platform to promote my blog and writing activities.

This radio program segment was instructive for me in the sense that I learned I need to do research to learn more about these platforms and not simply from the perspective about how to promote a blog. There seems to be a need to carefully examine the use of personal technology from a climate change perspective. Although the journalist spoke about the multitude of uses of technology and social media to further our knowledge and provide necessary education about climate change, I found it interesting to consider that we need to understand how data is stored and what forms of energy are required for that.

I must admit that when I think of cloud technology, I carry a visual representation of white fluffy clouds. Data storage, I learned, does in fact have a carbon footprint. The journalist I was listening to suggested that as consumers of social media technology we should carefully examine what the ramifications might be of various platforms in relationship to climate change. It seemed to me that given all of this, it might be important to only choose to use one. Having no experience with any of them, what is the most beneficial social media platform to promote a blog? I would appreciate any thoughts you might be willing to share about this as I continue my research about social media options.