Only The Beginning

While the average cossetted North American may feel smug about the following, since the water shortages discussed seem far, far away, they are the stuff that social unrest, rioting, regime change and mass migrations are made of:

Countries that are home to one-fourth of Earth’s population face an increasingly urgent risk: The prospect of running out of water.

From India to Iran to Botswana, 17 countries around the world are currently under extremely high water stress, meaning they are using almost all the water they have, according to new World Resources Institute data published Tuesday.

Greatly exacerbated by climate change, floods and droughts are becoming more volatile:

Water-stressed places are sometimes cursed by two extremes. São Paulo was ravaged by floods a year after its taps nearly ran dry. Chennai suffered fatal floods four years ago, and now its reservoirs are almost empty.

Unfortunately, the short-term solution many countries have adopted, tapping deep into their aquifers, only promises a deferment of the crisis:

Mexico’s capital, Mexico City, is drawing groundwater so fast that the city is literally sinking. Dhaka, Bangladesh, relies so heavily on its groundwater for both its residents and its water-guzzling garment factories that it now draws water from aquifers hundreds of feet deep. Chennai’s thirsty residents, accustomed to relying on groundwater for years, are now finding there’s none left. Across India and Pakistan, farmers are draining aquifers to grow water-intensive crops like cotton and rice.

Are there any solutions? Not really.

...city officials can plug leaks in the water distribution system. Wastewater can be recycled. Rain can be harvested and saved for lean times: lakes and wetlands can be cleaned up and old wells can be restored. And, farmers can switch from water-intensive crops, like rice, and instead grow less-thirsty crops like millet.

Given the world's ever-increasing population, the quickening pace of climate change and humans' reluctance to alter their profligate ways, it is a safe bet that things will get worse. Clearly, this is only the beginning of the horrors that await the planet.

The Global Population Gets Greedier By The Day

That is the opening line in the following report that deals with Earth Overshoot Day, the day our species uses up the Earth's finite resources that should take a year to use. As my friend Mound often says, the climate-change disaster rapidly bearing down on us is but one part of a trifecta, the others being overpopulation and overuse of said resources. Our rapaciousness will be the death of us all, including many innocent non-human species.

Start the following at the 12:20 mark:

Be Very Afraid

I remember in 1975 seeing the film Jaws. Like most people, it terrified me, so much so that it was many year before I got up the courage to go into the ocean.

Perhaps it is time for a re-release of the film, given that warming waters due to climate change are increasing the chance that those venturing into the waters off the eastern seaboard could fall victim to the fierce marine predators.

The message? Be afraid. Be very afraid.



Sadly, all of this is yet another sign of the unfolding ecological collapse that the world's leaders will continue to ignore.

But Is Anyone Listening?

The Star has been running a series on climate change that I have read with some interest, offering as it does a good and extensive primer on the peril we face. Ultimately however, it fails, especially in the last part which talks about what we can do to combat it.

There really is only one solution, which letter writer Norm Beach of Toronto articulates. However, one has to ask a fundamental question: Is anyone in a position of power listening?

The Star’s series on our climate emergency notes that, despite Canada’s small population, we are among the top 10 biggest greenhouse gas emitters in the world. It’s important to add another inconvenient truth: Our emissions on a per-person basis are more than 20 tonnes annually, the highest of these ten largest-emitting countries, three times the G20 average and 20 times that of Bangladesh.

The good news: Our carbon footprint is getting smaller. The bad news: We’re not doing enough to avert global disaster.

If we keep on electing politicians dedicated to preserving market share for fossil fuels, our flag will get as much international respect as an oil-soaked rag and our children will inherit a devastated planet. Years ago, the Pogo cartoon put it best: “We have met the enemy … and he is us.” Canada, it’s time to get our heads out of the sand, stop squandering our hard-earned reputation, mobilize for the greater good and reclaim our right to be proud of our country.

Time For a Pre-Election Climate-Change Debate

Millenials, and those who follow them, are rightfully growing increasingly concerned about climate change. Thanks to the gift of mortality, it is unlikely that my cohort will be around to deal with most of the civil unrest, food shortages, skyrocketing prices, coastal flooding and the hordes of people fleeing their low-lying nations seeking sanctuary on our shores, but they will be.

Dozens of people rallied at CBC stations in Whitehorse and Yellowknife, among other Canadian communities, to demand the public broadcaster host a federal leaders' debate on climate change and a proposed Green New Deal.

"There's lots of questions to ask our federal leaders, and I think that this debate is the perfect opportunity to ask those hard questions and get those hard answers," said Braden Lamoureux, the organizer of the Whitehorse rally.

"Everybody deserves to know which of our leaders has a strategic plan to tackle this climate crisis."

Their concern is proving to be contagious.

A new poll finds that a majority of Canadians

want the government to take action to address climate change, even if the economy suffers....

...61 per cent of respondents strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement that it’s more important for the government to solve the issue of climate change even if that means that the economy suffers. That number was even higher in Quebec (76.8 per cent), Atlantic Canada (67.3) and B.C. (62), and among women (66.1), 18-35 year olds (64.4) and those aged 65 or older (64).

Other numbers from the poll are equally telling:

Over 85 per cent of respondents agreed that private companies should have to pay to pollute, including 69.1 per cent who strongly agreed. Support was highest in Quebec (89.1 per cent) and lowest in Alberta, though at 75.2 per cent agreeing, opposition to the concept is still rather marginal.

Also, just under 68 per cent of respondents agreed that theres’s a collective moral duty to future generations to not destroy the environment further, even if it means paying more taxes in the short term. As with the other responses, support was highest in Quebec (70.2 per cent), above the national average in B.C. (71.5) and Ontario (69.9), and lowest in Alberta (53).

Will any of this change the disastrous trajectory we are on? I doubt it, unless the major party leaders do agree to a separae debate on climate change during the campaign. This, of course, is highly unlikely, in that the Greens' Elizabeth May would without a doubt mop the floor with people like Trudeau and Scheer.

Nonetheless, it is a worthy pursuit, and for the the sake of their futures, I hope the young succeed in their efforts.

2019: What A Year So Far

With the Arctic now on fire, and the pace of climate change accelerating rapidly, even the dimmest or most ideologically bent amongst us must realize the peril we are in, and yet, remarkably, nothing seems to move us to do anything beyond giving lip service to the crisis. What a species we are, eh?

Wildfires are raging across the Arctic as warm, dry conditions persist across the region. Satellite images have revealed wildfires burning in Alaska, Greenland and throughout Siberia.

Whereas an Arctic forest fire typically lasts just a few hours or days, peat fires, which burn deep into the ground, can last weeks.

Peat also stores large amounts of carbon. As the Arctic's fires continue to burn, record amounts of CO2 are being released into the atmosphere.

Is Paris Burning?

The title question of a famous 1966 movie about the liberation of Paris from the Nazis is also an apt one to ask about the contemporary Parisian city, given the heat dome that has settled over a wide swath of Europe. As the following report (start at the 12:20 mark) makes clear, many are suffering, except for an American woman, who exults in the opportunity that climate change is offering. A good exemplar of the heedlessness of Americans, isn't she? Or perhaps a testament to their 'can-do' attitude, making lemonade out of the lemons Mother Nature is bringing our way?

While you're at it, be sure to watch the piece on Alaska, which immediately follows the Paris report.



If you crave a more global perspective on the climate crisis, be sure to read this sobering piece by climate science lecturer Tom Matthews.