Climate change causing Calgary to alter how it plans for the future
Climate change is often treated as this big, looming threat that's going to alter our lives sometime in the future.
Well, the future is closer than you think.
Climate change is already having an effect on Calgary.
It's forcing the city to rethink everything from how roads are built to what kind of trees are planted.
That was the focus of the Calgary Climate Symposium, which wraps up Thursday.
Dick Ebersohn is the manager of the climate change and environment file for the City of Calgary and he spoke with Calgary Eyeopener host David Gray to discuss the issue.
Below is an abridged version of that conversation.
Q: How is climate change affecting Calgary right now?
A: It's interesting. When we did a risk and vulnerability assessment for the city, we first had to look at the different climate impacts. We've seen that in the future we'll have much more heavy snow and ice storms. We'll have increased heat waves, we'll have droughts.
In short, it will be too hot, too cold, too wet and too dry over the next number of years, and it's really how we start to adapt to those kinds of things that's going to matter to us.
Q: So you're talking about a future of more extremes, is that what you're pointing toward?
A: That is exactly what I'm pointing to. We'll see the same things we're seeing today, with some additional strange weather events, but they'll be much more extreme.
Q: We're already seeing those things today, everybody is telling me about how climate change will affect the future. What's actually going on now?
A: We're already seeing that, if we just think back about the [2013] flood we had in the past. We've seen extended periods of heat during our summers. These will just increase over time, so we need to start managing those in different ways. If I can give you some examples, if we think about snow and ice storms, we didn't really see ice storms in the past in Calgary, and that is coming to us more and more.
If ice starts to accumulate, for instance, on our electric lines, they start to sag, they can break. That will cut off power for us. If we think about our service on the LRT, we won't be able to provide that service and thousands of Calgarians will be stranded. These things happen to us even on the heat side. We see it in U.S. cities where heat is creating stretch on electric lines.
Climate change causing Calgary to alter how it plans for the future - Calgary - CBC News
Climate change is often treated as this big, looming threat that's going to alter our lives sometime in the future.
Well, the future is closer than you think.
Climate change is already having an effect on Calgary.
It's forcing the city to rethink everything from how roads are built to what kind of trees are planted.
That was the focus of the Calgary Climate Symposium, which wraps up Thursday.
Dick Ebersohn is the manager of the climate change and environment file for the City of Calgary and he spoke with Calgary Eyeopener host David Gray to discuss the issue.
Below is an abridged version of that conversation.
Q: How is climate change affecting Calgary right now?
A: It's interesting. When we did a risk and vulnerability assessment for the city, we first had to look at the different climate impacts. We've seen that in the future we'll have much more heavy snow and ice storms. We'll have increased heat waves, we'll have droughts.
In short, it will be too hot, too cold, too wet and too dry over the next number of years, and it's really how we start to adapt to those kinds of things that's going to matter to us.
Q: So you're talking about a future of more extremes, is that what you're pointing toward?
A: That is exactly what I'm pointing to. We'll see the same things we're seeing today, with some additional strange weather events, but they'll be much more extreme.
Q: We're already seeing those things today, everybody is telling me about how climate change will affect the future. What's actually going on now?
A: We're already seeing that, if we just think back about the [2013] flood we had in the past. We've seen extended periods of heat during our summers. These will just increase over time, so we need to start managing those in different ways. If I can give you some examples, if we think about snow and ice storms, we didn't really see ice storms in the past in Calgary, and that is coming to us more and more.
If ice starts to accumulate, for instance, on our electric lines, they start to sag, they can break. That will cut off power for us. If we think about our service on the LRT, we won't be able to provide that service and thousands of Calgarians will be stranded. These things happen to us even on the heat side. We see it in U.S. cities where heat is creating stretch on electric lines.
Climate change causing Calgary to alter how it plans for the future - Calgary - CBC News
