It's Climate Change I tell'ya!! IT'S CLIMATE CHANGE!!
- Thread starter B00Mer
- Start date
He must have been a traveling politician expelling excess hot air.
Greenhouses use carbon dioxide to promote plant growth, and overnight in a greenhouse. They will pump up the level to about five times with it currently is now on the earth….& My girlfriend is even looking at a CO2 system for a couple of her aquariums for the aquatic plants that she sells.
Winter comes to a close as Canada’s warmest on record
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Jordan Omstead
Published Mar 19, 2024 • 4 minute read
The warmest winter on record could have far-reaching effects on everything from wildfire season to erosion, climatologists say, while offering a preview of what the season could resemble in the not-so-distant future unless steps are taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The warmest winter on record could have far-reaching effects on everything from wildfire season to erosion, climatologists say, while offering a preview of what the season could resemble in the not-so-distant future unless steps are taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The warmest winter on record could have far-reaching effects on everything from wildfire season to erosion, climatologists say, while offering a preview of what the season could resemble in the not-so-distant future unless steps are taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Winter comes to a close on Tuesday night — early Wednesday on Canada’s East Coast — with the arrival of the spring equinox. But climatologist David Phillips says it’s almost as if this winter in Canada never happened.
“I called it the lost season,” said Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Canada shattered temperature records this winter, and it wasn’t close, Phillips said, referring to national data going back to 1948.
While winter’s end is typically marked by the equinox, climatologists look at what’s known as meteorological winter, the three-month period from December to February. Over that period, Canada was 5.2 C warmer than average, said Phillips. That’s 1.1 degrees warmer than the previous record set in 2009-2010.
There were bouts of extreme winter weather across Canada, from a January deep freeze on the Prairies to a massive snowfall in the Maritimes in February. But the warmer-than-normal and unusual weather was widely felt across the country.
This winter, Phillips said, “was put on hold — and not on ice.”
Some people may have been grateful for a break on heating bills or for periodic balmy days, but Phillips says the record-breaking temperatures upended Canada’s winter way of life. Winter festivals were cancelled, ski resorts faced closures, and flora and fauna emerged prematurely. Remote First Nations in Ontario and Manitoba that depend on ice roads issued states of emergency due to poor conditions.
Outdoor skating, often regarded as a picture-postcard image of Canada’s winter life, suffered too. Ottawa’s iconic Rideau Canal skateway was open for a few days this winter, after the previous year’s unprecedented season-long closure.
Damon Matthews, a Concordia University climate scientist who has tracked climate change’s impact on retreating rinks, cited Wayne Gretzky and Joni Mitchell as he noted the place of outdoor skating in Canada’s imaginings of winter.
Mitchell’s longing for a “river I could skate away on,” evoked in her 1971 song “River,” may be shared not just by those who decamped to California, but by people across Canada this year and in years to come, he said. Gretzky’s origin story of learning to play on outdoor rinks may be a story denied to other aspiring hockey players in southern Ontario.
“It’s a shame that’s the case,” he said.
Experts say the drivers of this winter’s record-breaking warmth include El Nino and human-caused climate change. Other related factors include record-high global ocean temperatures and residual heat from earlier in 2023.
El Nino, a natural climate phenomenon that typically comes around every two to seven years, was strong this year but not the strongest. The United Nation’s World Meteorological Organization said its peak fell short of at least two other El Nino winters in 1997 and 2015.
“El Nino has contributed to these record temperatures, but heat-trapping greenhouse gases are unequivocally the main culprit,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in an update earlier this month, referring to a string of consecutive global monthly temperature records.
Climate change is expected to crank up temperatures in winter more than any other season in Canada, said Phillips, the Environment Canada climatologist. If the world continues to emit greenhouse gases on a “business as usual” scale until 2050, Phillips says his own community of Barrie, in central Ontario, could see winters as warm as this one on a regular basis around 2065.
Less snow on the ground for the spring melt means less water available to irrigate farmlands and replenish reservoirs. As snow melts, it also helps to reduce the risk of wildfires.
Almost all of Western Canada, northern Ontario and parts of northern Quebec were under drought conditions as of the end of February, says a recent update from Environment Canada. Parts of southern Alberta and northern British Columbia reported conditions typically seen once every 50 years.
“The drought season, the forest fire season — these are all to come, but sometimes the seeds of those are sown in the winter,” said Phillips.
Great Lakes ice cover, which helps shield the shoreline from erosion during winter storms, also hit historic lows in February. Erosion concerns extend to coastal areas around the Gulf of St. Lawrence, including Prince Edward Island, said Phillips.
But there is a fine line between being clear about climate change’s consequences and despairing about a preventable outcome, said Matthews, the Concordia climate scientist.
“We need to get our act together and stop arguing about, as a country, whether this is even an issue or a priority,” he said, adding that Canada is “not stepping up the way we need to be.”
“Outdoor skating is a consequence of that, but at the same time, there are many, many worse things that will happen if we don’t get on with things.”
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Jordan Omstead
Published Mar 19, 2024 • 4 minute read
The warmest winter on record could have far-reaching effects on everything from wildfire season to erosion, climatologists say, while offering a preview of what the season could resemble in the not-so-distant future unless steps are taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The warmest winter on record could have far-reaching effects on everything from wildfire season to erosion, climatologists say, while offering a preview of what the season could resemble in the not-so-distant future unless steps are taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The warmest winter on record could have far-reaching effects on everything from wildfire season to erosion, climatologists say, while offering a preview of what the season could resemble in the not-so-distant future unless steps are taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Winter comes to a close on Tuesday night — early Wednesday on Canada’s East Coast — with the arrival of the spring equinox. But climatologist David Phillips says it’s almost as if this winter in Canada never happened.
“I called it the lost season,” said Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Canada shattered temperature records this winter, and it wasn’t close, Phillips said, referring to national data going back to 1948.
While winter’s end is typically marked by the equinox, climatologists look at what’s known as meteorological winter, the three-month period from December to February. Over that period, Canada was 5.2 C warmer than average, said Phillips. That’s 1.1 degrees warmer than the previous record set in 2009-2010.
There were bouts of extreme winter weather across Canada, from a January deep freeze on the Prairies to a massive snowfall in the Maritimes in February. But the warmer-than-normal and unusual weather was widely felt across the country.
This winter, Phillips said, “was put on hold — and not on ice.”
Some people may have been grateful for a break on heating bills or for periodic balmy days, but Phillips says the record-breaking temperatures upended Canada’s winter way of life. Winter festivals were cancelled, ski resorts faced closures, and flora and fauna emerged prematurely. Remote First Nations in Ontario and Manitoba that depend on ice roads issued states of emergency due to poor conditions.
Outdoor skating, often regarded as a picture-postcard image of Canada’s winter life, suffered too. Ottawa’s iconic Rideau Canal skateway was open for a few days this winter, after the previous year’s unprecedented season-long closure.
Damon Matthews, a Concordia University climate scientist who has tracked climate change’s impact on retreating rinks, cited Wayne Gretzky and Joni Mitchell as he noted the place of outdoor skating in Canada’s imaginings of winter.
Mitchell’s longing for a “river I could skate away on,” evoked in her 1971 song “River,” may be shared not just by those who decamped to California, but by people across Canada this year and in years to come, he said. Gretzky’s origin story of learning to play on outdoor rinks may be a story denied to other aspiring hockey players in southern Ontario.
“It’s a shame that’s the case,” he said.
Experts say the drivers of this winter’s record-breaking warmth include El Nino and human-caused climate change. Other related factors include record-high global ocean temperatures and residual heat from earlier in 2023.
El Nino, a natural climate phenomenon that typically comes around every two to seven years, was strong this year but not the strongest. The United Nation’s World Meteorological Organization said its peak fell short of at least two other El Nino winters in 1997 and 2015.
“El Nino has contributed to these record temperatures, but heat-trapping greenhouse gases are unequivocally the main culprit,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in an update earlier this month, referring to a string of consecutive global monthly temperature records.
Climate change is expected to crank up temperatures in winter more than any other season in Canada, said Phillips, the Environment Canada climatologist. If the world continues to emit greenhouse gases on a “business as usual” scale until 2050, Phillips says his own community of Barrie, in central Ontario, could see winters as warm as this one on a regular basis around 2065.
Less snow on the ground for the spring melt means less water available to irrigate farmlands and replenish reservoirs. As snow melts, it also helps to reduce the risk of wildfires.
Almost all of Western Canada, northern Ontario and parts of northern Quebec were under drought conditions as of the end of February, says a recent update from Environment Canada. Parts of southern Alberta and northern British Columbia reported conditions typically seen once every 50 years.
“The drought season, the forest fire season — these are all to come, but sometimes the seeds of those are sown in the winter,” said Phillips.
Great Lakes ice cover, which helps shield the shoreline from erosion during winter storms, also hit historic lows in February. Erosion concerns extend to coastal areas around the Gulf of St. Lawrence, including Prince Edward Island, said Phillips.
But there is a fine line between being clear about climate change’s consequences and despairing about a preventable outcome, said Matthews, the Concordia climate scientist.
“We need to get our act together and stop arguing about, as a country, whether this is even an issue or a priority,” he said, adding that Canada is “not stepping up the way we need to be.”
“Outdoor skating is a consequence of that, but at the same time, there are many, many worse things that will happen if we don’t get on with things.”
'THE LOST SEASON': Winter comes to a close as Canada’s warmest on record
Winter comes to a close on Tuesday night with the arrival of the spring equinox.
Driven by wildfire smoke, Canada’s air quality worse than U.S.: Report
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Jordan Omstead
Published Mar 19, 2024 • 2 minute read
Canada’s air pollution levels last year were worse than those in the United States for the first time since an air-quality firm started publishing its assessments in 2018.
The sixth World Air Quality report published Tuesday by Swiss firm IQAir says raging wildfires were a major influence on Canada’s drop in air quality in 2023.
While the report found Canada on average still has some of the least polluted air, public-health experts have repeatedly warned about the health dangers of more intense wildfire seasons, fuelled by human-caused climate change.
“Air pollution is a silent killer,” said Dr. Samantha Green, a family physician with Unity Health Toronto and associate professor at the University of Toronto who was not involved with the report.
“It’s a problem that I think we’re not used to thinking about, but that we need to be thinking about more.”
Health Canada estimates air pollution contributes to 15,300 premature deaths every year in Canada. Wildfire smoke exposure is also strongly linked to chronic conditions, such as asthma, and increases in respiratory emergency room visits.
The U.S. typically dominates the World Air Quality report’s list of 15 most polluted cities in both the U.S. and Canada, with Canadian cities appearing on the list just three times since the first assessment was published in 2018.
But roles reversed last year as thick clouds of wildfire smoke descended over the country. The report says Canada made up 14 of the 15 cities on the list, dominated by Alberta and British Columbia, and topped by Fort McMurray, Alta., and Peace River, Alta.
Peace River’s pollution concentration, below the national average in April, shot up to levels in May worse than the annual average reported in India, the third-most polluted country in the world.
The report aggregates monitoring data from sources around the world, including governmental and non-profit, on pollution known as PM2.5, fine particulate matter so small it can travel deep into lungs and pose a risk to human health. The data is then reported in units of micrograms per cubic metre, and held up against World Health Organization guidelines to keep concentration levels below 5.
Canada was less polluted than 92 of the 134 countries, regions or territories surveyed in the report, with annual concentration levels of 10.3, or about twice as high as the WHO guideline. Most polluted was Bangaldesh, with 79.9, followed by Pakistan and India.
Only seven countries reported average annual pollution concentrations within the World Health Organization’s guideline, including Mauritius, Iceland and Australia.
The least polluted regional city in Canada, the report said, was Prince Rupert, B.C., with annual average concentration levels of 2.7, while the most polluted was Fort McMurray, with an average of 22.8 — almost five times higher than the WHO guideline.
As Canada steels itself for a wildfire season some experts have suggested could be comparable with last year’s record-breaking year, Green said there needs to be mass public-health awareness about air-quality health risks.
She also pointed to a greater need for air filters and clean air shelters.
“I think we need all hands on deck,” she said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 19, 2024.
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Jordan Omstead
Published Mar 19, 2024 • 2 minute read
Canada’s air pollution levels last year were worse than those in the United States for the first time since an air-quality firm started publishing its assessments in 2018.
The sixth World Air Quality report published Tuesday by Swiss firm IQAir says raging wildfires were a major influence on Canada’s drop in air quality in 2023.
While the report found Canada on average still has some of the least polluted air, public-health experts have repeatedly warned about the health dangers of more intense wildfire seasons, fuelled by human-caused climate change.
“Air pollution is a silent killer,” said Dr. Samantha Green, a family physician with Unity Health Toronto and associate professor at the University of Toronto who was not involved with the report.
“It’s a problem that I think we’re not used to thinking about, but that we need to be thinking about more.”
Health Canada estimates air pollution contributes to 15,300 premature deaths every year in Canada. Wildfire smoke exposure is also strongly linked to chronic conditions, such as asthma, and increases in respiratory emergency room visits.
The U.S. typically dominates the World Air Quality report’s list of 15 most polluted cities in both the U.S. and Canada, with Canadian cities appearing on the list just three times since the first assessment was published in 2018.
But roles reversed last year as thick clouds of wildfire smoke descended over the country. The report says Canada made up 14 of the 15 cities on the list, dominated by Alberta and British Columbia, and topped by Fort McMurray, Alta., and Peace River, Alta.
Peace River’s pollution concentration, below the national average in April, shot up to levels in May worse than the annual average reported in India, the third-most polluted country in the world.
The report aggregates monitoring data from sources around the world, including governmental and non-profit, on pollution known as PM2.5, fine particulate matter so small it can travel deep into lungs and pose a risk to human health. The data is then reported in units of micrograms per cubic metre, and held up against World Health Organization guidelines to keep concentration levels below 5.
Canada was less polluted than 92 of the 134 countries, regions or territories surveyed in the report, with annual concentration levels of 10.3, or about twice as high as the WHO guideline. Most polluted was Bangaldesh, with 79.9, followed by Pakistan and India.
Only seven countries reported average annual pollution concentrations within the World Health Organization’s guideline, including Mauritius, Iceland and Australia.
The least polluted regional city in Canada, the report said, was Prince Rupert, B.C., with annual average concentration levels of 2.7, while the most polluted was Fort McMurray, with an average of 22.8 — almost five times higher than the WHO guideline.
As Canada steels itself for a wildfire season some experts have suggested could be comparable with last year’s record-breaking year, Green said there needs to be mass public-health awareness about air-quality health risks.
She also pointed to a greater need for air filters and clean air shelters.
“I think we need all hands on deck,” she said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 19, 2024.
Driven by wildfire smoke, Canada’s air quality worse than U.S.: Report
The World Air Quality report by Swiss firm IQAir says raging wildfires were a major influence on Canada's drop in air quality.
UN weather agency issues ’red alert’ on climate change after record heat, ice-melt increases in 2023
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Jamey Keaten And Seth Borenstein
Published Mar 19, 2024 • 4 minute read
GENEVA — The UN weather agency is sounding a “red alert” about global warming, citing record-smashing increases last year in greenhouse gases, land and water temperatures and melting of glaciers and sea ice, and is warning that the world’s efforts to reverse the trend have been inadequate.
The World Meteorological Organization said there is a “high probability” that 2024 will be another record-hot year.
The Geneva-based agency, in a “State of the Global Climate” report released Tuesday, ratcheted up concerns that a much-vaunted climate goal is increasingly in jeopardy: That the world can unite to limit planetary warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial levels.
“Never have we been so close — albeit on a temporary basis at the moment — to the 1.5° C lower limit of the Paris agreement on climate change,” said Celeste Saulo, the agency’s secretary-general. “The WMO community is sounding the red alert to the world.”
The 12-month period from March 2023 to February 2024 pushed beyond that 1.5-degree limit, averaging 1.56 C (2.81 F) higher, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Service. It said the calendar year 2023 was just below 1.5 C at 1.48 C (2.66 F), but a record hot start to this year pushed beyond that level for the 12-month average.
“Earth’s issuing a distress call,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “The latest State of the Global Climate report shows a planet on the brink. Fossil fuel pollution is sending climate chaos off the charts.”
Omar Baddour, WMO’s chief of climate monitoring, said the year after an El Nino event — the cyclical warming of the Pacific Ocean that affects global weather patterns — normally tends to be warmer.
“So we cannot say definitively about 2024 is going to be the warmest year. But what I would say: There is a high probability that 2024 will again break the record of 2023, but let’s wait and see,” he said. “January was the warmest January on record. So the records are still being broken.”
The latest WMO findings are especially stark when compiled in a single report. In 2023, over 90% of ocean waters experienced heat wave conditions at least once. Glaciers monitored since 1950 lost the most ice on record. Antarctic sea ice retreated to its lowest level ever.
“Topping all the bad news, what worries me the most is that the planet is now in a meltdown phase — literally and figuratively given the warming and mass loss from our polar ice sheets,” said Jonathan Overpeck, dean of the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability, who wasn’t involved in the report.
Saulo called the climate crisis “the defining challenge that humanity faces” and said it combines with a crisis of inequality, as seen in growing food insecurity and migration.
WMO said the impact of heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires and tropical cyclones, exacerbated by climate change, was felt in lives and livelihoods on every continent in 2023.
“This list of record-smashing events is truly distressing, though not a surprise given the steady drumbeat of extreme events over the past year,” said University of Arizona climate scientist Kathy Jacobs, who also wasn’t involved in the WMO report. “The full cost of climate-change-accelerated events across sectors and regions has never been calculated in a meaningful way, but the cost to biodiversity and to the quality of life of future generations is incalculable.”
But the UN agency also acknowledged “a glimmer of hope” in trying to keep the Earth from running too high a fever. It said renewable energy generation capacity from wind, solar and waterpower rose nearly 50% from 2022 — to a total of 510 gigawatts.
“The target of 1.5C degree warming still holds, just like a speed limit on the highway still holds even if we temporarily exceed it,” said Malte Meinshausen, a professor of climate science at the University of Melbourne in Australia. “What is more urgent than ever is to grasp the economic opportunities that arise due to the low-cost renewables at our disposal, to decarbonize the electricity sector, and electrify other sectors.”
“We need to step on the brakes of ever-increasing GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions,” said Meinshausen, who also was not involved in the report. “And hopeful signs are there, that GHG emissions are about to peak.”
The report comes as climate experts and government ministers are to gather in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, on Thursday and Friday to press for greater climate action, including increased national commitments to fight global warming.
“Each year the climate story gets worse; each year WMO officials and others proclaim that the latest report is a wake-up call to decision makers,” said University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver, a former British Columbia lawmaker.
“Yet each year, once the 24-hour news cycle is over, far too many of our elected ‘leaders’ return to political grandstanding, partisan bickering and advancing policies with demonstrable short-term outcomes,” he said. “More often than not everything else ends up taking precedence over the advancement of climate policy. And so, nothing gets done.”
— Borenstein reported from Washington, D.C.
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Jamey Keaten And Seth Borenstein
Published Mar 19, 2024 • 4 minute read
GENEVA — The UN weather agency is sounding a “red alert” about global warming, citing record-smashing increases last year in greenhouse gases, land and water temperatures and melting of glaciers and sea ice, and is warning that the world’s efforts to reverse the trend have been inadequate.
The World Meteorological Organization said there is a “high probability” that 2024 will be another record-hot year.
The Geneva-based agency, in a “State of the Global Climate” report released Tuesday, ratcheted up concerns that a much-vaunted climate goal is increasingly in jeopardy: That the world can unite to limit planetary warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial levels.
“Never have we been so close — albeit on a temporary basis at the moment — to the 1.5° C lower limit of the Paris agreement on climate change,” said Celeste Saulo, the agency’s secretary-general. “The WMO community is sounding the red alert to the world.”
The 12-month period from March 2023 to February 2024 pushed beyond that 1.5-degree limit, averaging 1.56 C (2.81 F) higher, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Service. It said the calendar year 2023 was just below 1.5 C at 1.48 C (2.66 F), but a record hot start to this year pushed beyond that level for the 12-month average.
“Earth’s issuing a distress call,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “The latest State of the Global Climate report shows a planet on the brink. Fossil fuel pollution is sending climate chaos off the charts.”
Omar Baddour, WMO’s chief of climate monitoring, said the year after an El Nino event — the cyclical warming of the Pacific Ocean that affects global weather patterns — normally tends to be warmer.
“So we cannot say definitively about 2024 is going to be the warmest year. But what I would say: There is a high probability that 2024 will again break the record of 2023, but let’s wait and see,” he said. “January was the warmest January on record. So the records are still being broken.”
The latest WMO findings are especially stark when compiled in a single report. In 2023, over 90% of ocean waters experienced heat wave conditions at least once. Glaciers monitored since 1950 lost the most ice on record. Antarctic sea ice retreated to its lowest level ever.
“Topping all the bad news, what worries me the most is that the planet is now in a meltdown phase — literally and figuratively given the warming and mass loss from our polar ice sheets,” said Jonathan Overpeck, dean of the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability, who wasn’t involved in the report.
Saulo called the climate crisis “the defining challenge that humanity faces” and said it combines with a crisis of inequality, as seen in growing food insecurity and migration.
WMO said the impact of heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires and tropical cyclones, exacerbated by climate change, was felt in lives and livelihoods on every continent in 2023.
“This list of record-smashing events is truly distressing, though not a surprise given the steady drumbeat of extreme events over the past year,” said University of Arizona climate scientist Kathy Jacobs, who also wasn’t involved in the WMO report. “The full cost of climate-change-accelerated events across sectors and regions has never been calculated in a meaningful way, but the cost to biodiversity and to the quality of life of future generations is incalculable.”
But the UN agency also acknowledged “a glimmer of hope” in trying to keep the Earth from running too high a fever. It said renewable energy generation capacity from wind, solar and waterpower rose nearly 50% from 2022 — to a total of 510 gigawatts.
“The target of 1.5C degree warming still holds, just like a speed limit on the highway still holds even if we temporarily exceed it,” said Malte Meinshausen, a professor of climate science at the University of Melbourne in Australia. “What is more urgent than ever is to grasp the economic opportunities that arise due to the low-cost renewables at our disposal, to decarbonize the electricity sector, and electrify other sectors.”
“We need to step on the brakes of ever-increasing GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions,” said Meinshausen, who also was not involved in the report. “And hopeful signs are there, that GHG emissions are about to peak.”
The report comes as climate experts and government ministers are to gather in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, on Thursday and Friday to press for greater climate action, including increased national commitments to fight global warming.
“Each year the climate story gets worse; each year WMO officials and others proclaim that the latest report is a wake-up call to decision makers,” said University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver, a former British Columbia lawmaker.
“Yet each year, once the 24-hour news cycle is over, far too many of our elected ‘leaders’ return to political grandstanding, partisan bickering and advancing policies with demonstrable short-term outcomes,” he said. “More often than not everything else ends up taking precedence over the advancement of climate policy. And so, nothing gets done.”
— Borenstein reported from Washington, D.C.
UN weather agency issues ’red alert’ on climate change after record heat, ice-melt increases in 2023
The World Meteorological Organization said there is a "high probability" that 2024 will be another record-hot year.
As part of a surprise outlay of cash announced at a summit in South Korea, the Prime Minister’s Office has approved $8.4 million to study how autocracy thrives in warming temperatures.
“Today I’m announcing that Canada is investing $8.4 million on research across the global south to better understand how climate change interacts with democratic decline,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a video address to the third annual Summit on Democracy, a gathering orchestrated by the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden.
“These initiatives will also help protect the human rights of environmental defenders,” Trudeau added.
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The International Development Research Centre will also be getting an additional $4.6 million to “create an equitable, feminist, and inclusive digital sphere,” according to a backgrounder by the Prime Minister’s Office.
Other components of the $30-million package include $1.44 million “to strengthen the resilience of francophone LGBTQI+ rights movements in North Africa.”
The Prime Minister of Canada retains executive authority to approve unbudgeted cash grants to outside actors, and it’s relatively common that the PMO will roll out multimillion-dollar announcements on the eve of attending overseas conferences and summits.
Just before Trudeau attended the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2022, for instance, his government announced $333 million for various Asian projects, funds and non-profits.
This included a $32.8-million fund for any “civil society organizations” who could prove their commitment to promoting “gender equality and inclusion.” Etc….
“Today I’m announcing that Canada is investing $8.4 million on research across the global south to better understand how climate change interacts with democratic decline,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a video address to the third annual Summit on Democracy, a gathering orchestrated by the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden.
“These initiatives will also help protect the human rights of environmental defenders,” Trudeau added.
Trudeau pledges $8.4 million to study 'democratic decline' — National Post
Initiative will research how climate change 'interacts with democratic decline' and help protect the human rights of environmental defenders
Other components of the $30-million package include $1.44 million “to strengthen the resilience of francophone LGBTQI+ rights movements in North Africa.”
The Prime Minister of Canada retains executive authority to approve unbudgeted cash grants to outside actors, and it’s relatively common that the PMO will roll out multimillion-dollar announcements on the eve of attending overseas conferences and summits.
Just before Trudeau attended the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2022, for instance, his government announced $333 million for various Asian projects, funds and non-profits.
This included a $32.8-million fund for any “civil society organizations” who could prove their commitment to promoting “gender equality and inclusion.” Etc….
A good use of borrowed money . Just think of all the good liberals who will be hired , and all the kickbacks to the LPC .As part of a surprise outlay of cash announced at a summit in South Korea, the Prime Minister’s Office has approved $8.4 million to study how autocracy thrives in warming temperatures.
“Today I’m announcing that Canada is investing $8.4 million on research across the global south to better understand how climate change interacts with democratic decline,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a video address to the third annual Summit on Democracy, a gathering orchestrated by the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden.
“These initiatives will also help protect the human rights of environmental defenders,” Trudeau added.
The International Development Research Centre will also be getting an additional $4.6 million to “create an equitable, feminist, and inclusive digital sphere,” according to a backgrounder by the Prime Minister’s Office.Trudeau pledges $8.4 million to study 'democratic decline' — National Post
Initiative will research how climate change 'interacts with democratic decline' and help protect the human rights of environmental defenders
Other components of the $30-million package include $1.44 million “to strengthen the resilience of francophone LGBTQI+ rights movements in North Africa.”
The Prime Minister of Canada retains executive authority to approve unbudgeted cash grants to outside actors, and it’s relatively common that the PMO will roll out multimillion-dollar announcements on the eve of attending overseas conferences and summits.
Just before Trudeau attended the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2022, for instance, his government announced $333 million for various Asian projects, funds and non-profits.
This included a $32.8-million fund for any “civil society organizations” who could prove their commitment to promoting “gender equality and inclusion.” Etc….
What? Nothing for men? That's gender bias and illegal.As part of a surprise outlay of cash announced at a summit in South Korea, the Prime Minister’s Office has approved $8.4 million to study how autocracy thrives in warming temperatures.
“Today I’m announcing that Canada is investing $8.4 million on research across the global south to better understand how climate change interacts with democratic decline,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a video address to the third annual Summit on Democracy, a gathering orchestrated by the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden.
“These initiatives will also help protect the human rights of environmental defenders,” Trudeau added.
The International Development Research Centre will also be getting an additional $4.6 million to “create an equitable, feminist, and inclusive digital sphere,” according to a backgrounder by the Prime Minister’s Office.Trudeau pledges $8.4 million to study 'democratic decline' — National Post
Initiative will research how climate change 'interacts with democratic decline' and help protect the human rights of environmental defenders
Other components of the $30-million package include $1.44 million “to strengthen the resilience of francophone LGBTQI+ rights movements in North Africa.”
The Prime Minister of Canada retains executive authority to approve unbudgeted cash grants to outside actors, and it’s relatively common that the PMO will roll out multimillion-dollar announcements on the eve of attending overseas conferences and summits.
Just before Trudeau attended the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2022, for instance, his government announced $333 million for various Asian projects, funds and non-profits.
This included a $32.8-million fund for any “civil society organizations” who could prove their commitment to promoting “gender equality and inclusion.” Etc….
The act states that, “all Canadians have the right to equality, equal opportunity, fair treatment, and an environment free of discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, marital status and family status.”Nov 6, 2023
https://www.international.gc.ca › l...
Federal gender equality laws in Canada
WOW, all the way back to 1948. Couple hundred lifetimes for a mosquito.Winter comes to a close as Canada’s warmest on record
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Jordan Omstead
Published Mar 19, 2024 • 4 minute read
The warmest winter on record could have far-reaching effects on everything from wildfire season to erosion, climatologists say, while offering a preview of what the season could resemble in the not-so-distant future unless steps are taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The warmest winter on record could have far-reaching effects on everything from wildfire season to erosion, climatologists say, while offering a preview of what the season could resemble in the not-so-distant future unless steps are taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The warmest winter on record could have far-reaching effects on everything from wildfire season to erosion, climatologists say, while offering a preview of what the season could resemble in the not-so-distant future unless steps are taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Winter comes to a close on Tuesday night — early Wednesday on Canada’s East Coast — with the arrival of the spring equinox. But climatologist David Phillips says it’s almost as if this winter in Canada never happened.
“I called it the lost season,” said Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Canada shattered temperature records this winter, and it wasn’t close, Phillips said, referring to national data going back to 1948.
While winter’s end is typically marked by the equinox, climatologists look at what’s known as meteorological winter, the three-month period from December to February. Over that period, Canada was 5.2 C warmer than average, said Phillips. That’s 1.1 degrees warmer than the previous record set in 2009-2010.
There were bouts of extreme winter weather across Canada, from a January deep freeze on the Prairies to a massive snowfall in the Maritimes in February. But the warmer-than-normal and unusual weather was widely felt across the country.
This winter, Phillips said, “was put on hold — and not on ice.”
Some people may have been grateful for a break on heating bills or for periodic balmy days, but Phillips says the record-breaking temperatures upended Canada’s winter way of life. Winter festivals were cancelled, ski resorts faced closures, and flora and fauna emerged prematurely. Remote First Nations in Ontario and Manitoba that depend on ice roads issued states of emergency due to poor conditions.
Outdoor skating, often regarded as a picture-postcard image of Canada’s winter life, suffered too. Ottawa’s iconic Rideau Canal skateway was open for a few days this winter, after the previous year’s unprecedented season-long closure.
Damon Matthews, a Concordia University climate scientist who has tracked climate change’s impact on retreating rinks, cited Wayne Gretzky and Joni Mitchell as he noted the place of outdoor skating in Canada’s imaginings of winter.
Mitchell’s longing for a “river I could skate away on,” evoked in her 1971 song “River,” may be shared not just by those who decamped to California, but by people across Canada this year and in years to come, he said. Gretzky’s origin story of learning to play on outdoor rinks may be a story denied to other aspiring hockey players in southern Ontario.
“It’s a shame that’s the case,” he said.
Experts say the drivers of this winter’s record-breaking warmth include El Nino and human-caused climate change. Other related factors include record-high global ocean temperatures and residual heat from earlier in 2023.
El Nino, a natural climate phenomenon that typically comes around every two to seven years, was strong this year but not the strongest. The United Nation’s World Meteorological Organization said its peak fell short of at least two other El Nino winters in 1997 and 2015.
“El Nino has contributed to these record temperatures, but heat-trapping greenhouse gases are unequivocally the main culprit,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in an update earlier this month, referring to a string of consecutive global monthly temperature records.
Climate change is expected to crank up temperatures in winter more than any other season in Canada, said Phillips, the Environment Canada climatologist. If the world continues to emit greenhouse gases on a “business as usual” scale until 2050, Phillips says his own community of Barrie, in central Ontario, could see winters as warm as this one on a regular basis around 2065.
Less snow on the ground for the spring melt means less water available to irrigate farmlands and replenish reservoirs. As snow melts, it also helps to reduce the risk of wildfires.
Almost all of Western Canada, northern Ontario and parts of northern Quebec were under drought conditions as of the end of February, says a recent update from Environment Canada. Parts of southern Alberta and northern British Columbia reported conditions typically seen once every 50 years.
“The drought season, the forest fire season — these are all to come, but sometimes the seeds of those are sown in the winter,” said Phillips.
Great Lakes ice cover, which helps shield the shoreline from erosion during winter storms, also hit historic lows in February. Erosion concerns extend to coastal areas around the Gulf of St. Lawrence, including Prince Edward Island, said Phillips.
But there is a fine line between being clear about climate change’s consequences and despairing about a preventable outcome, said Matthews, the Concordia climate scientist.
“We need to get our act together and stop arguing about, as a country, whether this is even an issue or a priority,” he said, adding that Canada is “not stepping up the way we need to be.”
“Outdoor skating is a consequence of that, but at the same time, there are many, many worse things that will happen if we don’t get on with things.”
'THE LOST SEASON': Winter comes to a close as Canada’s warmest on record
Winter comes to a close on Tuesday night with the arrival of the spring equinox.
Study says since 1979 climate change has made heat waves last longer, spike hotter, hurt more people
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Seth Borenstein
Published Mar 29, 2024 • 2 minute read
Longer-Heat-Waves
Climate change is making heat waves crawl slower across the globe and last longer with higher temperatures over larger areas, a new study finds.
Climate change is making giant heat waves crawl slower across the globe and they are baking more people for a longer time with higher temperatures over larger areas, a new study finds.
Since 1979, global heat waves are moving 20% more slowly _ meaning more people stay hot longer — and they are happening 67% more often, according to a study in Friday’s Science Advances. The study found the highest temperatures in the heat waves are warmer than 40 years ago and the area under a heat dome is larger.
Studies have shown heat waves worsening before, but this one is more comprehensive and concentrates heavily on not just temperature and area, but how long the high heat lasts and how it travels across continents, said study co-authors and climate scientists Wei Zhang of Utah State University and Gabriel Lau of Princeton University.
From 1979 to 1983, global heat waves would last eight days on average, but by 2016 to 2020 that was up to 12 days, the study said.
Eurasia was especially hit harder with longer lasting heat waves, the study said. Heat waves slowed down most in Africa, while North America and Australia saw the biggest increases in overall magnitude, which measures temperature and area, according to the study.
“This paper sends a clear warning that climate change makes heat waves yet more dangerous in more ways than one,” said Lawrence Berkeley National Lab climate scientist Michael Wehner, who wasn’t part of the research.
Just like in an oven, the longer the heat lasts, the more something cooks. In this case it’s people, the co-authors said.
“Those heat waves are traveling slower and so slower so that basically means that … there’s a heat wave sitting there and those heat waves could stay longer in the region,” Zhang said. “And the adverse impacts on our human society would be huge and increasing over the years.”
The team conducted computer simulations showing this change was due to heat-trapping emissions that come from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. The study found climate change’s fingerprint by simulating a world without greenhouse gas emissions and concluding it could not produce the worsening heat waves observed in the last 45 years.
The study also looks at the changes in weather patterns that propagate heat waves. Atmospheric waves that move weather systems along, such as the jet stream, are weakening, so they are not moving heat waves along as quickly — west to east in most but not all continents, Zhang said.
Several outside scientists praised the big picture way Zhang and colleagues examined heat waves, showing the interaction with weather patterns and their global movement and especially how they are slowing down.
This shows “how heat waves evolve in three dimensions and move regionally and across continents rather than looking at temperatures at individual locations,” said Kathy Jacobs, a University of Arizona climate scientist who wasn’t part of the study.
“One of the most direct consequences of global warming is increasing heat waves,” said Woodwell Climate Research Center scientist Jennifer Francis, who wasn’t part of the study. “These results put a large exclamation point on that fact.”
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Seth Borenstein
Published Mar 29, 2024 • 2 minute read
Longer-Heat-Waves
Climate change is making heat waves crawl slower across the globe and last longer with higher temperatures over larger areas, a new study finds.
Climate change is making giant heat waves crawl slower across the globe and they are baking more people for a longer time with higher temperatures over larger areas, a new study finds.
Since 1979, global heat waves are moving 20% more slowly _ meaning more people stay hot longer — and they are happening 67% more often, according to a study in Friday’s Science Advances. The study found the highest temperatures in the heat waves are warmer than 40 years ago and the area under a heat dome is larger.
Studies have shown heat waves worsening before, but this one is more comprehensive and concentrates heavily on not just temperature and area, but how long the high heat lasts and how it travels across continents, said study co-authors and climate scientists Wei Zhang of Utah State University and Gabriel Lau of Princeton University.
From 1979 to 1983, global heat waves would last eight days on average, but by 2016 to 2020 that was up to 12 days, the study said.
Eurasia was especially hit harder with longer lasting heat waves, the study said. Heat waves slowed down most in Africa, while North America and Australia saw the biggest increases in overall magnitude, which measures temperature and area, according to the study.
“This paper sends a clear warning that climate change makes heat waves yet more dangerous in more ways than one,” said Lawrence Berkeley National Lab climate scientist Michael Wehner, who wasn’t part of the research.
Just like in an oven, the longer the heat lasts, the more something cooks. In this case it’s people, the co-authors said.
“Those heat waves are traveling slower and so slower so that basically means that … there’s a heat wave sitting there and those heat waves could stay longer in the region,” Zhang said. “And the adverse impacts on our human society would be huge and increasing over the years.”
The team conducted computer simulations showing this change was due to heat-trapping emissions that come from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. The study found climate change’s fingerprint by simulating a world without greenhouse gas emissions and concluding it could not produce the worsening heat waves observed in the last 45 years.
The study also looks at the changes in weather patterns that propagate heat waves. Atmospheric waves that move weather systems along, such as the jet stream, are weakening, so they are not moving heat waves along as quickly — west to east in most but not all continents, Zhang said.
Several outside scientists praised the big picture way Zhang and colleagues examined heat waves, showing the interaction with weather patterns and their global movement and especially how they are slowing down.
This shows “how heat waves evolve in three dimensions and move regionally and across continents rather than looking at temperatures at individual locations,” said Kathy Jacobs, a University of Arizona climate scientist who wasn’t part of the study.
“One of the most direct consequences of global warming is increasing heat waves,” said Woodwell Climate Research Center scientist Jennifer Francis, who wasn’t part of the study. “These results put a large exclamation point on that fact.”
Study says since 1979 climate change has made heat waves last longer, spike hotter, hurt more people
Climate change is making giant heat waves crawl slower across the globe and they are baking more people for a longer time.
And it is heating up faster than everywhere else , everywhere .
WATCH AND SHARE: Devastating Documentary ‘Climate: The Movie’ Obliterates Climate Scam, Shadowbanned By YouTube
MUST WATCH: Guyana President Flips the Tables and Obliterates Woke BBC “Journalist” With Brilliant Response After Brit Tries to “Educate” Him on Carbon Emissions (VIDEO)
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And getting a little warmer is a bonus as it increases the growing seasons for food. Having said that, we also need more moisture (i.e. rain) as that also affects growing plants as well. I'm all for the climate getting warmer!Winter comes to a close as Canada’s warmest on record
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Jordan Omstead
Published Mar 19, 2024 • 4 minute read
The warmest winter on record could have far-reaching effects on everything from wildfire season to erosion, climatologists say, while offering a preview of what the season could resemble in the not-so-distant future unless steps are taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The warmest winter on record could have far-reaching effects on everything from wildfire season to erosion, climatologists say, while offering a preview of what the season could resemble in the not-so-distant future unless steps are taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The warmest winter on record could have far-reaching effects on everything from wildfire season to erosion, climatologists say, while offering a preview of what the season could resemble in the not-so-distant future unless steps are taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Winter comes to a close on Tuesday night — early Wednesday on Canada’s East Coast — with the arrival of the spring equinox. But climatologist David Phillips says it’s almost as if this winter in Canada never happened.
“I called it the lost season,” said Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Canada shattered temperature records this winter, and it wasn’t close, Phillips said, referring to national data going back to 1948.
While winter’s end is typically marked by the equinox, climatologists look at what’s known as meteorological winter, the three-month period from December to February. Over that period, Canada was 5.2 C warmer than average, said Phillips. That’s 1.1 degrees warmer than the previous record set in 2009-2010.
There were bouts of extreme winter weather across Canada, from a January deep freeze on the Prairies to a massive snowfall in the Maritimes in February. But the warmer-than-normal and unusual weather was widely felt across the country.
This winter, Phillips said, “was put on hold — and not on ice.”
Some people may have been grateful for a break on heating bills or for periodic balmy days, but Phillips says the record-breaking temperatures upended Canada’s winter way of life. Winter festivals were cancelled, ski resorts faced closures, and flora and fauna emerged prematurely. Remote First Nations in Ontario and Manitoba that depend on ice roads issued states of emergency due to poor conditions.
Outdoor skating, often regarded as a picture-postcard image of Canada’s winter life, suffered too. Ottawa’s iconic Rideau Canal skateway was open for a few days this winter, after the previous year’s unprecedented season-long closure.
Damon Matthews, a Concordia University climate scientist who has tracked climate change’s impact on retreating rinks, cited Wayne Gretzky and Joni Mitchell as he noted the place of outdoor skating in Canada’s imaginings of winter.
Mitchell’s longing for a “river I could skate away on,” evoked in her 1971 song “River,” may be shared not just by those who decamped to California, but by people across Canada this year and in years to come, he said. Gretzky’s origin story of learning to play on outdoor rinks may be a story denied to other aspiring hockey players in southern Ontario.
“It’s a shame that’s the case,” he said.
Experts say the drivers of this winter’s record-breaking warmth include El Nino and human-caused climate change. Other related factors include record-high global ocean temperatures and residual heat from earlier in 2023.
El Nino, a natural climate phenomenon that typically comes around every two to seven years, was strong this year but not the strongest. The United Nation’s World Meteorological Organization said its peak fell short of at least two other El Nino winters in 1997 and 2015.
“El Nino has contributed to these record temperatures, but heat-trapping greenhouse gases are unequivocally the main culprit,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in an update earlier this month, referring to a string of consecutive global monthly temperature records.
Climate change is expected to crank up temperatures in winter more than any other season in Canada, said Phillips, the Environment Canada climatologist. If the world continues to emit greenhouse gases on a “business as usual” scale until 2050, Phillips says his own community of Barrie, in central Ontario, could see winters as warm as this one on a regular basis around 2065.
Less snow on the ground for the spring melt means less water available to irrigate farmlands and replenish reservoirs. As snow melts, it also helps to reduce the risk of wildfires.
Almost all of Western Canada, northern Ontario and parts of northern Quebec were under drought conditions as of the end of February, says a recent update from Environment Canada. Parts of southern Alberta and northern British Columbia reported conditions typically seen once every 50 years.
“The drought season, the forest fire season — these are all to come, but sometimes the seeds of those are sown in the winter,” said Phillips.
Great Lakes ice cover, which helps shield the shoreline from erosion during winter storms, also hit historic lows in February. Erosion concerns extend to coastal areas around the Gulf of St. Lawrence, including Prince Edward Island, said Phillips.
But there is a fine line between being clear about climate change’s consequences and despairing about a preventable outcome, said Matthews, the Concordia climate scientist.
“We need to get our act together and stop arguing about, as a country, whether this is even an issue or a priority,” he said, adding that Canada is “not stepping up the way we need to be.”
“Outdoor skating is a consequence of that, but at the same time, there are many, many worse things that will happen if we don’t get on with things.”
'THE LOST SEASON': Winter comes to a close as Canada’s warmest on record
Winter comes to a close on Tuesday night with the arrival of the spring equinox.
Canada might be one of the few countries with net benefits from Global Warming Cooling Changing….with an increased growing season, expanded growing area, moderated winters, warmer summers, etc…so if anyone should be against that, it would be the Liberal Party of Canada & their henchman in the NDP.
Since 79..Study says since 1979 climate change has made heat waves last longer, spike hotter, hurt more people
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Seth Borenstein
Published Mar 29, 2024 • 2 minute read
Longer-Heat-Waves
Climate change is making heat waves crawl slower across the globe and last longer with higher temperatures over larger areas, a new study finds.
Climate change is making giant heat waves crawl slower across the globe and they are baking more people for a longer time with higher temperatures over larger areas, a new study finds.
Since 1979, global heat waves are moving 20% more slowly _ meaning more people stay hot longer — and they are happening 67% more often, according to a study in Friday’s Science Advances. The study found the highest temperatures in the heat waves are warmer than 40 years ago and the area under a heat dome is larger.
Studies have shown heat waves worsening before, but this one is more comprehensive and concentrates heavily on not just temperature and area, but how long the high heat lasts and how it travels across continents, said study co-authors and climate scientists Wei Zhang of Utah State University and Gabriel Lau of Princeton University.
From 1979 to 1983, global heat waves would last eight days on average, but by 2016 to 2020 that was up to 12 days, the study said.
Eurasia was especially hit harder with longer lasting heat waves, the study said. Heat waves slowed down most in Africa, while North America and Australia saw the biggest increases in overall magnitude, which measures temperature and area, according to the study.
“This paper sends a clear warning that climate change makes heat waves yet more dangerous in more ways than one,” said Lawrence Berkeley National Lab climate scientist Michael Wehner, who wasn’t part of the research.
Just like in an oven, the longer the heat lasts, the more something cooks. In this case it’s people, the co-authors said.
“Those heat waves are traveling slower and so slower so that basically means that … there’s a heat wave sitting there and those heat waves could stay longer in the region,” Zhang said. “And the adverse impacts on our human society would be huge and increasing over the years.”
The team conducted computer simulations showing this change was due to heat-trapping emissions that come from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. The study found climate change’s fingerprint by simulating a world without greenhouse gas emissions and concluding it could not produce the worsening heat waves observed in the last 45 years.
The study also looks at the changes in weather patterns that propagate heat waves. Atmospheric waves that move weather systems along, such as the jet stream, are weakening, so they are not moving heat waves along as quickly — west to east in most but not all continents, Zhang said.
Several outside scientists praised the big picture way Zhang and colleagues examined heat waves, showing the interaction with weather patterns and their global movement and especially how they are slowing down.
This shows “how heat waves evolve in three dimensions and move regionally and across continents rather than looking at temperatures at individual locations,” said Kathy Jacobs, a University of Arizona climate scientist who wasn’t part of the study.
“One of the most direct consequences of global warming is increasing heat waves,” said Woodwell Climate Research Center scientist Jennifer Francis, who wasn’t part of the study. “These results put a large exclamation point on that fact.”
Study says since 1979 climate change has made heat waves last longer, spike hotter, hurt more people
Climate change is making giant heat waves crawl slower across the globe and they are baking more people for a longer time.
Longer than most of the terminally clueless have been alive.