The increase in CO2 is a GOOD thing! WTH is wrong with people who believe it's a crisis? It's been way higher 1000's of years ago & we weren't around!! Stupid is as stupid does!! It's all about control & nothing to do with climate.CO2 in atmosphere up by record amount in 2024: UN
The World Meteorological Organization said levels from 2023 to 2024 marked the biggest one-year jump since records began in 1957
Author of the article:AFP
AFP
Published Oct 15, 2025 • Last updated 1 day ago • 2 minute read
The jump in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere last year is the highest ever recorded, according to the UN.
The jump in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere last year is the highest ever recorded, according to the UN.
GENEVA — The increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere last year was the highest ever recorded, the United Nations said Wednesday, calling for urgent action to slash emissions.
Levels of the three main greenhouse gases — the climate-warming CO2, methane and nitrous oxide — all increased yet again in 2024, with each setting new record highs, the UN’s weather and climate agency said.
The World Meteorological Organization said the increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere from 2023 to 2024 marked the biggest one-year jump since records began in 1957.
Wednesday’s report, which comes ahead of the November 10-21 COP30 UN climate summit in Belem, Brazil, focused exclusively on concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
A separate UN report, out next month, will detail shifts in emissions of the gases, but those numbers are also expected to rise, as they have every year with the world continuing to burn more oil, gas and coal.
This defies commitments made under the 2015 Paris Agreement to cap global warming at “well below” 2C above average levels measured between 1850 and 1900 — and 1.5C if possible.
The WMO voiced “significant concern” that land and oceans were becoming unable to soak up CO2, leaving the powerful greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.
“The heat trapped by CO2 and other greenhouse gases is turbo-charging our climate and leading to more extreme weather,” said WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett.
“Reducing emissions is therefore essential not just for our climate but also for our economic security and community well-being.”
Last year was also the warmest year ever recorded, beating the previous high in 2023, the WMO recalled.
“The levels of the three most abundant long-lived greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — reached new records in 2024,” the WMO said in its 21st annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin.
In 2024, CO2 concentrations were at 424 parts per million (ppm), methane at 1,942 parts per billion, and nitrous oxide at 338 parts per billion.
That marks hikes of 152 percent, 266 percent and 125 percent respectively since pre-industrial levels before 1750.
Of the three major greenhouse gases, CO2 accounts for about 66 percent of the warming effect on the climate.
When the Greenhouse Gas Bulletin was first published in 2004, the figure stood at 377 ppm.
The 3.5 ppm increase from 2023 to 2024 was “the largest one-year increase since modern measurements began in 1957”, the WMO said.
CO2 in atmosphere up by record amount in 2024: UN
The increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere from 2023 to 2024 marked the biggest one-year jump since records began in 1957.torontosun.com
It's Climate Change I tell'ya!! IT'S CLIMATE CHANGE!!
- Thread starter B00Mer
- Start date
Or millions of years ago, etc…& I bet you most people would be absolutely shocked to find out in comparison to the panic, what level of CO2 in Ppm greenhouses pump things up to in order to make plants happy.
Study offers glimpse of severe climate change anxiety in Canada
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Jordan Omstead
Published Oct 21, 2025 • 6 minute read
David Toro was taken aback by the turnout at a climate change anxiety peer-support group.
After all, his feelings of dread and powerlessness when he thought about climate change could be isolating. There were like-minded people in his environmental studies program at Concordia University who shared his concerns, but he at times struggled with how to process those emotions.
Initially sparked by documentaries he saw during his childhood in Colombia, those emotions persisted as he watched the evidence on climate change mount and ecosystems careen toward — and even pass — critical tipping points, from coral reefs dying off to the Amazon rainforest drying up. He’d wonder: did other people care?
So, in late 2023 at Concordia, when Toro walked into that peer-support group meeting, he was surprised. People were pulling up extra chairs to make room for the roughly 20 people piling into the room.
“Finding this group has really helped me because it’s given me a community and outlet to handle these emotions and process them with other people who are feeling similar feelings without disengaging and without disconnecting,” he said.
Estimates of how widespread climate change anxiety feelings are in Canada have been hard to come by, but several new studies are helping to shed light on the issue.
A national survey published Tuesday estimates about 2.3 per cent of people over age 13 in Canada experience clinically relevant climate change anxiety. Applied across the population, that translates to more than 700,000 people.
It’s believed to be the first population-representative, random-sample survey of severe climate change anxiety in Canada.
The survey found that climate anxiety was more common among people who had directly experienced climate change impacts, women compared to men, those in Northern Canada compared to Southern Canada, younger generations compared to older generations, people in urban centres compared to rural areas, and people with lower incomes.
Indigenous people had the highest prevalence of severe climate anxiety of any group, at almost 10 per cent, said the study published in the academic journal Nature Mental Health.
That number could reflect the disproportionate climate impacts Indigenous communities face due to wildfires, declining sea ice and warmer winters, as well as the heightened importance of the link between human and planetary health in Indigenous worldviews, the authors said.
Using the same survey data, the researchers published results in July showing most young people aged 13 to 34 felt at least mild levels of worry (95 per cent) and hopelessness (88 per cent) about climate change.
A separate peer-reviewed survey, published late last month and authored by a different group of researchers, found 37 per cent of Canadian teens who responded said they felt climate change was impacting their mental health.
“I think we need to keep monitoring and understanding what that feels like for young people because they’re coming into it from a unique perspective,” said co-author of last month’s study, Gina Martin, an associate professor at Athabasca University and adjunct professor at Western University.
“This generation of young people is the first generation that’s living completely under the shadow of climate change.”
Climate change, driven by planet-warming emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, is having serious impacts on the health of people in Canada, whether it be worsening air quality from more intense wildfires to the northward spread of disease-carrying insects who thrive in the milder winters and longer summers.
Yet, the mental health impacts of climate change may be underestimated in Canada, a 2022 report prepared for the Public Health Agency of Canada said. That could leave public health understaffed and unprepared to handle the issue, the report said.
Feeling a bit anxious or worried about climate change is a normal, and possibly even healthy response to the scale of the crisis, says co-author of Tuesday’s study Sherilee Harper, an expert in climate change in mental health at the University of Alberta. Yet, for some people, those feelings can become more severe or persistent, disrupting their daily life and mirroring symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder, such as obsessive thinking, dread, the inability to concentrate and nightmares.
To find out how prevalent that severe climate anxiety is in Canada, Harper and the team behind Tuesday’s study surveyed 2,476 people from across the country. Respondents were asked a series of questions adapted from a climate anxiety scale widely used among other academics studying the issue. Those questions included how often thoughts of climate change may disrupt the person’s sleep or concentration, how often they question why they react the way they do to climate change and how often their feelings about climate change negatively affect their daily life.
A person’s symptoms were said to be clinically meaningful if, on average, their anxiety-related thoughts or feelings about climate change disrupted their routine and daily life at least sometimes, rather than rarely or never.
While 2.3 per cent of respondents had that more severe manifestation of climate anxiety, about 15 per cent reported at least one symptom, says the study co-authored by researchers at the University of Alberta and Acadia University.
Climate change anxiety appeared to be less common in Canada than in some other countries, the authors said, while also underlining several challenges with comparing studies. Other studies found the prevalence to be about 9.4 per cent in Australia, 3.6 per cent in the United Kingdom and 11.6 per cent among French-speaking European and African nations, the authors said.
One of the challenges in comparing the studies gets at a deeper question: at what point do concerns about climate change tip into something that could be described as climate change anxiety?
The authors noted recent research in Australia suggests the cut point commonly used on the climate change anxiety scale employed in Tuesday’s study might too high, with “clinical distress” taking place at lower levels than previously thought. The study may be underestimating the prevalence and severity of clinically relevant climate change anxiety in Canada, the authors wrote.
The results, says Harper, suggest there is a greater need in Canada for programs that integrate mental health and climate change adaptation. Supports should be increased for people who have been impacted by “climate disasters” such as wildfires or extreme heat waves, she said. It also means investing resources where they’re needed most, such as Indigenous and northern communities where climate anxiety is most common.
Meanwhile, the authors of the teen mental health study took a different approach. The survey asked more than 800 Canadians between ages 13 and 18 whether they thought climate change is impacting their mental health. Of those who said yes, about a quarter said their mental health was impacted “a lot,” and the others reported “a little.”
The teens, whose responses were anonymous, could then answer an open-ended question describing those impacts. Some talked about feeling uncertain about the future and their concerns about becoming parents as environmental conditions worsen. Others talked about how they felt anxious when they thought about wildfire season or saddened by the inaction of people with influence.
An 18-year-old girl from New Brunswick is quoted as saying it made her sad to know that “big corporations that produce loads of carbon dioxide would rather have a lot of money than a healthy planet.”
Researchers have underlined how community spaces that foster a sense of emotional resilience have been shown to be beneficial for people feeling anxious about climate change. It’s something David Toro has seen firsthand.
Toro has since graduated from Concordia, and in a way, so too has his eco-anxiety group. The facilitators, noticing how many participants were starting to attend from outside the university population, have refashioned themselves as a community group and are working to register as a non-profit called Climate Hearth, he said.
The peer support sessions are broadly structured around the rest, recovery and resistance framework designed by youth climate organizers with the non-profit Shake Up the Establishment, Toro said. The idea is to bring rest and recovery into people’s activism to ensure they don’t burn out and disengage.
After attending as a participant for more than a year, Toro is now co-facilitating their new French language support group. The group’s offerings have also expanded to include multi-way workshops.
“It’s reinforced the idea that there’s an appetite for this,” he said.
“It reminds me that not only are we not alone but there’s a need, I think, on our society to deal with these kinds of feelings and do something more productive with them.”
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Jordan Omstead
Published Oct 21, 2025 • 6 minute read
David Toro was taken aback by the turnout at a climate change anxiety peer-support group.
After all, his feelings of dread and powerlessness when he thought about climate change could be isolating. There were like-minded people in his environmental studies program at Concordia University who shared his concerns, but he at times struggled with how to process those emotions.
Initially sparked by documentaries he saw during his childhood in Colombia, those emotions persisted as he watched the evidence on climate change mount and ecosystems careen toward — and even pass — critical tipping points, from coral reefs dying off to the Amazon rainforest drying up. He’d wonder: did other people care?
So, in late 2023 at Concordia, when Toro walked into that peer-support group meeting, he was surprised. People were pulling up extra chairs to make room for the roughly 20 people piling into the room.
“Finding this group has really helped me because it’s given me a community and outlet to handle these emotions and process them with other people who are feeling similar feelings without disengaging and without disconnecting,” he said.
Estimates of how widespread climate change anxiety feelings are in Canada have been hard to come by, but several new studies are helping to shed light on the issue.
A national survey published Tuesday estimates about 2.3 per cent of people over age 13 in Canada experience clinically relevant climate change anxiety. Applied across the population, that translates to more than 700,000 people.
It’s believed to be the first population-representative, random-sample survey of severe climate change anxiety in Canada.
The survey found that climate anxiety was more common among people who had directly experienced climate change impacts, women compared to men, those in Northern Canada compared to Southern Canada, younger generations compared to older generations, people in urban centres compared to rural areas, and people with lower incomes.
Indigenous people had the highest prevalence of severe climate anxiety of any group, at almost 10 per cent, said the study published in the academic journal Nature Mental Health.
That number could reflect the disproportionate climate impacts Indigenous communities face due to wildfires, declining sea ice and warmer winters, as well as the heightened importance of the link between human and planetary health in Indigenous worldviews, the authors said.
Using the same survey data, the researchers published results in July showing most young people aged 13 to 34 felt at least mild levels of worry (95 per cent) and hopelessness (88 per cent) about climate change.
A separate peer-reviewed survey, published late last month and authored by a different group of researchers, found 37 per cent of Canadian teens who responded said they felt climate change was impacting their mental health.
“I think we need to keep monitoring and understanding what that feels like for young people because they’re coming into it from a unique perspective,” said co-author of last month’s study, Gina Martin, an associate professor at Athabasca University and adjunct professor at Western University.
“This generation of young people is the first generation that’s living completely under the shadow of climate change.”
Climate change, driven by planet-warming emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, is having serious impacts on the health of people in Canada, whether it be worsening air quality from more intense wildfires to the northward spread of disease-carrying insects who thrive in the milder winters and longer summers.
Yet, the mental health impacts of climate change may be underestimated in Canada, a 2022 report prepared for the Public Health Agency of Canada said. That could leave public health understaffed and unprepared to handle the issue, the report said.
Feeling a bit anxious or worried about climate change is a normal, and possibly even healthy response to the scale of the crisis, says co-author of Tuesday’s study Sherilee Harper, an expert in climate change in mental health at the University of Alberta. Yet, for some people, those feelings can become more severe or persistent, disrupting their daily life and mirroring symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder, such as obsessive thinking, dread, the inability to concentrate and nightmares.
To find out how prevalent that severe climate anxiety is in Canada, Harper and the team behind Tuesday’s study surveyed 2,476 people from across the country. Respondents were asked a series of questions adapted from a climate anxiety scale widely used among other academics studying the issue. Those questions included how often thoughts of climate change may disrupt the person’s sleep or concentration, how often they question why they react the way they do to climate change and how often their feelings about climate change negatively affect their daily life.
A person’s symptoms were said to be clinically meaningful if, on average, their anxiety-related thoughts or feelings about climate change disrupted their routine and daily life at least sometimes, rather than rarely or never.
While 2.3 per cent of respondents had that more severe manifestation of climate anxiety, about 15 per cent reported at least one symptom, says the study co-authored by researchers at the University of Alberta and Acadia University.
Climate change anxiety appeared to be less common in Canada than in some other countries, the authors said, while also underlining several challenges with comparing studies. Other studies found the prevalence to be about 9.4 per cent in Australia, 3.6 per cent in the United Kingdom and 11.6 per cent among French-speaking European and African nations, the authors said.
One of the challenges in comparing the studies gets at a deeper question: at what point do concerns about climate change tip into something that could be described as climate change anxiety?
The authors noted recent research in Australia suggests the cut point commonly used on the climate change anxiety scale employed in Tuesday’s study might too high, with “clinical distress” taking place at lower levels than previously thought. The study may be underestimating the prevalence and severity of clinically relevant climate change anxiety in Canada, the authors wrote.
The results, says Harper, suggest there is a greater need in Canada for programs that integrate mental health and climate change adaptation. Supports should be increased for people who have been impacted by “climate disasters” such as wildfires or extreme heat waves, she said. It also means investing resources where they’re needed most, such as Indigenous and northern communities where climate anxiety is most common.
Meanwhile, the authors of the teen mental health study took a different approach. The survey asked more than 800 Canadians between ages 13 and 18 whether they thought climate change is impacting their mental health. Of those who said yes, about a quarter said their mental health was impacted “a lot,” and the others reported “a little.”
The teens, whose responses were anonymous, could then answer an open-ended question describing those impacts. Some talked about feeling uncertain about the future and their concerns about becoming parents as environmental conditions worsen. Others talked about how they felt anxious when they thought about wildfire season or saddened by the inaction of people with influence.
An 18-year-old girl from New Brunswick is quoted as saying it made her sad to know that “big corporations that produce loads of carbon dioxide would rather have a lot of money than a healthy planet.”
Researchers have underlined how community spaces that foster a sense of emotional resilience have been shown to be beneficial for people feeling anxious about climate change. It’s something David Toro has seen firsthand.
Toro has since graduated from Concordia, and in a way, so too has his eco-anxiety group. The facilitators, noticing how many participants were starting to attend from outside the university population, have refashioned themselves as a community group and are working to register as a non-profit called Climate Hearth, he said.
The peer support sessions are broadly structured around the rest, recovery and resistance framework designed by youth climate organizers with the non-profit Shake Up the Establishment, Toro said. The idea is to bring rest and recovery into people’s activism to ensure they don’t burn out and disengage.
After attending as a participant for more than a year, Toro is now co-facilitating their new French language support group. The group’s offerings have also expanded to include multi-way workshops.
“It’s reinforced the idea that there’s an appetite for this,” he said.
“It reminds me that not only are we not alone but there’s a need, I think, on our society to deal with these kinds of feelings and do something more productive with them.”
Study offers glimpse of severe climate change anxiety in Canada
A national survey estimates about 2.3% of people over age 13 in Canada experience clinically relevant climate change anxiety.
What alchemical concoction do we need to burn to make it spring again?Study offers glimpse of severe climate change anxiety in Canada
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Jordan Omstead
Published Oct 21, 2025 • 6 minute read
David Toro was taken aback by the turnout at a climate change anxiety peer-support group.
After all, his feelings of dread and powerlessness when he thought about climate change could be isolating. There were like-minded people in his environmental studies program at Concordia University who shared his concerns, but he at times struggled with how to process those emotions.
Initially sparked by documentaries he saw during his childhood in Colombia, those emotions persisted as he watched the evidence on climate change mount and ecosystems careen toward — and even pass — critical tipping points, from coral reefs dying off to the Amazon rainforest drying up. He’d wonder: did other people care?
So, in late 2023 at Concordia, when Toro walked into that peer-support group meeting, he was surprised. People were pulling up extra chairs to make room for the roughly 20 people piling into the room.
“Finding this group has really helped me because it’s given me a community and outlet to handle these emotions and process them with other people who are feeling similar feelings without disengaging and without disconnecting,” he said.
Estimates of how widespread climate change anxiety feelings are in Canada have been hard to come by, but several new studies are helping to shed light on the issue.
A national survey published Tuesday estimates about 2.3 per cent of people over age 13 in Canada experience clinically relevant climate change anxiety. Applied across the population, that translates to more than 700,000 people.
It’s believed to be the first population-representative, random-sample survey of severe climate change anxiety in Canada.
The survey found that climate anxiety was more common among people who had directly experienced climate change impacts, women compared to men, those in Northern Canada compared to Southern Canada, younger generations compared to older generations, people in urban centres compared to rural areas, and people with lower incomes.
Indigenous people had the highest prevalence of severe climate anxiety of any group, at almost 10 per cent, said the study published in the academic journal Nature Mental Health.
That number could reflect the disproportionate climate impacts Indigenous communities face due to wildfires, declining sea ice and warmer winters, as well as the heightened importance of the link between human and planetary health in Indigenous worldviews, the authors said.
Using the same survey data, the researchers published results in July showing most young people aged 13 to 34 felt at least mild levels of worry (95 per cent) and hopelessness (88 per cent) about climate change.
A separate peer-reviewed survey, published late last month and authored by a different group of researchers, found 37 per cent of Canadian teens who responded said they felt climate change was impacting their mental health.
“I think we need to keep monitoring and understanding what that feels like for young people because they’re coming into it from a unique perspective,” said co-author of last month’s study, Gina Martin, an associate professor at Athabasca University and adjunct professor at Western University.
“This generation of young people is the first generation that’s living completely under the shadow of climate change.”
Climate change, driven by planet-warming emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, is having serious impacts on the health of people in Canada, whether it be worsening air quality from more intense wildfires to the northward spread of disease-carrying insects who thrive in the milder winters and longer summers.
Yet, the mental health impacts of climate change may be underestimated in Canada, a 2022 report prepared for the Public Health Agency of Canada said. That could leave public health understaffed and unprepared to handle the issue, the report said.
Feeling a bit anxious or worried about climate change is a normal, and possibly even healthy response to the scale of the crisis, says co-author of Tuesday’s study Sherilee Harper, an expert in climate change in mental health at the University of Alberta. Yet, for some people, those feelings can become more severe or persistent, disrupting their daily life and mirroring symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder, such as obsessive thinking, dread, the inability to concentrate and nightmares.
To find out how prevalent that severe climate anxiety is in Canada, Harper and the team behind Tuesday’s study surveyed 2,476 people from across the country. Respondents were asked a series of questions adapted from a climate anxiety scale widely used among other academics studying the issue. Those questions included how often thoughts of climate change may disrupt the person’s sleep or concentration, how often they question why they react the way they do to climate change and how often their feelings about climate change negatively affect their daily life.
A person’s symptoms were said to be clinically meaningful if, on average, their anxiety-related thoughts or feelings about climate change disrupted their routine and daily life at least sometimes, rather than rarely or never.
While 2.3 per cent of respondents had that more severe manifestation of climate anxiety, about 15 per cent reported at least one symptom, says the study co-authored by researchers at the University of Alberta and Acadia University.
Climate change anxiety appeared to be less common in Canada than in some other countries, the authors said, while also underlining several challenges with comparing studies. Other studies found the prevalence to be about 9.4 per cent in Australia, 3.6 per cent in the United Kingdom and 11.6 per cent among French-speaking European and African nations, the authors said.
One of the challenges in comparing the studies gets at a deeper question: at what point do concerns about climate change tip into something that could be described as climate change anxiety?
The authors noted recent research in Australia suggests the cut point commonly used on the climate change anxiety scale employed in Tuesday’s study might too high, with “clinical distress” taking place at lower levels than previously thought. The study may be underestimating the prevalence and severity of clinically relevant climate change anxiety in Canada, the authors wrote.
The results, says Harper, suggest there is a greater need in Canada for programs that integrate mental health and climate change adaptation. Supports should be increased for people who have been impacted by “climate disasters” such as wildfires or extreme heat waves, she said. It also means investing resources where they’re needed most, such as Indigenous and northern communities where climate anxiety is most common.
Meanwhile, the authors of the teen mental health study took a different approach. The survey asked more than 800 Canadians between ages 13 and 18 whether they thought climate change is impacting their mental health. Of those who said yes, about a quarter said their mental health was impacted “a lot,” and the others reported “a little.”
The teens, whose responses were anonymous, could then answer an open-ended question describing those impacts. Some talked about feeling uncertain about the future and their concerns about becoming parents as environmental conditions worsen. Others talked about how they felt anxious when they thought about wildfire season or saddened by the inaction of people with influence.
An 18-year-old girl from New Brunswick is quoted as saying it made her sad to know that “big corporations that produce loads of carbon dioxide would rather have a lot of money than a healthy planet.”
Researchers have underlined how community spaces that foster a sense of emotional resilience have been shown to be beneficial for people feeling anxious about climate change. It’s something David Toro has seen firsthand.
Toro has since graduated from Concordia, and in a way, so too has his eco-anxiety group. The facilitators, noticing how many participants were starting to attend from outside the university population, have refashioned themselves as a community group and are working to register as a non-profit called Climate Hearth, he said.
The peer support sessions are broadly structured around the rest, recovery and resistance framework designed by youth climate organizers with the non-profit Shake Up the Establishment, Toro said. The idea is to bring rest and recovery into people’s activism to ensure they don’t burn out and disengage.
After attending as a participant for more than a year, Toro is now co-facilitating their new French language support group. The group’s offerings have also expanded to include multi-way workshops.
“It’s reinforced the idea that there’s an appetite for this,” he said.
“It reminds me that not only are we not alone but there’s a need, I think, on our society to deal with these kinds of feelings and do something more productive with them.”
Study offers glimpse of severe climate change anxiety in Canada
A national survey estimates about 2.3% of people over age 13 in Canada experience clinically relevant climate change anxiety.
I hope they all move there......
www.bbc.com
Mosquitoes found in Iceland for first time after record heat
Previously the country was one of the world's only mosquito-free zones.
www.bbc.com
Its not climate change. There are skeeters far far further north here in Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland and Norway. There is no skeeter free latitude line in the permafrost.I hope they all move there......
Mosquitoes found in Iceland for first time after record heat
Previously the country was one of the world's only mosquito-free zones.
There's a skeeter on my Peter whack it off
There's a skeeter on my Peter whack it off
There's a dozen on my cousin he's a whackin' they're a buzzin'
There's a skeeter on my Peter whack it off
Mental Health issues are exploding & it doesn't look like there's any help for it. Sad really because these people couldn't be bothered to a) get help or b) do their research to find out that it's a hoax. But I guess it is what it is.Study offers glimpse of severe climate change anxiety in Canada
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Jordan Omstead
Published Oct 21, 2025 • 6 minute read
David Toro was taken aback by the turnout at a climate change anxiety peer-support group.
After all, his feelings of dread and powerlessness when he thought about climate change could be isolating. There were like-minded people in his environmental studies program at Concordia University who shared his concerns, but he at times struggled with how to process those emotions.
Initially sparked by documentaries he saw during his childhood in Colombia, those emotions persisted as he watched the evidence on climate change mount and ecosystems careen toward — and even pass — critical tipping points, from coral reefs dying off to the Amazon rainforest drying up. He’d wonder: did other people care?
So, in late 2023 at Concordia, when Toro walked into that peer-support group meeting, he was surprised. People were pulling up extra chairs to make room for the roughly 20 people piling into the room.
“Finding this group has really helped me because it’s given me a community and outlet to handle these emotions and process them with other people who are feeling similar feelings without disengaging and without disconnecting,” he said.
Estimates of how widespread climate change anxiety feelings are in Canada have been hard to come by, but several new studies are helping to shed light on the issue.
A national survey published Tuesday estimates about 2.3 per cent of people over age 13 in Canada experience clinically relevant climate change anxiety. Applied across the population, that translates to more than 700,000 people.
It’s believed to be the first population-representative, random-sample survey of severe climate change anxiety in Canada.
The survey found that climate anxiety was more common among people who had directly experienced climate change impacts, women compared to men, those in Northern Canada compared to Southern Canada, younger generations compared to older generations, people in urban centres compared to rural areas, and people with lower incomes.
Indigenous people had the highest prevalence of severe climate anxiety of any group, at almost 10 per cent, said the study published in the academic journal Nature Mental Health.
That number could reflect the disproportionate climate impacts Indigenous communities face due to wildfires, declining sea ice and warmer winters, as well as the heightened importance of the link between human and planetary health in Indigenous worldviews, the authors said.
Using the same survey data, the researchers published results in July showing most young people aged 13 to 34 felt at least mild levels of worry (95 per cent) and hopelessness (88 per cent) about climate change.
A separate peer-reviewed survey, published late last month and authored by a different group of researchers, found 37 per cent of Canadian teens who responded said they felt climate change was impacting their mental health.
“I think we need to keep monitoring and understanding what that feels like for young people because they’re coming into it from a unique perspective,” said co-author of last month’s study, Gina Martin, an associate professor at Athabasca University and adjunct professor at Western University.
“This generation of young people is the first generation that’s living completely under the shadow of climate change.”
Climate change, driven by planet-warming emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, is having serious impacts on the health of people in Canada, whether it be worsening air quality from more intense wildfires to the northward spread of disease-carrying insects who thrive in the milder winters and longer summers.
Yet, the mental health impacts of climate change may be underestimated in Canada, a 2022 report prepared for the Public Health Agency of Canada said. That could leave public health understaffed and unprepared to handle the issue, the report said.
Feeling a bit anxious or worried about climate change is a normal, and possibly even healthy response to the scale of the crisis, says co-author of Tuesday’s study Sherilee Harper, an expert in climate change in mental health at the University of Alberta. Yet, for some people, those feelings can become more severe or persistent, disrupting their daily life and mirroring symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder, such as obsessive thinking, dread, the inability to concentrate and nightmares.
To find out how prevalent that severe climate anxiety is in Canada, Harper and the team behind Tuesday’s study surveyed 2,476 people from across the country. Respondents were asked a series of questions adapted from a climate anxiety scale widely used among other academics studying the issue. Those questions included how often thoughts of climate change may disrupt the person’s sleep or concentration, how often they question why they react the way they do to climate change and how often their feelings about climate change negatively affect their daily life.
A person’s symptoms were said to be clinically meaningful if, on average, their anxiety-related thoughts or feelings about climate change disrupted their routine and daily life at least sometimes, rather than rarely or never.
While 2.3 per cent of respondents had that more severe manifestation of climate anxiety, about 15 per cent reported at least one symptom, says the study co-authored by researchers at the University of Alberta and Acadia University.
Climate change anxiety appeared to be less common in Canada than in some other countries, the authors said, while also underlining several challenges with comparing studies. Other studies found the prevalence to be about 9.4 per cent in Australia, 3.6 per cent in the United Kingdom and 11.6 per cent among French-speaking European and African nations, the authors said.
One of the challenges in comparing the studies gets at a deeper question: at what point do concerns about climate change tip into something that could be described as climate change anxiety?
The authors noted recent research in Australia suggests the cut point commonly used on the climate change anxiety scale employed in Tuesday’s study might too high, with “clinical distress” taking place at lower levels than previously thought. The study may be underestimating the prevalence and severity of clinically relevant climate change anxiety in Canada, the authors wrote.
The results, says Harper, suggest there is a greater need in Canada for programs that integrate mental health and climate change adaptation. Supports should be increased for people who have been impacted by “climate disasters” such as wildfires or extreme heat waves, she said. It also means investing resources where they’re needed most, such as Indigenous and northern communities where climate anxiety is most common.
Meanwhile, the authors of the teen mental health study took a different approach. The survey asked more than 800 Canadians between ages 13 and 18 whether they thought climate change is impacting their mental health. Of those who said yes, about a quarter said their mental health was impacted “a lot,” and the others reported “a little.”
The teens, whose responses were anonymous, could then answer an open-ended question describing those impacts. Some talked about feeling uncertain about the future and their concerns about becoming parents as environmental conditions worsen. Others talked about how they felt anxious when they thought about wildfire season or saddened by the inaction of people with influence.
An 18-year-old girl from New Brunswick is quoted as saying it made her sad to know that “big corporations that produce loads of carbon dioxide would rather have a lot of money than a healthy planet.”
Researchers have underlined how community spaces that foster a sense of emotional resilience have been shown to be beneficial for people feeling anxious about climate change. It’s something David Toro has seen firsthand.
Toro has since graduated from Concordia, and in a way, so too has his eco-anxiety group. The facilitators, noticing how many participants were starting to attend from outside the university population, have refashioned themselves as a community group and are working to register as a non-profit called Climate Hearth, he said.
The peer support sessions are broadly structured around the rest, recovery and resistance framework designed by youth climate organizers with the non-profit Shake Up the Establishment, Toro said. The idea is to bring rest and recovery into people’s activism to ensure they don’t burn out and disengage.
After attending as a participant for more than a year, Toro is now co-facilitating their new French language support group. The group’s offerings have also expanded to include multi-way workshops.
“It’s reinforced the idea that there’s an appetite for this,” he said.
“It reminds me that not only are we not alone but there’s a need, I think, on our society to deal with these kinds of feelings and do something more productive with them.”
Study offers glimpse of severe climate change anxiety in Canada
A national survey estimates about 2.3% of people over age 13 in Canada experience clinically relevant climate change anxiety.
Suicide spikes among allergy sufferers of pesky pollen: Study
Author of the article
enette Wilford
Published Oct 26, 2025 • Last updated 5 hours ago • 2 minute read
Seasonal allergies are the worst.
Pollen. Just the word for allergy sufferers may spark a tickle in the nose, a tear in the eye, maybe even the start of a bumpy hive.
And while seasonal allergies may make a person feel angry at the outside world, researchers suggested that the allergies may increase the risk of suicide among sufferers.
A new study published in the Journal of Health Economics found that these deaths tend to spike on certain days — specifically, at times when the pollen outlook is moderate or worse.
The researchers our of Wayne State University analyzed more than a decade’s worth of daily pollen counts and suicide data from 34 U.S. metro areas, spanning from 2006 to 2018.
They found that suicide deaths rose by 5.5% on days with moderate pollen levels compared to days with low to no pollen.
“At the highest pollen levels, we observed up to a 7.4% increase in suicides,” Shooshan Danagoulian, lead author of the study, said in a press release.
She noted: “What’s particularly concerning is that individuals with a known mental health condition or treatment history had an even greater increase — 8.6% — on high-pollen days.”
Itchy eyes and runny noses may seem like minor inconveniences but given how that can affect sleep, strain concentration and make an individual feel generally miserable and moody are all known risk factors for suicide.
The research team also analyzed Google Trends data, where they noted spikes in searches for allergy symptoms and depressive thoughts on high-pollen days.
The evidence backed up the idea that aside from allergies impacting physical health, they can also pile on to those already struggling with their mental well-being.
The scientists also looked at how the climate change is intensifying and drawing out pollen seasons, meaning that what is now seasonal could develop into a year-round risk, even estimating that by the end of the century, the number of suicides linked to pollen could more than double.
“This is an overlooked cost of climate change,” Danagoulian explained.
“We often focus on environmental damages, but here we see clear evidence that climate change may also worsen mental health outcomes in ways that haven’t been fully considered.”
She acknowledge that the risks are preventable, and seasonal allergies can easily be treated with safe, inexpensive and widely available options such as antihistamines, nasal sprays and allergy testing.
“Small, accessible health interventions could have lifesaving impacts,” Danagoulian said.
“If managing allergies helps reduce suicide risk even slightly, it represents a meaningful step in addressing one of the most pressing public health crises of our time.”
today.wayne.edu
torontosun.com
Author of the article
enette WilfordPublished Oct 26, 2025 • Last updated 5 hours ago • 2 minute read
Seasonal allergies are the worst.
Pollen. Just the word for allergy sufferers may spark a tickle in the nose, a tear in the eye, maybe even the start of a bumpy hive.
And while seasonal allergies may make a person feel angry at the outside world, researchers suggested that the allergies may increase the risk of suicide among sufferers.
A new study published in the Journal of Health Economics found that these deaths tend to spike on certain days — specifically, at times when the pollen outlook is moderate or worse.
The researchers our of Wayne State University analyzed more than a decade’s worth of daily pollen counts and suicide data from 34 U.S. metro areas, spanning from 2006 to 2018.
They found that suicide deaths rose by 5.5% on days with moderate pollen levels compared to days with low to no pollen.
“At the highest pollen levels, we observed up to a 7.4% increase in suicides,” Shooshan Danagoulian, lead author of the study, said in a press release.
She noted: “What’s particularly concerning is that individuals with a known mental health condition or treatment history had an even greater increase — 8.6% — on high-pollen days.”
Itchy eyes and runny noses may seem like minor inconveniences but given how that can affect sleep, strain concentration and make an individual feel generally miserable and moody are all known risk factors for suicide.
The research team also analyzed Google Trends data, where they noted spikes in searches for allergy symptoms and depressive thoughts on high-pollen days.
The evidence backed up the idea that aside from allergies impacting physical health, they can also pile on to those already struggling with their mental well-being.
The scientists also looked at how the climate change is intensifying and drawing out pollen seasons, meaning that what is now seasonal could develop into a year-round risk, even estimating that by the end of the century, the number of suicides linked to pollen could more than double.
“This is an overlooked cost of climate change,” Danagoulian explained.
“We often focus on environmental damages, but here we see clear evidence that climate change may also worsen mental health outcomes in ways that haven’t been fully considered.”
She acknowledge that the risks are preventable, and seasonal allergies can easily be treated with safe, inexpensive and widely available options such as antihistamines, nasal sprays and allergy testing.
“Small, accessible health interventions could have lifesaving impacts,” Danagoulian said.
“If managing allergies helps reduce suicide risk even slightly, it represents a meaningful step in addressing one of the most pressing public health crises of our time.”
Wayne State research reveals link between seasonal allergies and suicide risk
Wayne State University researchers have uncovered a striking new connection between seasonal allergies and mental health: spikes in pollen can increase the risk
Suicide spikes among allergy sufferers of pesky pollen: Study
Researchers suggested that seasonal allergies may increase the risk of suicide among sufferers.
OMG, I've known lots of people with allergies & NONE have been suicidal!! Any that are, the allergies aren't the issue. Just sayin
I asked my new best friend ChatGPT to drum up some examples of government “investments” in climate change projects that went disastrously wrong.
I think I almost crashed the thing. The giant AI Brain found so many bad government projects it demanded I particularize the question: as in where and what kind of boondoggles would I like… solar, wind, fossil, battery…? Polish, German, American, Swiss…?
Governments in Ottawa, Ontario and Quebec are still resisting the obvious, and paying heavily for the exercise. All fell for avid pledges from ambitious firms that, given a few billion dollars in incentives, Canada could be at the forefront of the alternative-energy revolution. Electric cars! Battery plants! Good jobs! Lower emissions! Sign right here, it’s all going to be great, the voters will reward you, the economy will boom.
apple.news
The projects all got the go-ahead during the spend-happy years of the Trudeau government and have been bequeathed like a flat-tired jalopy to Prime Minister Mark Carney, who remains stuck with much of the Trudeau caucus and cabinet if not with the man himself.
Carney at least has experience in the private sector and an understanding of how the business of business operates, which was always a mystery to his predecessor. Yet even a global banking group organized by Carney to battle climate change says it’s disbanding for lack of members.
apple.news
For 30 years, political figures have awarded themselves a leading role in climate politics, convinced of their ability to understand the problem, develop remedies and impose them on populations via their ability to influence public opinion, provide funding and manoeuvre markets.
Questioning voices were denounced as doubters, deniers, skeptics and malcontents. The result is that climate change has gone from an issue to an emergency to a crisis. It’s time elected leaders recognize that photo ops, giant summits and borrowed money aren’t the answer, and quit throwing good billions after bad.
I think I almost crashed the thing. The giant AI Brain found so many bad government projects it demanded I particularize the question: as in where and what kind of boondoggles would I like… solar, wind, fossil, battery…? Polish, German, American, Swiss…?
Governments in Ottawa, Ontario and Quebec are still resisting the obvious, and paying heavily for the exercise. All fell for avid pledges from ambitious firms that, given a few billion dollars in incentives, Canada could be at the forefront of the alternative-energy revolution. Electric cars! Battery plants! Good jobs! Lower emissions! Sign right here, it’s all going to be great, the voters will reward you, the economy will boom.
Morning Update: Stellantis drives Canada’s EV ambitions off course — The Globe and Mail
Also in today’s edition: Ernie Clement’s enthusiasm and OpenAI’s rebrand
Carney at least has experience in the private sector and an understanding of how the business of business operates, which was always a mystery to his predecessor. Yet even a global banking group organized by Carney to battle climate change says it’s disbanding for lack of members.
Kelly McParland: 30 years of bad climate policy comes home to roost — National Post
It's time elected leaders recognize that photo ops, giant summits and borrowed money aren't the answer
Questioning voices were denounced as doubters, deniers, skeptics and malcontents. The result is that climate change has gone from an issue to an emergency to a crisis. It’s time elected leaders recognize that photo ops, giant summits and borrowed money aren’t the answer, and quit throwing good billions after bad.
They’re getting ready for the next one. COP30.
“Santos said there was no connection to global events Rio will host next week related to the United Nations COP30 climate summit, including the C40 global summit of mayors tackling climate change and British Prince William's Earthshot Prize.”
Rio police raids kill at least 132, corpses line street — Reuters
The deadliest police operation in Brazil's history killed at least 132 people, public defenders said on Wednesday, as Rio de Janeiro residents lined a street with dozens of corpses found overnight, a week ahead of global climate events in the city.
Welcome to Carnival!They’re getting ready for the next one. COP30.
View attachment 31795
“Santos said there was no connection to global events Rio will host next week related to the United Nations COP30 climate summit, including the C40 global summit of mayors tackling climate change and British Prince William's Earthshot Prize.”
Rio police raids kill at least 132, corpses line street — Reuters
The deadliest police operation in Brazil's history killed at least 132 people, public defenders said on Wednesday, as Rio de Janeiro residents lined a street with dozens of corpses found overnight, a week ahead of global climate events in the city.
This orange flower cloaks Mexico during Day of the Dead. Climate change is putting it at risk
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Megan Janetsky And Claudia Rosel
Published Oct 30, 2025 • 5 minute read
103025-Mexico_Day_of_the_Dead
Cempasuchil in full bloom in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, Friday, Oct. 17, 2025, ahead of the Day of the Dead celebrations. Photo by Claudia Rosel /AP
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Lucia Ortiz trudges through endless fields of cempasuchil flowers, the luminescent orange petals of which will soon cloak everything from city streets to cemeteries across Mexico.
Here, in the winding canals and farms on the fringes of Mexico City, the flower also known as the Mexican marigold has been farmed for generations, and takes the spotlight every year in the country’s Day of the Dead celebrations.
But as 50-year-old Ortiz and other farmers busily bundle clusters of the plant to sell in markets around the capital, they quietly wonder what will be left of their livelihood down the line.
That’s because cempasuchil growers say they’ve been left reeling by torrential rains, stretching drought and other impacts from climate change — caused by the burning of fuels like gas, oil and coal — that have grown increasingly common.
Farmers, who depend on the ebbs and flows of the weather to cultivate their crops, are on the front line on the climate crisis. This year alone, cempasuchil producers said they lost up to half their flower crop from heavy rains and flooding.
“This year, we lost a lot. We struggled to even grow the cempasuchil. There were moments in which we didn’t have the money to buy fertilizer we needed,” Ortiz said. “With the cempasuchil plants, we’ve sometimes been left with nothing.”
‘Flower of the dead’
The orange flower has become a symbol of the country’s celebrations that take place every Nov. 1 and 2. Also known as the “flower of the dead”, the cempasuchil is believed to be a point of connection between the worlds of the dead and the living, with bright petals that light the path of dead souls to the altars set out by their family.
The flowers are also a crucial economic engine across Mexico, which commerce groups predict will rake in nearly 2.7 million dollars for farmers in 2025.
Ortiz and her family began growing the flower 30 years ago in their small plot of land in Xochimilco, a rural borough in the south of Mexico City where residents have continued to carry on ancient farming techniques using canals that wind through farmlands like a maze.
Every year, locals begin to plant the marigold seeds in July, and grow the plants as the rainy season winds down. But they say that they’ve been dealt a heavy blow for consecutive years as heavy rains, drought, floods and other climate shifts have made it increasingly difficult to keep their crops alive.
This year, torrential rains stretching on for months wiped out more than 37,000 acres of crops across the country, according to government figures. In a visit to cempasuchil fields earlier this month in Xochimilco, Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada said that as many of 2 million marigold plants were put at risk. Despite that, she said that production this year simultaneously broke a record of 6 million plants as farmers ramp up to meet increasing demand even as growing the flower has become more precarious.
Ortiz said the excess of rain has brought on pests, diseases and rotted the roots of her plants. She estimates she lost at least 30% of her crop, while others say they’ve lost closer to 50%.
The family has been forced to drop money on insecticides, fertilizer and more to save their crops. As they have, razor thin profit margins have turned into losses, and they’ve had to cut back on basics like beef and sweets to make ends meet.
“If I were to take a hard look at all our losses, I’d be incredibly disillusioned and even not want to grow them anymore,” she said. “We’re just trying to push forward and make sure this keeps going on.”
Adapting to climate change
Just down the road from Ortiz’s farm, government scientists are searching for long-term solutions beyond the short-term economic relief provided by the local government. In a small seed bank known as Toxinachcal, men in white suits meticulously pick through sprouts in a lab dish.
The scientists have been at work for a year and a half saving up thousands of seed variants of native plant species, including 20 variants of cempasuchil, in jars lining giant freezers in the hopes that the storage facility will be a key tool in fighting the most adverse effects of climate change.
Biologist Clara Soto Cortes, head of the seed bank, said part of the reason that the crop has been devastated is because farmers in recent years have elected to use a hybrid marigold seed variant from the United States.
The seed produces a shorter, more uniform-looking plant that is easier to sell en-masse and in places like supermarkets.
But that means farmers have turned away from sturdier, native breeds, which have longer stocks and widely vary in color, size and texture. The genetic diversity of these Mexican breeds makes them more resilient to drastic climate shifts like the ones seen this year, Soto said.
“These native seeds have adapted to different geographies, in high altitudes and low, in places where there’s a lot of rain or there’s none at all, or where they need to be resistant to insects,” she said.
“The (hybrid) seeds have been bred for another purpose. It doesn’t have the genetic diversity needed to take on climate change.”
If more climate events, like the floods that roiled producers wipe out an entire crop, Soto said the bank will make seeds available to local producers to recover their crops — this time with a more resilient variant that their ancestors have been farming for centuries.
Carrying on an ancient tradition
Meanwhile, growers are scrambling to bounce back in the short term, saying the losses also represent a threat to the farming tradition their families have struggled to maintain on the edge of the dense city of 23 million people.
Carlos Jimenez, 61, has long worked the fields of Xochimilco, but began to grow the shorter marigold plants eight years ago when he noticed the hybrid was more marketable. As he’s lost more crops and gotten lower prices for the plants because of the mildew gathering at their roots, he said he’s begun considering ways to adapt, like building greenhouses.
“The plants get sick, they rot, and our business is snuffed out,” Jimenez said. “And with it goes our tradition because it’s our economy.”
Producers like Ortiz have considered the same. But their losses mean they have no money to build added infrastructure. Her family and other farmers have called on local authorities for help, but say they’ve received just pennies on the dollar of what they need to bounce back. Though the local government has said it continues to work to help offset the blow felt by farmers.
She said she’s begun to look at other crops she might be able to farm that are more resilient than the crinkled orange flowers.
Others like Jimenez said that while the roots of plants may rot around him, for now he’s holding strong.
“This plant has a deeper meaning to our lost loved ones,” he said. “These are traditions we carry down from our ancestors. They can’t just disappear.”
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Megan Janetsky And Claudia Rosel
Published Oct 30, 2025 • 5 minute read
103025-Mexico_Day_of_the_Dead
Cempasuchil in full bloom in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, Friday, Oct. 17, 2025, ahead of the Day of the Dead celebrations. Photo by Claudia Rosel /AP
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Lucia Ortiz trudges through endless fields of cempasuchil flowers, the luminescent orange petals of which will soon cloak everything from city streets to cemeteries across Mexico.
Here, in the winding canals and farms on the fringes of Mexico City, the flower also known as the Mexican marigold has been farmed for generations, and takes the spotlight every year in the country’s Day of the Dead celebrations.
But as 50-year-old Ortiz and other farmers busily bundle clusters of the plant to sell in markets around the capital, they quietly wonder what will be left of their livelihood down the line.
That’s because cempasuchil growers say they’ve been left reeling by torrential rains, stretching drought and other impacts from climate change — caused by the burning of fuels like gas, oil and coal — that have grown increasingly common.
Farmers, who depend on the ebbs and flows of the weather to cultivate their crops, are on the front line on the climate crisis. This year alone, cempasuchil producers said they lost up to half their flower crop from heavy rains and flooding.
“This year, we lost a lot. We struggled to even grow the cempasuchil. There were moments in which we didn’t have the money to buy fertilizer we needed,” Ortiz said. “With the cempasuchil plants, we’ve sometimes been left with nothing.”
‘Flower of the dead’
The orange flower has become a symbol of the country’s celebrations that take place every Nov. 1 and 2. Also known as the “flower of the dead”, the cempasuchil is believed to be a point of connection between the worlds of the dead and the living, with bright petals that light the path of dead souls to the altars set out by their family.
The flowers are also a crucial economic engine across Mexico, which commerce groups predict will rake in nearly 2.7 million dollars for farmers in 2025.
Ortiz and her family began growing the flower 30 years ago in their small plot of land in Xochimilco, a rural borough in the south of Mexico City where residents have continued to carry on ancient farming techniques using canals that wind through farmlands like a maze.
Every year, locals begin to plant the marigold seeds in July, and grow the plants as the rainy season winds down. But they say that they’ve been dealt a heavy blow for consecutive years as heavy rains, drought, floods and other climate shifts have made it increasingly difficult to keep their crops alive.
This year, torrential rains stretching on for months wiped out more than 37,000 acres of crops across the country, according to government figures. In a visit to cempasuchil fields earlier this month in Xochimilco, Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada said that as many of 2 million marigold plants were put at risk. Despite that, she said that production this year simultaneously broke a record of 6 million plants as farmers ramp up to meet increasing demand even as growing the flower has become more precarious.
Ortiz said the excess of rain has brought on pests, diseases and rotted the roots of her plants. She estimates she lost at least 30% of her crop, while others say they’ve lost closer to 50%.
The family has been forced to drop money on insecticides, fertilizer and more to save their crops. As they have, razor thin profit margins have turned into losses, and they’ve had to cut back on basics like beef and sweets to make ends meet.
“If I were to take a hard look at all our losses, I’d be incredibly disillusioned and even not want to grow them anymore,” she said. “We’re just trying to push forward and make sure this keeps going on.”
Adapting to climate change
Just down the road from Ortiz’s farm, government scientists are searching for long-term solutions beyond the short-term economic relief provided by the local government. In a small seed bank known as Toxinachcal, men in white suits meticulously pick through sprouts in a lab dish.
The scientists have been at work for a year and a half saving up thousands of seed variants of native plant species, including 20 variants of cempasuchil, in jars lining giant freezers in the hopes that the storage facility will be a key tool in fighting the most adverse effects of climate change.
Biologist Clara Soto Cortes, head of the seed bank, said part of the reason that the crop has been devastated is because farmers in recent years have elected to use a hybrid marigold seed variant from the United States.
The seed produces a shorter, more uniform-looking plant that is easier to sell en-masse and in places like supermarkets.
But that means farmers have turned away from sturdier, native breeds, which have longer stocks and widely vary in color, size and texture. The genetic diversity of these Mexican breeds makes them more resilient to drastic climate shifts like the ones seen this year, Soto said.
“These native seeds have adapted to different geographies, in high altitudes and low, in places where there’s a lot of rain or there’s none at all, or where they need to be resistant to insects,” she said.
“The (hybrid) seeds have been bred for another purpose. It doesn’t have the genetic diversity needed to take on climate change.”
If more climate events, like the floods that roiled producers wipe out an entire crop, Soto said the bank will make seeds available to local producers to recover their crops — this time with a more resilient variant that their ancestors have been farming for centuries.
Carrying on an ancient tradition
Meanwhile, growers are scrambling to bounce back in the short term, saying the losses also represent a threat to the farming tradition their families have struggled to maintain on the edge of the dense city of 23 million people.
Carlos Jimenez, 61, has long worked the fields of Xochimilco, but began to grow the shorter marigold plants eight years ago when he noticed the hybrid was more marketable. As he’s lost more crops and gotten lower prices for the plants because of the mildew gathering at their roots, he said he’s begun considering ways to adapt, like building greenhouses.
“The plants get sick, they rot, and our business is snuffed out,” Jimenez said. “And with it goes our tradition because it’s our economy.”
Producers like Ortiz have considered the same. But their losses mean they have no money to build added infrastructure. Her family and other farmers have called on local authorities for help, but say they’ve received just pennies on the dollar of what they need to bounce back. Though the local government has said it continues to work to help offset the blow felt by farmers.
She said she’s begun to look at other crops she might be able to farm that are more resilient than the crinkled orange flowers.
Others like Jimenez said that while the roots of plants may rot around him, for now he’s holding strong.
“This plant has a deeper meaning to our lost loved ones,” he said. “These are traditions we carry down from our ancestors. They can’t just disappear.”
This orange flower cloaks Mexico during Day of the Dead. Climate change is putting it at risk
Climate change is putting it at risk
Well, Greta moved on from the full-time climate change gig, & it sounds like Bill Gates is walking back on some of his more doom & gloom statements, so those things are kinda (a bit) interesting unto themselves. Maybe a step back to re-examine some of the policies and political positions governments have taken on this topic need to happen?
As climate changes we as humans will do as we always have , move or adapt . We should be spending those climate change dollars on mitigating pollution on the local level and habitat restoration where possible .