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Globe and Mail
3 days ago
- Climate
- Globe and Mail
Globe Climate: In the fires, after the floods
If you're reading this on the web or someone forwarded this e-mail newsletter to you, you can sign up for Globe Climate and all Globe newsletters here. Good afternoon, and welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada. Although in this newsletter today we will look back at the aftermath of the floods down south, readers should be looking ahead to wildfires in the Prairies. Officials in Manitoba are hopeful that with the help of international firefighters alongside cooler, wetter weather will slow raging wildfires. The province has declared its second state of emergency this year, and has started a new round of evacuations. There are more than 560 active wildfires burning and 140 are considered out of control, prompting more than 345 air quality alerts and advisories in five provinces and one territory. Follow our reporting this week. Now, let's catch you up on other news. For this week's deeper dive, a closer look at the deadliest flash flood in Texas in more than a century, and the signals it sends to other places prone to flooding. Had there been just a slight shift in direction, the entire storm system might have passed without notice. But despite unfolding in a place long known by the name 'Flash Flood Alley' the storm's severity caught nearly everyone off guard, and led to endless stories of human tragedy. But, as water reporter Patrick White says in his story this past week, there's a political tale playing out here, too. Flash floods are America's top storm-related killer, and climate change is making them more powerful. Patrick traveled to Kerrville, Tex. to speak to people on the ground. Along the Guadalupe River, locals recited past disasters like scripture: '32, '78, '87. Yet, in this area with flood deaths going back generations, improvements to the warning system had been put off, even nixed. It's part of a difficult conversation in a region where climate change, though increasingly impossible to ignore, is often denied and remains politically untouchable. The Texas disaster has put a focus on both the risk of flash flooding as well as how to predict or prevent it. This particular county gave nearly 80 per cent of its vote to Donald Trump. When Patrick asked one flood victim about the scientific phenomenon, he went on a tangent that touched on Pizzagate, the mass harvesting of children's organs and other conspiracy theories. A woman who launched a petition for flood sirens on the river told him climate change was a liberal theory and equated it with cloud seeding. The President's budget for next year includes a 27-per-cent cut to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the weather service's parent organization, including shutting down its entire research arm, which has labs studying the effects of climate change. Experts have warned for months that deep staffing cuts could endanger lives. Meanwhile, researchers are also worried Canada isn't doing enough to prevent such disasters here. Ryan Ness of the Canadian Climate Institute says the country needs to invest in flood mapping, infrastructure and early warning systems. Ness said many parts of Canada don't have flood maps, 'so it's hard to know where to protect or where to send warnings.' He also said flash flooding can be made worse in areas burned by wildfire, which Canadians are in the throes of managing. Tanya Talaga: News of a deep-sea port along the James Bay coast is a surprise to those who live there Deliah Bernard: Instead of scrapping Indigenous consultations, let's make them better Janice Locke: My apple cores brought nature to my doorstep – then some bigger guests arrived Canadian cleantech veteran aims to make AI a force for good Nicholas Parker, a long-time investor and adviser to companies and policymakers, is betting artificial intelligence will be a force for sustainability – and that there's money to be made. He has been evaluating how AI can boost energy efficiency, streamline industrial processes and reduce CO2 emissions across numerous industries. Now he and his team are bringing together experts, entrepreneurs and investors to marshal some of the US$138-billion they say will be required to scale AI technologies for sustainability over the next five years. We've launched the next chapter of The Climate Exchange, an interactive, digital hub where The Globe answers your most pressing questions about climate change. More than 300 questions were submitted as of September. The first batch of answers tackles 30 of them. They can be found with the help of a search tool developed by The Globe that makes use of artificial intelligence to match readers' questions with the closest answer drafted. We plan to answer a total of 75 questions. We want to hear from you. Email us: GlobeClimate@ Do you know someone who needs this newsletter? Send them to our Newsletters page.
Globe and Mail
30-06-2025
- Science
- Globe and Mail
Globe Climate: From loss to life
If you're reading this on the web or someone forwarded this e-mail newsletter to you, you can sign up for Globe Climate and all Globe newsletters here. Good afternoon, and welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada. I'm Kate, the agriculture and food policy reporter. Sierra is lost in the woods somewhere. On purpose, I believe. I'll be filling in this week until she makes her prodigal return. I've got some good news about kelp forests and humanity's search for life (and hope) wherever it can be found. We've also got some stuff about investing in pipelines, and how to understand Canadian identity through literature. Without further ado... For this week's deeper dive, an excerpt from a story about hope in the face of heartbreak, from our happiness reporter by Erin Anderssen. Canadian marine ecologist Karen Filbee-Dexter has grieved for a celebrated kelp forest scorched into extinction by a summer heat wave in St. Margaret's Bay, Nova Scotia. She's also discovered five-meter-tall sugar kelp flourishing under the ice in Canada's Arctic where such a forest was not expected to exist. The cost of climate change has broken her heart. And the remarkable resilience of nature has patched it up again. This is how it goes when you study the vulnerable life under an ocean we still barely understand. The damaged-yet-resilient sea makes you weep then laugh, fear then hope. Tossed in the waves, Dr. Filbee-Dexter says, you keep researching and publishing and hoping for stronger action. Being part of the solution, even in a small way, 'is an easier way to get up in the morning.' Last November, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, Dr. Filbee-Dexter sat in a session, cuddling her five-month old daughter. A researcher was explaining a chart projecting the life-altering rise of global temperatures to 2100. Looking down at Ida, she realized her daughter would turn 75 that year. In that moment, her calling become personal, forever shaped by a mother's responsibility. 'You want the world to be a good place for her, and you're going to do everything in your power to make that happen.' Read more here. Marsha Lederman: We need to cool it: In our warming world, we deserve temperature safety Roseann Runte: As we ponder the Canadian identity, literature can be our road map Carole Saab and Rick Smith: Climate disaster preparation is central to Canada's economic security Enbridge says a new Alberta-B.C. pipeline would require specific conditions, including legislative change Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is confident that at least one private-sector pipeline operators would come forward with plans to transport oilsands crude to the Port of Prince Rupert, B.C., thereby testing the federal government's new regime to speed along projects deemed in Canada's national interest. But pipeline companies are not so bullish. Enbridge - Canada's biggest shipper of crude oil - would explore market-diversifying projects, provided the demand is there from customers, it said in a statement Wednesday. The company also wants to see 'real provincial and federal legislative change' around climate policy, regulatory timeliness and Indigenous participation. 'We will be there to build what is needed for our shippers, for Alberta and for Canada – that's our job, our mission as a company – but only when the conditions make sense and the right framework is in place,' Enbridge said. We've launched the next chapter of The Climate Exchange, an interactive, digital hub where The Globe answers your most pressing questions about climate change. More than 300 questions were submitted as of September. The first batch of answers tackles 30 of them. They can be found with the help of a search tool developed by The Globe that makes use of artificial intelligence to match readers' questions with the closest answer drafted. We plan to answer a total of 75 questions. We want to hear from you. Email us: GlobeClimate@ Do you know someone who needs this newsletter? Send them to our Newsletters page.
