U of A biologists lead effort to identify lakes, hills and peat lands where species stand a better chance of survival
North America’s boreal forests are warming and drying from climate change. But they still hold places that can offer refuge for plants and animals, according to University of Alberta scientists who have taken the lead in creating a guide to identify those areas. The information about these sheltered places known as climate-change refugia – including…
With climate change, unrelenting rains can be challenging for wildlife and plants
aa Rain is a good thing. It has so many beneficial properties – a source of drinking water for everything, a source of nutrition for plants and micro-organisms, a refreshing relief from the heat, a mechanism to replenish aquifers and lakes, a means to clean overlooked homes and cars, fun for kids of all ages,…
The authors of a letter to Trudeau say most aid should be expedited but for oil companies, which need to be trapped in a bureaucratic nightmare
When professors around the country were busy figuring ways to deliver their classes online, two faculty members at the University of Alberta wrote a letter and enlisted the endorsement of 200-plus of their leisured colleagues at 33 universities in Canada. A crisis must not be wasted. From the privileged positions of publicly-paid jobs, the Alberta…
Climate warriors spend a great deal of time condemning current practices without offering realistic solutions
In the past several months, we’ve heard dire and angry imprecations and accusations from the new climate crusaders. They demand total obeisance to their escalating demands. Any critics to their approach to catastrophic global warming are denounced as deniers or heretics. A new religious-political-social movement has sprung out of this trend: Extinction Rebellion, with the…
When I was young, I worried about the environment and tried wherever I could to facilitate change, in both myself and others. My primary focus was on DDT and those other hazardous hydrocarbon-based pesticides that were so freely used in the 1970s. I’m not sure if I was directly influenced by Rachel Carson and her…
Smart Energy Communities are not only more resilient, they also create new opportunities for local economic development, lower energy costs and a cleaner environment
By Aida Nciri and Eddie Oldfield QUEST Canadian municipalities and energy utilities are on the front lines of the impacts of climate change. A recent report by the Insurance Bureau of Canada highlights the financial costs of climate change, with insured damage for severe weather events reaching $1.3 billion in 2019. Of the top 10…
Start learning the deep details of the science and economics instead of letting extremists dictate what you’re allowed to think or say
Last year was the year the climate issue took a sharp turn towards extremism. Let’s hope 2020 is the year sanity makes a comeback. There have long been three groups occupying the climate issue. To avoid pejoratives, I will call them A, B and C. The A group are the doubters. They don’t believe greenhouse…
The young Swedish climate activist has raised the public consciousness about our day-to-day energy consumption choices
A new term has entered our language: the Greta Effect. This refers to the impact of Greta Thunberg, the teenage Swedish climate activist who was named the 2019 Person of the Year by Time magazine. Thunberg has made it clear that we’re in a climate crisis and the time to act to avert disaster is…
The buildup of combustible material is a result of the authorities’ failure to undertake cool season burn-offs on public lands and to ensure such burning also takes place on private land
Eucalypt forests are particularly inflammable and this year’s Australian bush fires have, so far, ravaged close to 20 million hectares, about 2.5 per cent of the continent, claiming 29 lives. The proximity of the fires to Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra left them blanketed with smoke for days on end. Recent days have seen heavy rainfall…
Starbucks is going dairy free, among other measures, to cut its carbon footprint in half by 2030. It’s a bold move and accountability will be key
Starbucks’ plan to reduce its carbon emissions is undoubtedly ambitious. It wants to halve its food waste, water use and gas emissions by 2030. Their commitment to becoming a better environmental steward has wide-ranging implications across the food industry. Other chains have made similar announcements. McDonald’s aims to cut emissions by 36 per cent from…
Too many right-wing politicians base their policy thinking on antiquarian dogma, and not contemporary science or even democratic values
The other day my wife looked at me in a familiar way and said, “You are such a ‘rowboat’ thinker.” I knew immediately what she was getting at. Maybe it’s because I grew up with a father and grandfather who were inveterate hand-line fishers out of clinker-built rowboats. They first got me out on the…
In January as the days get longer, the trees start preparing for spring and the buds start to swell
Every year about this time, I get quite excited as my trees start to get chubby! They aren’t really putting on weight, but their profile looks different than it did in November and December, when it was easy to see the sky through the branches since the buds were very small and the twigs weren’t…
Climate change knows no borders and neither should science. And when it comes to plant science, Canada is a force to be reckoned with
Every year, the United Nations promotes something that it believes warrants attention and it has declared 2020 the International Year of Plant Health. Celebrating plant health and bringing more awareness to the issue is well worth pursuing. Plants represent about 80 per cent of everything we eat. And animals raised on farms, of course, eat…
Too many reporters have bought into poorly-conceived advocacy positions and fail to provide readers with balanced information
The Canadian Energy Centre – also called the “war room” – is online, publishing featured stories, reports, briefs, analysis, perspective and even an Energy IQ quiz. It’s all aimed at distributing information about energy (primarily oil and gas) in Canada. The topics are diverse, ranging from pipelines and oil products to climate, renewables, people stories,…
No other country has so deliberately turned itself into a climate-change martyr. Yet our sacrifices will have no perceptible impact
It’s been almost three decades since delegates from 172 countries, meeting at the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, adopted the Climate Change Convention. U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data show that since then the Earth’s temperature has risen an average of 0.03°C per year. At that rate, the planet will warm 2.4°…
North America’s boreal forests are warming and drying from climate change. But they still hold places that can offer refuge for plants and animals, according to University of Alberta scientists who have taken the lead in creating a guide to identify those areas. The information about these sheltered places known as climate-change refugia – including…
