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Here’s your weekly update with what you need to know about global climate change and the steps B.C. is taking to address the climate and ecological crises for the week of March 21 to March 27, 2022.
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B.C. Climate News March 21 to March 27: Protests held across Canada Friday | Birds are laying eggs earlier as climate change shifts springs | Tech star donates $14.5 million to save B.C. parkland – Vancouver Sun
Here’s your weekly update with the latest climate change news for the week of March 21 to March 27, 2022.
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This week in climate news:
- Climate protests held across Canada
- Birds are laying eggs earlier as climate change shifts springs
- Ocean warming threatens more frequent bleaching of Great Barrier Reef
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned for years that wildfires, drought, severe weather, such as B.C.’s deadly heat dome in June, and flooding would become more frequent and more intense because of the climate crisis.
Last August, it issued a “code red” for humanity and last month the panel, made up of hundreds of scientists from around the world, said the window to stop global warming from exceeding 1.5 C was closing.
Check back here every Saturday for a roundup of the latest climate and environmental stories. You can also get up to date B.C.-focussed news delivered to your inbox by 7 a.m. by subscribing to our newsletter here.
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A glance at B.C.’s carbon numbers:
- B.C.’s gross greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2019 (latest available data:) 68.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e.) This is an increase of 3.0 MtCO2e, or 5 per cent since 2007, the baseline year.
- B.C.’s net emissions in 2019: 67.2 MtCO2e, an increase of 1.5 MtCO2e, or two per cent, since 2007.
- B.C.’s 2030 target: 40 per cent reduction in net emissions below 2007 levels.
- B.C.’s 2040 target: 60 per cent reduction.
- B.C.’s 2050 target: 80 per cent reduction.
- Canada’s 2030 emissions target: Between 40 and 45 per cent reduction.
- Canada’s 2050 emissions target: Net-zero.
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Climate change quick facts:
- The Earth is now about 1.1 C warmer than it was in the 1800s.
- Globally, 2021 was the fifth warmest year on record.
- Human activities have raised atmospheric concentrations of CO2 by nearly 49 per cent above pre-industrial levels starting in 1850.
- The world is not on track to meet the Paris Agreement target to keep global temperature from exceeding 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels, the upper limit to avoid the worst fallout from climate change.
- 2015-2019 were the five warmest years on record while 2010-2019 was the warmest decade on record.
- On the current path of carbon dioxide emissions, the temperature could increase by as much as 4.4 C by the end of the century.
- In 2019, greenhouse gas concentrations reached new highs. Carbon dioxide levels were 148 per cent of preindustrial levels.
- Emissions must drop 7.6 per cent per year from 2020 to 2030 to keep temperatures from exceeding 1.5 C and 2.7 per cent per year to stay below 2 C.
- 97% of climate scientists agree that the climate is warming and that human beings are the cause.
(Source: United Nations IPCC, World Meteorological Organization,UNEP, Nasa, climatedata.ca)
LATEST CLIMATE NEWS
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Permanent flood repairs coming to Coquihalla Highway this summer
Permanent flood repair work on the Coquihalla Highway is expected to begin this summer and will be wrapped up by year end.
The B.C. government said Thursday that it had issued a request for proposals from pre-vetted contractors before selecting one to conduct the repair work later this year. Officials say the contract will be awarded by late April or early May.
“Our crews worked hard to get the Coquihalla reopened after the severe flooding event and were able to do so in short order about a month after the storm,” said Transport Minister Rob Fleming in a statement. “The pace of reconstruction to get the Coquihalla back open to traffic was impressive and beyond anything we could have imagined.”
—Stephanie Ip
Protests held around Canada to call for more climate action
Protesters gathered in cities across Canada on Friday to denounce government inaction on fighting climate change as part of a series of worldwide environmental protests.
The events were part of the Fridays for Future movement that is inspired by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.
In Montreal, activists unfurled a red-and-yellow banner reading, “Land Back,” across the statue at the base of Mount Royal ahead of what was billed as a “teach-in” on decolonization and Indigenous sovereignty.
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In Vancouver, a youth-led coalition rallied downtown to call on The Royal Bank of Canada to stop funding fossil fuel projects.
The groups included members from Climate Justice UBC, Stop TMX, Sustainabiliteens, 350Vancouver, Stand.earth, Leadnow, Climate Emergency Unit, Wilderness Committee, Climate Convergence, and the David Suzuki Foundation, Dogwood BC, and SFU350.
About 150 people gathered at Vancouver Art Gallery in the late afternoon for speeches and a march to RBC offices downtown.
The protesters are upset that some banks continue to finance and insure the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline, Trans Mountain Pipeline, and Enbridge’s Line 3 Pipeline on traditional Wet’suwet’en and Tk‘emlúpsemc lands.
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“Today, hundreds of groups across the world took to the streets; united in our fight for a better world free from fossil fuels. As RBC’s AGM approaches, we need to hold big banks responsible for funding the climate crisis,” said Naisha Khan, an organizer with Climate Justice UBC and Banking on a Better Future, in a statement.
—The Canadian Press and Tiffany Crawford
Birds are laying eggs earlier as climate change shifts springs
The early bird is getting even earlier.
With climate change spurring earlier springs across much of North America, many birds are laying their eggs earlier in the year, according to a new study – adding to mounting evidence that global warming is turning wildlife habits upside down.
Of 72 bird species examined around Chicago, roughly a third lay their eggs about 25 days earlier than they did a century ago, researchers report in the paper published on Friday in the Journal of Animal Ecology.
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Fleming said work to be conducted would also fortify the route against climate change and other major weather events in future. The work will be focused on three areas including the Bottletop Bridges about 50 kilometres south of Merritt, Juliet Bridges located three kilometres south of Bottletop and the Jessica Bridges about 48 km south of Juliet.
—Reuters
Chief of B.C. First Nation struck by wildfires, floods says moving may be safest bet
The chief of a First Nation in British Columbia’s Nicola Valley that was evacuated by both wildfires and floods last year says he wants more land for the community in a safer area.
Chief Arnie Lampreau of the Shackan Indian Band told B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth and Transportation Minister Rob Fleming during their visit on Thursday that the threat of extreme weather is a constant concern.
“At the end of the day, I don’t want to have to sleep with one eye open or have to be running again,” Lampreau said.
The Shackan Indian Band, based along Highway 8 between Merritt and Spences Bridge, is among several communities facing difficult questions about how best to rebuild after disasters that the government has linked to climate change.
After a summer wildfire destroyed the nearby community of Lytton, a series of heavy rainstorms pummelled the area in November, causing the river to swell and whole sections of the highway to slump off the hillside.
—The Canadian Press
Canada plan to hike oil exports will not compromise climate goals -source
Canada on Thursday will outline plans to increase oil exports to help alleviate the tight global market following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the hike will not undermine Ottawa’s long-term climate commitments, a government source said.
Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson will detail Canada’s plans at the International Energy Agency (IEA) meeting in Paris, the source said.
Wilkinson told Reuters earlier this month the government is working with industry to find ways increase pipeline utilization and boost crude exports, and pipeline company Enbridge Inc said it is prepared to do “what it can.”
Canada, holder of the world’s third-largest oil reserves, is keen to help shore up long-term energy security as countries that previously relied on Russian oil and gas look for replacements amid sanctions aimed at punishing Russia for its assault on Ukraine. But the government has no plans to compromise its climate goals.
“There’s no real desire to shift away from the focus on emissions reductions and the environment. We’re not throwing out the climate rulebook,” added the source, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the information.
—Reuters
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Environmental group gives guarded support for company’s B.C. old-growth forest plan
An environmental organization is offering cautious support for an announcement by the largest private landowner in British Columbia that will defer logging in 400 square kilometres of old-growth forest for the next 25 years.
Mosaic Forest Management, which oversees the private lands of logging companies TimberWest and Island Timberlands, announced the deferral last week along with intentions to finance the plan through a carbon credit program that is expected to raise several hundred million dollars by 2047.
A statement from the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance says exempting old-growth and older second-growth stands from logging will protect the unique trees that support everything from the climate and endangered species to wild salmon, clean water and tourism.
Ken Wu, executive director of the alliance, says long-term deferrals will buy time to arrange further protection and Mosaic should be commended for its “important step” if the measure “pans out.”
—The Canadian Press
Vancouver native and tech star donates $14.5 million to save B.C. parkland from development
At $14.5 million, Dax Dasilva’s gift is almost four times bigger than the previous record received by the B.C. Parks Foundation.
Dasilva, a Vancouver native who is a Montreal-based tech star and environmental/social activist, was in Vancouver on Tuesday for the announcement, although a float-plane flight planned for over the Pitt River Watershed was a no-go because of limited visibility due to bad weather.
The founder of ecommerce company Lightspeed — he stepped down last month as CEO to focus on environmental projects through an environmental alliance he formed five months ago called Age of Union — Dasilva cut his activist teeth protesting the logging of old-growth forests in Clayoquot Sound as a teen.
The $14.5 million he donated to the foundation is part of a $40 million pledge for environmental work around the planet; in B.C. the initial focus is the Pitt River Watershed, where Dasilva footed the bill to buy-up land earmarked for development, and the French Creek Estuary on Vancouver Island (again, saving it from development).
—Gordon McIntyre
Climate-driven water woes spark Colorado rush to conserve ‘liquid gold’
In a rooftop greenhouse near downtown Denver, cash crops are thriving on hydroponic life support. Arugula. Chard. Escarole. Cabbage.
“And basil,” said Altius Farms CEO Sally Herbert, plucking a bright leaf. “Which you really should taste. Because it’s magnificent.”
The vertical farm is one of many Colorado models for coping with increasing water scarcity in the western United States, as climate change makes droughts more frequent and more severe.
Other projects have Coloradans testing water recycling and building barriers against the wildfire runoff that can taint supplies.
Colorado is hardly alone. A major U.N. climate report published recently notes that half the world’s population is already seeing severe water scarcity for at least some part of the year. In the U.S. West, drought and earlier runoff from an increasingly diminished snowpack will increase water scarcity during the summer, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said.
—Reuters
Ocean warming threatens more frequent bleaching of Great Barrier Reef -report
Waters off Australia face more frequent and severe marine heatwaves that threaten the Great Barrier Reef, a report said on Monday, as a United Nations team began a visit to evaluate whether the World Heritage site should be listed as “in danger.”
The reef is at risk of another mass bleaching, following three in the past six years, as sea surface temperatures off the northeast coast of Australia have soared to as much as 2-4 degrees Celsius above average, Australian environmental group Climate Council said in the report.
The government’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority last Friday said most of the marine park off the coast of Queensland state had been hit by “significant heat stress” over the summer, which in the Southern Hemisphere falls between the months of December and February.
The marine heatwaves are affecting fisheries, damaging species and hurting tourism.
“It’s getting grim and it’s getting to the point where we can’t even simulate the combination of conditions that the reef is experiencing in a controlled laboratory setting to discern this,” said marine biologist Jodie Rummer at James Cook University in Queensland.
If climate change continues unabated, the reef could face bleaching events annually after 2044, the Climate Council said.
—Reuters
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SAO PAULO (AP) — “King” doesn’t disclose his real name. Even clients of his Sao Paulo newsstand have to call him by his moniker. The Brazilian online sports gambling addict lowered his profile after a loan shark threatened to put bullets in his head if he didn’t pay up.
Broke and embarrassed, King sought treatment and support earlier this year.
“I was once addicted to slot machines, but then sports betting was so easy that I changed. I got carried away all the time,” he told The Associated Press.
King’s story is that of many vulnerable Brazilians in recent years. The country has become the third-biggest market in the world for sports betting, following the U.S. and the U.K., a report by data analysis company Comscore said last year. But unlike those countries, rampant advertising and sponsorship have been coupled with an unregulated market. The government is now — belatedly, some say — striving to get a handle on the epidemic.
On a recent evening, King’s Gamblers Anonymous meeting took place in an improvised classroom inside a church, with coffee and cookies to keep everyone awake, and supportive messages scrawled onto the blackboard. One that’s become ubiquitous in Brazil and beyond: “Only for today I will avoid the first bet.”
King and other attendees, all Christian, started a prayer and the meeting began.
King said his financial problems arose from his addiction to online sports betting, chiefly on soccer.
“I miss the adrenaline rush when I don’t bet,” he said before the gathering. “I have managed to stop for a couple of months, but I know that if I do it once again, even a small bet, it will all come back.”
Driven by the pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic was a key driver for Brazilians embracing sports betting. King said he transformed almost every sale during that time into a bet. His hook was the non-stop advertising on TV, radio, social media as well as sponsorship of local soccer teams’ jerseys. He asked for bank loans to pay his gambling debts and then, to cover those, went to the moneylender. His total debt now amounts to 85,000 reais ($15,000) — impossible to pay off with his monthly income of 8,000 reais.
Digging oneself out of debt in Brazil is especially daunting with its sky-high interest rates. Loans from Brazilian banks could add interest of almost 8% per month to the borrowed sum, and from loan sharks could be even more.
Four Gamblers Anonymous meetings attended by the AP in October featured discussions about difficulties paying down debts, forcing working-class members to postpone housing payments and cancel family vacations.
Some members of impoverished Brazilian families have used welfare money for betting instead of paying for groceries and housing, official data suggests. In August, beneficiaries of Brazil’s flagship program Bolsa Familia spent 3 billion reais ($530 million) on sports betting, according to a report from the central bank. That was more than 20% of the program’s total outlay in the month.
A host of gambling related problems
Sports betting was made legal in 2018 in a bill signed by former President Michel Temer. The subsequent turmoil has recently been setting off alarm bells, with addicts venting on social media and media reports of people losing huge sums.
On Oct. 1, the economy ministry prevented more than 2,000 betting companies from operating in Brazil for having failed to provide all the required documents. Soccer-loving President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in an interview on Oct. 17 that he will shut down the entire market in Brazil if his administration’s new regulations — presented at the end of July— fail to work. And Brazil’s Senate on Oct. 25 opened an investigation into betting companies, focusing on crime and addiction.
“There’s tax evasion, money laundering of organized crime, the use of influencers to trick people into betting. These companies need to be audited,” Sen. Soraya Thronicke, who proposed the inquiry, told journalists in Brasilia.
Sérgio Peixoto, a ride-sharing app driver in Rio, is one of many lower-middle-income Brazilians who have reduced their spending due to sports betting debt. Peixoto’s debt currently amounts to 25,000 reais ($4,400). His monthly income is four times less than that.
“It stopped being a game, it wasn’t fun. I just wanted to get the money back, so I lost even more,” said Peixoto, 26. “I could have invested that money. It would surely have given me more benefits.
Pressure to bet
Pressure on people to gamble is everywhere. Current and former soccer players, including Vinicius Júnior, Ronaldo Nazário and Roberto Rivellino, are among the poster boys for local and foreign brands. All but one of the top-tier soccer clubs have betting companies among their main sponsors, with their name and logo emblazoned on their kits. There have been cases of kids and teenagers setting up accounts using their parents’ personal information and money, multiple local media outlets have reported.
Brazil’s economy ministry estimates that Brazil’s sports betting market had $21 billion in transactions last year, a 71% increase compared with the first year of the pandemic, 2020.
The ministry’s newly presented regulations include facial recognition systems for gamblers to bet, the identification of a single bank account for transactions involving sports betting, new protections against hackers and the government-authorized domain, bet.br, which will host all betting sites that are legal in Brazil. Once they are in place, come January, between 100 and 150 betting companies will continue to operate in the South American nation.
The changes in Brazil have prompted some companies to take preemptive action. A report by Yield Sec, a technical intelligence platform for online marketplaces, said several betting companies voluntarily restricted their operations in different places after the latest editions of the European Championships and Copa America in the hopes of presenting “the best possible license application face to the Brazilian authorities.”
Magnho José Santos de Sousa, the president of the Legal Gambling Institute, a betting think tank, said Brazil is currently “invaded by illegal websites that have licenses in Malta, Curação, Gibraltar and the United Kingdom.”
De Sousa expressed hope that the new regulations for advertising, responsible gambling and qualification of sports betting companies will transform the country’s deregulated arena into a more serious one that doesn’t exploit the vulnerable.
“The whole operation could turn from water into wine,” he said.
Gamblers Anonymous in high demand
Meantime, the demand for Gamblers Anonymous meetings in Sao Paulo has grown so much in recent years that the weekly gathering, in place since the 1990s, was no longer enough. Many groups have added a second day in the week to help new people recover, mostly sports bettors.
Earlier in October, a group on Sao Paulo’s northern edge admitted a man who was struggling with sports betting and card games. The 13 other people in the room stressed that he wasn’t alone.
“Welcome,” one long-time attendee said, in a greeting that has become a regular for the group. “Today, you are the most important person here.”
___
Dumphreys reported from Rio de Janeiro.
SAINT CATHARINES, Ont. – Saskatchewan’s Jason Ackerman remained undefeated on Wednesday with a 7-4 win over Newfoundland and Labrador’s Trent Skanes at the Canadian mixed curling championship.
After going down 3-1 through four ends, Ackerman (6-0) outscored Skanes (3-3) 6-1 the rest of the way, including three points in the seventh end.
Alberta’s Kurt Alan Balderston also earned a win, defeating New Brunswick’s Charlie Sullivan 9-2 in another matchup in the final draw.
The win improved Balderston’s record to 4-2 and sits in third in Pool B.
The top four teams from each pool will play four more games against the survivors from the other pool. The remaining three teams from the pool will play three more seeding games to help set the rankings for next year’s event.
The championship final is scheduled for Saturday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
EDMONTON – Noah Hanifin had a pair of goals as the Vegas Golden Knights won their first road game of the season, coming from behind to shock the Edmonton Oilers 4-2 on Wednesday.
Jack Eichel had a goal and two assists and Mark Stone also scored for the Golden Knights (9-3-1), who have won two in a row and six of their last seven. The Knights entered the game 0-3-1 on the road this year.
Brett Kulak and Zach Hyman replied for the Oilers (6-7-1), who have lost two straight despite getting captain Connor McDavid back from injury earlier than expected for the game.
Adin Hill made 27 saves for Vegas, while Stuart Skinner managed 31 stops for Edmonton.
Takeaways
Golden Knights: With an assist on the Knights’ second goal, William Karlsson has recorded at least a point in all five games he has played this season (two goals, four assists).
Oilers: McDavid was a surprise starter for the Oilers, coming back just nine days after suffering an ankle injury in Columbus and initially being expected to miss two to three weeks. The star forward came into the contest with 11 points (three goals, eight assists) during a six-game point streak versus the Golden Knights, but was held pointless on the night.
Key moment
With just 48.4 seconds left to play, the Golden Knights won a race to the corner and Ivan Barbashev was able to send it out to a hard-charging Hanifin, who sent a shot glove-side that beat Skinner for his second goal of the third period and third of the season.
Key stat
It was Hyman’s third goal in the last four games after the veteran forward went scoreless in his first 10 games this season following a 54-goal campaign last year. Hyman now has five goals in his last six games against Vegas.
Up next
Golden Knights: Head to Seattle to face the Kraken on Friday.
Oilers: Travel to Vancouver on a quick one-game trip to clash with the Canucks on Saturday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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