TORONTO —
Although the global havoc wreaked by the coronavirus appeared to take precedence over all else in 2020, the issue of climate change didn’t just disappear, even if it did take a backseat.
Despite a dip in greenhouse gas emissions due to the pandemic, the Earth is still on course to warm up by more than 3 C by the end of the century, according to the United Nations Environment Programme’s recent annual assessment of emissions levels.
While that may not seem like a lot, consider that the planet has already experienced more frequent draughts, wildfires, and extreme storms since warming a little more than 1 C since pre-industrial times.
This volatile weather and warming temperatures put the habitats and lifestyles of many species, particularly those in Canada’s North, in a vulnerable position.
Emily Giles, a senior species specialist for World Wildlife Fund Canada (WWF), explained that there are direct and indirect impacts of climate change on certain species.
“An example is, say, something like the southern resident killer whales, which are the orcas on the West Coast, they’re impacted because they only eat Chinook salmon and salmon are heavily impacted by climate change. So then, therefore, so are the killer whales,” she told CTVNews.ca during a telephone interview on Dec. 2.
In an effort to draw attention to some of the species in Canada that are already feeling the effects of climate change or that are expected to in the future, CTVNews.ca consulted the WWF and the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), which annually classifies wildlife species at risk of extinction.
Arne Mooers, a biodiversity professor at Simon Fraser University and COSEWIC member, explained why it’s important to pay attention to the species on this list and what happens to them.
“These guys are canaries in the coal mine,” he warned. “We should worry about them, but they’re telling us that we should be worried about us.”
VANCOUVER ISLAND MARMOT
Vancouver Island marmots are endemic to the island. (Credit: John D. Reynolds)
As Canada’s most endangered mammal, the Vancouver Island marmot was an obvious candidate for the list, according to COSEWIC.
The Vancouver Island Marmot is a rodent endemic to Vancouver Island, meaning they’re found nowhere else on Earth.
According to estimates, there are only approximately 200 Vancouver Island Marmots left with many of them raised in captivity before being released into the wild. They live in colonies in the mountains on the island, but wolves, cougars and a loss of habitat have caused their numbers to dwindle over the years.
Climate change has resulted in the growth of coniferous trees up the slopes of the mountains the marmots live on, which has caused their habitats to shrink, because too many trees can restrict the rodent’s ability to see predators approaching and changes their food sources. They also require enough snow to burrow in when they hibernate over the winter months, which may be more difficult with warmer temperatures.
According to a 2019 COSEWIC assessment and status report, “under a ‘worst-case’ scenario, up to 97 per cent of the suitable marmot habitat on Vancouver Island may disappear by 2080” as a result of climate change.
ARCTIC CARIBOU
Arctic caribou are seen in this undated photo. (Credit: Chris Johnson)
Two populations of Arctic caribou found in the Canadian Far North, the Peary caribou and the Dolphin and Union herd, are vulnerable to the warming effects of climate change due to their dependence on sea ice for migration.
Emily Giles from WWF said these caribou are known for their “epic” long-distance migrations. The Peary herd, found in the high Arctic Archipelago and Ellesmere Island, depend on the sea ice to travel in search of limited forage between the high Arctic islands.
The Dolphin and Union herd cross between Victoria Island, where they give birth and rear their young, and their wintering habitat on mainland Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.
“The absence of sea ice, we’re not there yet, but the absence of sea ice would be disastrous for those groups and completely disrupt their migration,” she explained.
Giles added that, more generally, the disappearance of sea ice has cleared the way for more industrial development, which has been detrimental to the Arctic species living there that are sensitive to this kind of disturbance.
“They’ve evolved over thousands of years to live with ice and so as it changes, they’re not able to adapt quickly enough to the changes that we’re seeing in the Arctic,” she said.
CHINOOK SALMON
Chinook salmon are photographed here. (Credit: Bruce Leaman)
While several species of Pacific salmon are vulnerable to the effects of climate change, Giles wanted to highlight the Chinook salmon in particular.
They live in the colder upper reaches of the Pacific Ocean and breed in freshwater rivers and streams in the Pacific Northwest. The Chinook salmon are vital because they enrich terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems with essential marine-based nutrients when they complete their lifecycle. They’re also an important food source for species such as the Steller sea lion and the southern resident killer whale.
“It’s the only kind of salmon that the southern resident killer whale will eat,” Giles said.
According to the WWF, warming water temperatures are greatly impacting the salmon’s ability to migrate to certain areas for spawning and for food.
“They’re right now considered to be living at the upper range of their heat tolerance so even just a shift of one or two degrees and water temperature can have a big impact for them,” she said. “The fish might not migrate from one area to another if the water’s too warm in a certain spot.”
COLLARED PIKA
Collared pikas are rabbit-like herbivores that live in the mountains. (Credit: Syd Cannings) )
The collared pika, an adorable rabbit-like herbivore that is approximately the weight of a baseball, was mentioned by both the WWF and COSEWIC as a species of special concern due to climate change.
Residing in the rocky mountainous areas of northern British Columbia, Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Alaska, the collared pika is vulnerable because it’s not as adaptable as other species if its habitat changes or is lost.
“Already some populations of collared pika have been extirpated from parts of their historic range, after changes in moisture and weather caused by climate change made conditions inhabitable,” according to the WWF.
Warmer winters resulting in less mountain-top snow, which the pikas use as insulation for their nests, have also put them in danger because they’re left exposed to extreme temperatures.
SPINY SOFTSHELL TURTLE
Spiny Softshell turtle hatchlings are seen in this undated photo. (Scott Gillingwater/WWF-Canada))
Giles wanted to include the Spiny Softshell turtle, which is the only type of turtle with a soft shell in Canada, to the list of species threatened by climate change because she suspects many Canadians aren’t aware of it.
“It’s a very unique, bizarre-looking turtle,” she said. “It’s got this pointy snout and this, it kind of looks like a pancake, this flat shell that’s soft.”
The turtle lives in rivers and lakes in Ontario and Quebec, but its habitat has been affected by higher temperatures, droughts, and flooding from extreme weather resulting from climate change.
“We’re just getting a lot of that extreme weather and that is thought to be impacting the turtles as they nest on the banks of rivers,” Giles said. “It’s quite in trouble. It’s considered endangered, which is the last level it can be before it goes extinct.”
NARWHAL
A pod of narwhals surfaces in northern Canada in this August 2005 file photo provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP Photo/Kristin Laidre, NOAA, files))
The narwhal, or as Giles called it “the unicorn of the sea” thanks to its distinct spiralled tusk, is particularly sensitive to the effects of melting ice in the Arctic. That’s because the whale uses the ice to feed and protect itself from potential predators.
“The shrinking Arctic ice is actually opening up new ways for orca whales to come north. Orcas are a new predator for narwhal, they’ve never come into contact with them before so the orcas are taking advantage of this, they’re very smart, and they’re actually able to hunt narwhal.”
According to the WWF, narwhals are moving closer to shorelines where food is scarce because of this new presence of killer whales.
What’s more, Giles said studies have shown that narwhals are the most vulnerable of all Arctic marine mammals to the threats posed by climate change.
PIPING PLOVER
In this May 30, 2019 photo, a piping plover walks on the sand in Glen Haven, Mich. (AP Photo/John Flesher))
The little shorebird known as the piping plover is an endangered species that has felt the effects of climate change on its favoured habitat – sunny, sandy beaches.
Found in the Prairies, Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada, the small bird nests on wide sandy beaches with little vegetation.
“It’s a beautiful little bird, very, very cute, and it just happens to like the same kind of beaches that we love as humans,” Giles said.
According to COSEWIC, an increase in severe storms and rising sea levels from climate change have reduced the amount of available habitat for the birds’ coastal breeding and wintering grounds. In the Prairies, drier conditions and severe storms have threatened the piping plovers’ habitat.
Despite some recent successes in conservation efforts, Giles said the piping plover has a limited distribution in Canada and remains endangered.
ATLANTIC WALRUS
Walruses are seen in Kangiqsujuaq, Quebec in this undated photo. (Putulik Jaaka / Pexels))
Warming temperatures and shrinking sea ice has put Atlantic walruses, which are found in the high Arctic and central-low Arctic, in danger.
When the large flippered marine mammal isn’t in the ocean, they live in small groups on sea ice, which are called haul-outs. If there is less sea ice for them to live on, the walruses are forced to haul out on land where the food availability is limited.
They’re also more likely to gather in larger groups on land where they’re at risk of stampedes, such as the heartbreaking one presented in Netflix’s docuseries “Our Planet.” “With all of these walruses congregating in these haul-outs, when there’s a distant boat or aircraft passing by them, they can actually become disoriented and panic and cause stampedes,” Giles explained.
Giles added that the warming Arctic has also resulted in an increase in industrial development, such as shipping and oil and gas exploration, which disturbs the walruses’ habitat.
“With ice opening and new routes opening up for ships and oil tankers, resulting in noise pollution, and this encroachment is really expected to be to be detrimental for their breeding and feeding,” she said.
BERINGIAN PLANTS – HAIRY BRAYA MUSTARD
Hairy Braya is a rare perennial flowering plant in the mustard family and is only found on one peninsula in the Northwest Territories. (Credit: Bruce Bennett) )
According to COSEWIC, there are a couple of northern plant species that are part of the ancient Beringia ecosystem, which wasn’t covered by ice during the last ice age, that are currently threatened by climate change.
One of those plants, the hairy braya, which is a rare perennial flowering plant in the mustard family, is only found on one peninsula in the Northwest Territories and nowhere else in the world.
With rising temperatures, the permafrost the plant lives on is melting away beneath it, putting it at risk.
According to COSEWIC, the hairy braya is listed as endangered due to a loss of habitat from permafrost melting, rapid coastal erosion, and salt spray from storm surges.
“These events appear to be increasing in frequency and severity as a consequence of a significant reduction in sea ice cover on the Beaufort Sea and changes in weather patterns,” according to COSEWIC.
“These indirect impacts of climate change are expected to continue into the foreseeable future.”
NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE
A mother North Atlantic right whale and her calf are seen in this undated handout photo in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, ACCOL/NEAQ and Canadian Whale Institute)
Giles wanted to include the North Atlantic right whale on the list of threatened species because it is critically endangered with only about 400 left in the world.
According to the WWF, the large whales spend summer and fall in Canadian waters along the eastern seaboard and migrate to southern waters off the United States during the winter. Until recently, the whales frequented the same areas, which allowed measures to be put in place to protect them from becoming entangled in fishing gear or struck by vessels.
However, warming ocean temperatures have resulted in the whales’ food source, a tiny invertebrate called a copepod, moving north to colder waters where the North Atlantic right whale has followed them and where there are no protections in place.
“It’s a sad story because the North Atlantic right whale shifted from an area where it was protected to an area where it wasn’t protected,” Giles said.
Similar to the Southern Resident killer whales in the Pacific, Giles said conservationists have been watching populations of the North Atlantic right whale decrease continuously.
“We’re celebrating every single birth as it occurs and tracking every death because when you get a population that’s in trouble like this one and that’s already so small, every single birth and death really matters,” she said.
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. syphilis epidemic slowed dramatically last year, gonorrhea cases fell and chlamydia cases remained below prepandemic levels, according to federal data released Tuesday.
The numbers represented some good news about sexually transmitted diseases, which experienced some alarming increases in past years due to declining condom use, inadequate sex education, and reduced testing and treatment when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Last year, cases of the most infectious stages of syphilis fell 10% from the year before — the first substantial decline in more than two decades. Gonorrhea cases dropped 7%, marking a second straight year of decline and bringing the number below what it was in 2019.
“I’m encouraged, and it’s been a long time since I felt that way” about the nation’s epidemic of sexually transmitted infections, said the CDC’s Dr. Jonathan Mermin. “Something is working.”
More than 2.4 million cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia were diagnosed and reported last year — 1.6 million cases of chlamydia, 600,000 of gonorrhea, and more than 209,000 of syphilis.
Syphilis is a particular concern. For centuries, it was a common but feared infection that could deform the body and end in death. New cases plummeted in the U.S. starting in the 1940s when infection-fighting antibiotics became widely available, and they trended down for a half century after that. By 2002, however, cases began rising again, with men who have sex with other men being disproportionately affected.
The new report found cases of syphilis in their early, most infectious stages dropped 13% among gay and bisexual men. It was the first such drop since the agency began reporting data for that group in the mid-2000s.
However, there was a 12% increase in the rate of cases of unknown- or later-stage syphilis — a reflection of people infected years ago.
Cases of syphilis in newborns, passed on from infected mothers, also rose. There were nearly 4,000 cases, including 279 stillbirths and infant deaths.
“This means pregnant women are not being tested often enough,” said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of medicine at the University of Southern California.
What caused some of the STD trends to improve? Several experts say one contributor is the growing use of an antibiotic as a “morning-after pill.” Studies have shown that taking doxycycline within 72 hours of unprotected sex cuts the risk of developing syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia.
In June, the CDC started recommending doxycycline as a morning-after pill, specifically for gay and bisexual men and transgender women who recently had an STD diagnosis. But health departments and organizations in some cities had been giving the pills to people for a couple years.
Some experts believe that the 2022 mpox outbreak — which mainly hit gay and bisexual men — may have had a lingering effect on sexual behavior in 2023, or at least on people’s willingness to get tested when strange sores appeared.
Another factor may have been an increase in the number of health workers testing people for infections, doing contact tracing and connecting people to treatment. Congress gave $1.2 billion to expand the workforce over five years, including $600 million to states, cities and territories that get STD prevention funding from CDC.
Last year had the “most activity with that funding throughout the U.S.,” said David Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors.
However, Congress ended the funds early as a part of last year’s debt ceiling deal, cutting off $400 million. Some people already have lost their jobs, said a spokeswoman for Harvey’s organization.
Still, Harvey said he had reasons for optimism, including the growing use of doxycycline and a push for at-home STD test kits.
Also, there are reasons to think the next presidential administration could get behind STD prevention. In 2019, then-President Donald Trump announced a campaign to “eliminate” the U.S. HIV epidemic by 2030. (Federal health officials later clarified that the actual goal was a huge reduction in new infections — fewer than 3,000 a year.)
There were nearly 32,000 new HIV infections in 2022, the CDC estimates. But a boost in public health funding for HIV could also also help bring down other sexually transmitted infections, experts said.
“When the government puts in resources, puts in money, we see declines in STDs,” Klausner said.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists can’t know precisely when a volcano is about to erupt, but they can sometimes pick up telltale signs.
That happened two years ago with the world’s largest active volcano. About two months before Mauna Loa spewed rivers of glowing orange molten lava, geologists detected small earthquakes nearby and other signs, and they warned residents on Hawaii‘s Big Island.
Now a study of the volcano’s lava confirms their timeline for when the molten rock below was on the move.
“Volcanoes are tricky because we don’t get to watch directly what’s happening inside – we have to look for other signs,” said Erik Klemetti Gonzalez, a volcano expert at Denison University, who was not involved in the study.
Upswelling ground and increased earthquake activity near the volcano resulted from magma rising from lower levels of Earth’s crust to fill chambers beneath the volcano, said Kendra Lynn, a research geologist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and co-author of a new study in Nature Communications.
When pressure was high enough, the magma broke through brittle surface rock and became lava – and the eruption began in late November 2022. Later, researchers collected samples of volcanic rock for analysis.
The chemical makeup of certain crystals within the lava indicated that around 70 days before the eruption, large quantities of molten rock had moved from around 1.9 miles (3 kilometers) to 3 miles (5 kilometers) under the summit to a mile (2 kilometers) or less beneath, the study found. This matched the timeline the geologists had observed with other signs.
The last time Mauna Loa erupted was in 1984. Most of the U.S. volcanoes that scientists consider to be active are found in Hawaii, Alaska and the West Coast.
Worldwide, around 585 volcanoes are considered active.
Scientists can’t predict eruptions, but they can make a “forecast,” said Ben Andrews, who heads the global volcano program at the Smithsonian Institution and who was not involved in the study.
Andrews compared volcano forecasts to weather forecasts – informed “probabilities” that an event will occur. And better data about the past behavior of specific volcanos can help researchers finetune forecasts of future activity, experts say.
(asterisk)We can look for similar patterns in the future and expect that there’s a higher probability of conditions for an eruption happening,” said Klemetti Gonzalez.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Waymo on Tuesday opened its robotaxi service to anyone who wants a ride around Los Angeles, marking another milestone in the evolution of self-driving car technology since the company began as a secret project at Google 15 years ago.
The expansion comes eight months after Waymo began offering rides in Los Angeles to a limited group of passengers chosen from a waiting list that had ballooned to more than 300,000 people. Now, anyone with the Waymo One smartphone app will be able to request a ride around an 80-square-mile (129-square-kilometer) territory spanning the second largest U.S. city.
After Waymo received approval from California regulators to charge for rides 15 months ago, the company initially chose to launch its operations in San Francisco before offering a limited service in Los Angeles.
Before deciding to compete against conventional ride-hailing pioneers Uber and Lyft in California, Waymo unleashed its robotaxis in Phoenix in 2020 and has been steadily extending the reach of its service in that Arizona city ever since.
Driverless rides are proving to be more than just a novelty. Waymo says it now transports more than 50,000 weekly passengers in its robotaxis, a volume of business numbers that helped the company recently raise $5.6 billion from its corporate parent Alphabet and a list of other investors that included venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz and financial management firm T. Rowe Price.
“Our service has matured quickly and our riders are embracing the many benefits of fully autonomous driving,” Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said in a blog post.
Despite its inroads, Waymo is still believed to be losing money. Although Alphabet doesn’t disclose Waymo’s financial results, the robotaxi is a major part of an “Other Bets” division that had suffered an operating loss of $3.3 billion through the first nine months of this year, down from a setback of $4.2 billion at the same time last year.
But Waymo has come a long way since Google began working on self-driving cars in 2009 as part of project “Chauffeur.” Since its 2016 spinoff from Google, Waymo has established itself as the clear leader in a robotaxi industry that’s getting more congested.
Electric auto pioneer Tesla is aiming to launch a rival “Cybercab” service by 2026, although its CEO Elon Musk said he hopes the company can get the required regulatory clearances to operate in Texas and California by next year.
Tesla’s projected timeline for competing against Waymo has been met with skepticism because Musk has made unfulfilled promises about the company’s self-driving car technology for nearly a decade.
Meanwhile, Waymo’s robotaxis have driven more than 20 million fully autonomous miles and provided more than 2 million rides to passengers without encountering a serious accident that resulted in its operations being sidelined.
That safety record is a stark contrast to one of its early rivals, Cruise, a robotaxi service owned by General Motors. Cruise’s California license was suspended last year after one of its driverless cars in San Francisco dragged a jaywalking pedestrian who had been struck by a different car driven by a human.
Cruise is now trying to rebound by joining forces with Uber to make some of its services available next year in U.S. cities that still haven’t been announced. But Waymo also has forged a similar alliance with Uber to dispatch its robotaxi in Atlanta and Austin, Texas next year.
Another robotaxi service, Amazon’s Zoox, is hoping to begin offering driverless rides to the general public in Las Vegas at some point next year before also launching in San Francisco.
