Nova Scotia and southern Ontario are recovering from damaging intensive rains while British Columbia continues to fight wildfires. And earlier this month, Environment and Climate Change Canada quietly released its updated report on how the country’s climate has changed — and will continue to change — in the years and decades to come. 

The picture it paints is grim. 

Temperatures in Canada have risen nearly twice as fast as the global average over the past 50 years, leading to wide-ranging and interconnected changes in growing seasons, stream flows, glacial retreat and sea levels.

Most critically, the report notes these changes are “effectively irreversible.” And even worse, the climate-related changes we are witnessing today — wildfires, floods, droughts, diseases, changes in species distribution — will only become more frequent and intense in the years ahead. 

The extent to which these changes will continue to intensify depends on whether Canada and the rest of the global community take the urgent actions needed to significantly and permanently reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

Canada’s report came........

© National Observer