Wildfires erupt in Canada crude patch in threat to oil sands
One 7-acre fire is within about 6 miles of MEG Energy Corp.’s Christina Lake site, which produced almost 100,000 barrels a day in May.
The effects of climate change will cost Canada about $5 billion per year by 2020 and increase to somewhere between $21 and $43 billion per year in 2035, according to the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.
The NRT released its study this week, Paying the Price: the Economic Impacts of Climate Change for Canada. The study finds that costs will be borne by the timber industry and the coastal regions. Medial costs will also be higher since there will be adverse effects on people’s health.
By the 2050s, the impacts of climate change on the timber supply through changes in pests, fires, and forest growth are expected to cost the Canadian economy between $2 billion and $17 billion per year. The coastal land area exposed to climate change–induced flooding from sea-level rise and increased storminess across Canada by the 2050s is roughly equivalent to the size of the Greater Toronto Area. The costs of flooding from climate change could be between $1 billion and $8 billion per year by the 2050s.
Climate change will lead to warmer summers and poorer air quality, resulting in increased deaths and illnesses in the four cities studied — Montréal, Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver. Illnesses associated with climate change impacts on air quality in turn will impose costs on the health care system; in Toronto these costs could be between $3 million and $11 million per year by the 2050s.
The authors state that Canada should do more to adapt to the changing climate conditions.
“Adapting to climate change is both possible and cost-effective. Halting emissions growth tomorrow will do nothing to arrest the impacts of GHGs already in the atmosphere. So, some form of climate change impacts due to global warming can be expected, requiring adaptation measures in response.”
Image by subarcticmike of a polar bear hide drying in Pangnirtung, Nunavut
4 Comments
C d
what a bunch of hogwash…these are the same buffoons who can’t predict they’ll get wet on a rainy day
Wolf Gehrisch
It is a sad story that in North Ameraca there are so many negationists like C d around. Just wanting to avoid to accept the obvious! Global warming is man-made and we should adopt technologies that can help reducing further increases in GHG emissions so we can start to adapt to the climate changes that are already programmed! This is no hogwash at all!
33%rain33%sun33%other
It is hogwash. look at the above comment where they say Global Warming will cost Canada between $2 billion and $17 billion per year. That is a $15 billion spread…..If that is as acurate as they can get then most of their info suggesting Global Warming can’t be trusted much either. I believe we should certainly make great efoorts to cut down on our pollution to protect our waterways and forrests but “Global Warming” is hogwash. What caused the Ice Age””” Man? For all we know extreme hot and extreme cold weather conditions could be cyclitic. We haven,t been around nor will we be to witness it
Wolf Gehrisch
Production of CO2 and methane has immensely increased since industrialisation has started. This increase has been exponential and will itself only slightly slow down over coming years before eventually reverse. Both are potent greenhouse gases while methane is even much more potent than CO2. Nobody can deny this. It is a physical process! When I was a child (50 years ago), I was learning at school that we are living in between two ice ages and that temperature should again go down in the next 100 to 200 years – not up. The problem with doing nothing to stop Greenhouse gases to continue to rise and even to trim their production is that other mechanisms will start to set in: forest fires will release more CO2, the shrinking ice sheets will expose more sunlight absorbing ground and permafrost will disappear, releasing methane. Ultimately the methane clathrate on the see floors in many areas may become unstable and gigantic quantities of methane may be released from them.
Evidently, I may not see this happen. But I am already close to 70 years old. So, I may not bother. But if you are about 20 or 30 years old, you should worry and very much so. And you should also worry about the future of your children, if you have some. In any case, I do worry about the future of my grand children and this is why I am so angry about those people who call this upcoming catastrophy hogwash and prevent politicians to do something against climate change instead of pushing them to react and develop policies to counteract global warming while it may still be possible. It is already very late and may be already too late!!!