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26
Aug
2018
This has been a summer of natural disasters. Some rain has finally come to B.C., but by the end of this summer, the province will have fought some 2000 forest fires. Smoke from those fires has spread across the prairies, into northern Ontario, even crossing the Atlantic to Europe. Just as smoke from fires north of the Arctic Circle, in Sweden and Siberia, drifted into Canada.
Meanwhile, California had its worst wildfire season. In Greece, some residents chose to drown in the Aegean Sea, rather than to burn on land.
Fires rampaged in Australia. And an estimated half of the coral in the Great Barrier Reef died, from rising ocean temperatures.
At the other extreme, southern India had its heaviest monsoon in 100 years, displacing close to a million people. Floods ripped through almost any country you can name. Highways washed out. Cars vanished into sinkholes. Mudslides swept houses off their foundations.
But still some people deny that all this has anything to do with climate change. And certainly deny that humans had anything to do with it.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: climate change, floods, global warming, coral, David Suzuki, fires
1
Jul
King Canute sat on his royal throne. His courtiers grovelled at his feet. “Hail to the King,” they chanted, “You are all-powerful.”
“Take me to the beach,” the king commanded.
So they carried him to the edge of the ocean, and set his throne down on the sand. And the waters rose, and covered the king’s toes.
“Make the sea go back,” the courtiers urged. “Stop the waters from rising.”
“Idiots!” snorted the king. “No human has that power.”
“Then we’re doomed!” the courtiers wailed. “What can we do?”
“Sell the beach for a tourist destination,” King Canute ordered. “By the time it’s underwater, we can all be living in Switzerland with fat bank accounts.”
Tags: global warming, Canute, rising oceans, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Maldives, Great Barrier Reef, coral