• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
UN Climate Delegates Haggle Over Agenda as CO2 Levels Set New Record June 6, 2023
Rich Countries Overstate Their Climate Finance Contributions, Oxfam Warns June 6, 2023
Renewables ‘Set to Soar’ with 440 GW of New Installations in 2023: IEA June 4, 2023
Greek Industrial Giant Announces 1.4-GW Alberta Solar Farm, Canada’s Biggest June 4, 2023
Shift to Remote Work Cuts Commutes, Frees Downtown Space for Affordable Housing June 4, 2023
Next
Prev

Climate Hawk Mourns for Fort Mac…and Many Others

May 6, 2016
Reading time: 3 minutes

Pitix/wikimedia commons

Pitix/wikimedia commons

 
Pitix/wikimedia commons
Pitix/wikimedia commons

In a remarkable analysis distributed by email Thursday, Dale Marshall, National Program Manager at Environmental Defence, connects the tragedy unfolding in Fort McMurray with climate disasters and dislocations around the world.

I mourn for Fort Mac.

  • Concise headlines. Original content. Timely news and views from a select group of opinion leaders. Special extras.
  • Everything you need, nothing you don’t.
  • The Weekender: The climate news you need.
Subscribe

The stories and the images coming out of northern Alberta are devastating and scary. I can’t imagine what the people of Fort McMurray and the surrounding areas are going through, and everything they will continue to go through as they try to recover and rebuild homes, businesses, and communities they loved. I mourn for them.

Over the last couple of days, there are many others I have been thinking about, people that I had the honour and privilege of visiting, and the good fortune to be able to head back to my safe and secure home in Canada.

I remember the Maasai people, living in southern Kenya in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro. They have lived a semi-nomadic life for centuries, moving season by season to find places for their cattle to graze and drink. When I visited them, despite all the collective, cultural knowledge held in their communities, their cattle were dying because they could not find enough food and water for them. No elder I spoke with had seen the land so altered as by the ongoing drought. The Kenyan government, in desperation, sent mechanical diggers throughout the region to dig down until they hit groundwater. Some of these pits, where water used to be available at the surface, were 20 or 30 feet deep. I mourn for them.

I remember the Burmese people living in the Irrawaddy Delta, recounting how their lives had been ravaged by Cyclone Nargis. Almost 140,000 people in the region died. A people for whom water and fish were their lifeblood now feared what gave them life. So devastating was that superstorm, so difficult the recovery, and so tenuous and vulnerable their lives since then that, six years after, past events were now categorized as before-Nargis and after-Nargis. I mourn for them.

I remember the people from southwest Bangladesh, facing a slow-moving disaster—the rising seas slowly penetrating what sustains them. Well water increasingly brackish, crops less and less able to grow in the saline soil, delta ecosystems gradually tilting out of balance, unable to produce the seafood yields of the past. In a country less than half the size of Labrador and with a population of 150 million, there is no “away.” They stay put, their lives slowly drowning in salty water. I mourn for them.

I remember most the people of Cambodia, who live in a country susceptible to more intense floods during the wet season and more extreme droughts during the dry season; cruelly facing too much water and then, six months later, not enough. They work to hang on to a life that had very little prosperity to begin with. I mourn for them.

The people of Kenya, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Cambodia are amazing, the resilience in their eyes a stark disconnect to the fragility of their lives. Each can describe in intimate detail how the weather is changing and how their lives are impacted. Those I spoke to didn’t understand why it was happening, but they knew they had nothing to do with it and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

Nobody deserves to have their lives upended by climate disasters. Nobody. And most certainly not those working to keep a roof over their head and food on the table. But the world is slowly, steadily careening out of control. Tragically, the average Canadian contributes more to climate change than just about anybody else in the world, and Fort McMurray is the epicentre of one of our most unsustainable industries. I hope that this is—finally—the time where we heed the unmistakable warning signs that the path we are on is devastating people and communities and species and ecosystems. As Albertans muster the courage to rebuild, and all Canadians do what we can to help, let’s realize that a different, better path is right there to be taken.

Continue Reading



in Africa, Canada, Climate & Society, Climate Impacts & Adaptation, Drought & Wildfires, Ending Emissions, Environmental Justice, Food Security & Agriculture, Ice Loss & Sea Level Rise, International, Jurisdictions, Severe Storms & Flooding

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

kris krüg/flickr
COP Conferences

UN Climate Delegates Haggle Over Agenda as CO2 Levels Set New Record

June 6, 2023
3
Kiara Worth, UN Climate Change/flickr
Finance & Investment

Rich Countries Overstate Their Climate Finance Contributions, Oxfam Warns

June 6, 2023
1
Sask Power/flickr
CCS & Negative Emissions

Don’t Waste $15B Growth Fund on Carbon Capture, Experts Warn Ottawa

June 6, 2023
2

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Natural Resources Canada

2.7M Hectares Lost, Nova Scotia at Ground Zero in ‘Unprecedented’ Early Wildfire Season

June 4, 2023
271
/MaxPixels

‘Substantial Damage’, No Injuries as Freight Train Hits Wind Turbine Blade

May 25, 2022
14.7k
sunrise windmill

Renewables ‘Set to Soar’ with 440 GW of New Installations in 2023: IEA

June 5, 2023
192
Clairewych/Pixabay

Demand Surges for Giant Heat Pumps as Europe Turns to District Heating

June 4, 2023
127
Pixabay

Greek Industrial Giant Announces 1.4-GW Alberta Solar Farm, Canada’s Biggest

June 4, 2023
164
Equinor

Is Equinor’s Bay du Nord ‘Delay’ a Cancellation in Slow Motion?

June 1, 2023
909

Recent Posts

kris krüg/flickr

UN Climate Delegates Haggle Over Agenda as CO2 Levels Set New Record

June 6, 2023
3
Kiara Worth, UN Climate Change/flickr

Rich Countries Overstate Their Climate Finance Contributions, Oxfam Warns

June 6, 2023
1
Sask Power/flickr

Don’t Waste $15B Growth Fund on Carbon Capture, Experts Warn Ottawa

June 6, 2023
2
Ecig Click/flickr

Wasted Batteries in Disposable Vapes Could Power 6,000 EVs Per Year

June 6, 2023
2
Ottawa Renewable Energy Co-op/Facebook

‘Hinge Moment’ for Humanity Demands ‘YIMBY’ Mentality: McKibben

June 6, 2023
86
Hans/Pixabay

Plastics Treaty Negotiators Aim for Draft Deal by November

June 6, 2023
1
Next Post

Climate confusion creeps into Trump camp

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}