• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
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
  FEATURED
BREAKING: U.S. Senate Passes Historic $369B Climate Package August 7, 2022
Researchers Point To ‘Dangerously Unexplored’ Risk of Global Climate Catastrophe August 2, 2022
Koch Network Pressures Manchin, Sinema as Advocates Praise ‘Game Changing’ Climate Deal August 2, 2022
Coastal GasLink Cost Skyrockets 70% to $11.2B August 2, 2022
Ottawa Releases Regulatory ‘Frame’ for Net-Zero Grid by 2035 August 2, 2022
Next
Prev

Greening Arctic Brings Added Danger, Uncertainty to Labrador Communities

May 3, 2021
Reading time: 3 minutes

Mike Beauregard/Wikimedia Commons

Mike Beauregard/Wikimedia Commons

 

Residents of northern Labrador are having to tackle a new set of miseries as climate change delivers fog, gale-force winds, exploding black fly and mosquito populations, reduced berry crops, and even new sources of camouflage for dangerous bears. 

Spring in Nunatsiavut, Labrador, is a lot more buggy than it used to be, writes CBC News. “It’s horrible,” said hunter Derrick Pottle, of the apocalyptic swarms of bugs that now torment residents of his community. “You virtually can’t breathe for them.”

Also dangerous are the impacts of global warming on the sea ice, which Pottle and other locals depend on to travel between communities and to hunt for food. The spring season for snowmobiling was at least five weeks short of normal this year, and even the ice of mid-winter wasn’t nearly solid enough for either comfort or safety. 

“I’m sure there’s people still out there that [don’t] believe that climate change is happening,” Pottle told CBC. “But when you live, when your life depends on being able to work and live in harmony with nature and Mother Nature and the elements—it really impacts our lives.”

While melting sea ice is now increasingly on the public radar, other changes afflicting the North may be less so. Those include wild temperature swings, along with “weeks of seemingly unending spring and summer fog that keeps planes from landing, as well as gales of wind, night and day.”

The wildly unsettled weather is “having an impact on country food, particularly the berry harvest,” reports CBC. The flowers that precede the fruit on wild berries like bakeapples are particularly vulnerable to strong wind and rainfall, as well as to untimely heat. 

Pottle said many of the ponds where he would typically hunt for birds are also drying up. 

Such observations are in line “with what plant ecologist Luise Hermanutz calls her ‘rubber boot index’,” writes CBC. “When Hermanutz first started researching plant life more than a decade ago at Nakvak Brook in Torngat Mountains National Park, she and other scientists would need rubber boots to wade around.” 

Now, CBC says, “they wear hikers.”

In the 10 years that Hermanutz has been studying plant life in the region, she and other researchers, prompted by intelligence shared by local Inuit elders, have watched shrubs like the Arctic dwarf birch sweep across the formerly barren tundra. Citing an estimate by Parks Canada ecosystem scientist Darroch Whitaker, CBC says shrub cover in the Torngats has “about tripled” over the last 30 years. 

This greening of Labrador is bringing yet further risk to the people who call the region home. Noting that the incursion of the dwarf birch and other shrubs tends “to be thickest in river valleys that people often use as travel routes,” CBC reports that the consequent reduction in sightlines “can increase the chances of a run-in” with bears.

“In order to be safe around those animals, you want to have good awareness of where they are. And this shrub cover makes it really hard to detect them,” said Whitaker.

Looking ahead, Whitaker told CBC that researchers are predicting present shrub cover to double again by 2040, producing “profound ecosystem changes” that will act as “a bit of a bellwether for what’s happening all across the Arctic.” For Derrick Pottle, that prediction casts a long shadow. 

“We have some major, major concerns as to what the outcome is, and how long will we be able to hold on to this lifestyle that we’re living,” he told CBC.



in Arctic & Antarctica, Biodiversity & Habitat, Canada, Climate Impacts & Adaptation, Food Security, Health & Safety, Ice Loss & Sea Level Rise, Jurisdictions

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Bernard Spragg/flickr
Energy Politics

$12.3B in Profit over 3 Months as Big Fossils Reject Federal Emissions Cap

August 11, 2022
208
Σ64/Wikimedia Commons
Hydrogen

Global Push for Hydrogen Sidesteps Knowledge Gaps on Climate Impacts

August 11, 2022
234
Protect The Planet
Pipelines / Rail Transport

Trans Mountain Work Site Blocks Early Salmon Run on Coquihalla River, Local Observers Say

August 11, 2022
332

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

Bernard Spragg/flickr

$12.3B in Profit over 3 Months as Big Fossils Reject Federal Emissions Cap

August 11, 2022
208
Σ64/Wikimedia Commons

Global Push for Hydrogen Sidesteps Knowledge Gaps on Climate Impacts

August 11, 2022
234
Protect The Planet

Trans Mountain Work Site Blocks Early Salmon Run on Coquihalla River, Local Observers Say

August 11, 2022
332
François GOGLINS/wikimedia commons

Corrosion Problem Shutters Half of France’s Nuclear Reactors

August 2, 2022
1.5k
Joseph Brent/Flickr

Green Hydrogen Will Cost Less than Fossil-Fuelled ‘Blue’, Shell CEO Admits

August 7, 2022
746
Early stages of construction on the Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor in France

Failing French Nuclear Plants Drive Up Electricity Costs as Heat Waves Cut Production

August 8, 2022
451

Recent Posts

Focus Blame for Climate Change on Fossils and Governments, Ecoanalytics Advises

August 11, 2022
108
TheKurgan/Wikipedia

Ontario Pension Giant May Be Getting the Memo on Fossil Divestment, Members Say

August 11, 2022
33
@stan_sdcollins/Twitter

Stranded Communities Hope for Emergency Food Supplies as Newfoundland Wildfires Rage

August 11, 2022
14
Maurizio Pesce/Wikimedia Commons

Tesla Lobbying Points to Ontario as Possible EV Manufacturing Site

August 11, 2022
34
MENA/Flickr

Ontario Gains from U.S. EV Tax Credit, But Plans No Incentives for Local Drivers

August 11, 2022
37
Twitter

Shelling of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Plant Raises Fears for Nuclear Safety

August 11, 2022
32
Next Post
Norbert Elekes @NorbertElekes/Twitter

Cuts to UK Global Resilience Funding Undermine Cities’ Response to Fire, Floods

The Energy Mix

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

Navigate Site

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

Follow Us

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}