Canada and global warming: a state of denial

Martin N. wrote:

Jerry, what you call evidence, I call empty posturing designed to hector, lecture and indoctrinate anyone who dares to stray away from orthodox climate change dogma. ...

 I don't care what happened forty years ago. I don't care about the scientific fabrications or disingenuous extrapolations of scanty data or the resulting recriminations.

In other words, solutions, not an attempt to use climate change as a vehicle to push a globalist political agenda. Perhaps you should reflect upon the unintended irony of your choice of title.

The state of denial title was intentional because the Liberal and Conservative federal governments, like those of the US, have either ignored the problem or denied it existed for forty years, allowing Canada's carbon dioxide emissions to grow while governments in Europe have made major reductions in their emissions. 

Climate change denial by the fossil fuel industry did not end forty years ago. " the Heartland Institute, which actually puts on climate “conferences” and publishes materials that appear at first glance to be scientifically sound ... – their veneer of scientific credibility is very thin. ... The (2016) report was entitled “Why Scientists Disagree about Global Warming” ... The central theme of this manuscript is an attack against the expert consensus on human-caused global warming.(https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/20...")

ExxonMobil contines to fund global warming denial. Trump's Secretary of State until recently and former ExxonMobil CEO, Rex Tillerson, and Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, led the way in bringing the fossil fuel industry denial approach into government. 

ExxonMobil and the climate science denial machinery that it has helped to build over the years are now under more scrutiny than ever before. ... But the latest disclosures on donations by ExxonMobil, reported publicly here for the first time, show it continues to support organisations that claim greenhouse gases are not causing climate change, or that cuts to emissions are a waste of time and money.

Organisations including the American Enterprise Institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council and the National Black Chamber of Commerce — all organisations with a record of misinformation on climate science — all received grants in 2015 from ExxonMobil. The 2015 tally brings the total amount of known Exxon funding to denial groups north of $33 million since 1998. (https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/07/08/exxonmobil-new-disclosures-show-oi...)

The Koch brothers have spent at least $100,343,292 directly to 84 groups on denying climate change science between 1997 and now. (https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/climate-deniers/koch-indus...)

In Canada, Friends of Science, based in Calgary, "takes a position that humans are largely not responsible for the currently observed global warming, contrary to the established scientific position on the subject. Rather, they propose that 'the Sun is the main direct and indirect driver of climate change,' not human activity. They are largely funded by the fossil fuel industry." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_Science)

 The Vuntut Gwitchin, People of the Lakes First Nation, in the community of Old Crow and the surrounding area in northern Yukon are already also suffering the consequences of climate change.

Martin, they do not see it as a scientific fabrication or think the topic of global warming is boring.

Temperatures have increased 2 degrees Celsius over the past 50 years — twice the rate they've increased in southern Canada. And in northern Yukon, winters are warming even faster: on average, winter temperatures have jumped by 4 C in the last half century. That's making it difficult for the community to safely build the winter roads they rely on for access to their traditional hunting and fishing grounds. ...

Some animal populations, like birds and salmon, seem to be shrinking, Josie says. And he's observed changes in caribou migration patterns this year, which he suspects could also be linked to climate change.

Permafrost thaw, combined with heavier rainfalls, are causing soil erosion and landslides around Old Crow. In some cases, the erosion has caused entire lakes to dry out. In 2007, the six-kilometre-long Zelma Lake, one of the largest in the Old Crow Flats, lost 60 per cent of its water in a month. 

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/facing-the-change-5-canadian-communities-th...

The following website has several videos showing the damage being done to the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation ofOld Crow.

https://www.aicbr.ca/climate-change-adaptation/

Martin, you accused BCers of NIMBYism. Besides the costs associated with increased forest fires, flooding from increased torrential downpours and rapid snow melts, destruction of forests and the forest industry caused by pine beetle infestations, reduced salmon spawning and fishing brought about by fossil fuel emissions, its coastal regions also face major costs associated with sea level rise from global warming. The costs far outweigh the meager benefits of pipelines to BC.

And the costs of combatting climate change are substantial. According to a report prepared for the BC Liberal government in 2012, the province will need to spend an estimated $9.5 billion to prevent flooding in the Metro Vancouver communities of Richmond, Delta, Surrey and Vancouver. 

However, the BC Liberals were willing to let the fossil fuel industry continue increasing emissions through adding pipelines and its trillion dollar LNG fantasy while the fossil fuel industry wants to continue exponentially increasing its carbon dioxide emissions but avoid paying the enormous costs associated with them. 

Combating rising sea levels due to global warming could cost $9.5 billion in flood-protection improvements in Metro Vancouver — including sea gates at False Creek and Steveston — by 2100, according to a report released Tuesday by the B.C. government.

The report, Cost of Adaptation - Sea Dikes and Alternative Strategies, covers the Metro Vancouver coastal shoreline and the Fraser River downstream of Port Mann Bridge — an area with more than 250 kilometres of shoreline.

The $9.5-billion cost estimate includes design, project management, land acquisition, environmental mitigation, impacts on utilities and pump stations and earthquake-resistant construction methods.

The Delcan report singled out three areas in the region for potential special protective measures:

- False Creek: A $25-million sea gate would allow the movement of water and boats through during normal water levels but would be closed during storm conditions to limit sea levels and reduce the height of shoreline defences needed around the perimeter of False Creek.

- Steveston: Use Shady Island as part of a breakwater/barrier with a sea gate to protect a densely developed waterfront with historic buildings at an estimated cost $10 million.

- Mud Bay, Surrey: Sea gates at the mouths of the Nicomekl and Serpentine rivers at a cost of $10 million each, along with a "managed retreat" or gradual decommission of development in the area.

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Metro+Vancouver+dike+improvements...

The fossil fuel industry also often does not follow the regulations meant to reduce its emissions and other forms of damage to the environment.

The lead article on the front page of Monday's May 28th 2018 Vancouver Sun discusses how the fossil fuel industry, BC Liberal government and its regulatory agency, the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission kept secret a 2014 audit of the environmental effects of oil and gas drilling in the Fort Nelson region that was never released publicly but was obtained by an advocacy group in a brown envelope. This is the third time in less than a year that the advocacy group has obtained publicly withheld information on environmental problems caused by the fossil fuel industry. The other two withheld documents involved the fracking industry failing to follow safe water practices and the numerous leaks of methane gas, which produces at least thirty times the warming effect per molecule as carbon dioxide, from natural gas wells.

How many more such reports are hidden away here and elsewhere thanks to the collusion of the fossil fuel industry, a government and its regulatory agency?

The B.C. Oil and Gas Commission knew in 2014 that gas drillers weren’t consistently following rules to protect threatened boreal caribou herds, but has held the audit report showing those results under wraps, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives alleges. ...

“It’s no surprise, given the circumstances of the audit’s ‘release,’ that the suppressed document shows that, over and over again, companies broke the very modest rules to protect the caribou,” Parfitt wrote in a briefing document.

The region around Fort Nelson was heavily drilled earlier in the decade using techniques of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to establish gas reserves in anticipation of a potential, liquefied-natural-gas export industry. ...

And Parfitt said the leaked report marks the third time in less than a year that the CCPA has gleaned information about concerns with industry operations through Freedom of Information requests or other means that the commission has withheld or delayed releasing.

In the first case, Parfitt, through an FOI request, unearthed documents showing that drilling companies were building unauthorized dams to store water for fracking, including inspection reports and enforcement orders. Parfitt said the documents were posted to the commission’s website “belatedly,” subsequent to his FOI request.

In the second case, the commission, in late 2017, posted the results from a 2013 investigation into the prevalence of methane leaks from natural-gas wells.

Commission spokesman Phil Rygg, in an emailed statement to Postmedia News last fall, said its officials had tightened up regulations as a result of the probe.

Parfitt, at the time, said the multiyear delay in making its results public also withheld potentially damaging information about the industry at a time that the government was promoting the potential for an LNG export sector. And in his paper, Parfitt argues that the incidents help make the case that responsibility for enforcing rules of the oil and gas industry should be separated from the commission.

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/vancouver-sun/20180528/281535111663043

Besides the environmental damage the Trans Mountain pipeline will cause, there is growing evidence it does not make economic sense. In February 2018, the first supertanker able to hold 2,000,0000,000 barrels of oil sailed from the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) to China. The following article suggests that Kinder Morgan wanted out of the pipeline because it knew it would be a major financial loss for them and now the Trudeau government owns it. 

The LOOP bi-directional pipeline can pump oil at a mind-bending 100,000 barrels per hour, supertankers can arrive with one load for refining and take off with another, by barely dropping anchor. That will likely prove fatal to Alberta’s plans to expand unrefined bitumen exports either by the proposed Trans Mountain pipeline to the British Columbia coast, or the proposed Keystone XL pipeline because:

• Potential foreign refiners and customers will demand that future oil price, quality, shipping costs, and delivery speeds match those that LOOP can offer.

• For marine safety reasons, the maximum oil tanker cargo allowed through B.C.’s Burrard Inlet is an Aframax class ship at 80 per cent capacity carrying 550,000 barrels, only about one-quarter the load of a Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC). That means a refiner in Asia would need to book and pay for four tankers to ship the same amount as from the LOOP terminal, then wait longer for the full order to arrive.

• The diluted bitumen Alberta wants to export has chemical and combustion properties that make it far inferior to the higher-quality oil LOOP has access to from U.S. formations in the Dakotas and Texas, or OPEC countries, or North Sea producers. Tar sands/oil sands bitumen can be upgraded and refined, but that adds significant costs and requires dedicated facilities.

• The terminus of the Keystone XL will be refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast near Houston which are not connected to the LOOP. Even if future Alberta bitumen were to be refined there, it would take three fully-loaded Aframax tankers leaving Texas for ship-to-ship transfers to each VLCC.

These important changes in tanker and terminal technology and scale are no secret in the oil industry outside Canada. Nor is the dirty chemical composition of tar sands/oil sands bitumen. Nor is the cutthroat competition among global oil producers, refiners, shippers, and speculators, in which nickels per barrel of oil delivered are fought over fiercely.

In fact, the bad news for Alberta’s oilpatch has been building for a decade. That’s when shipbuilders in South Korea, China and Japan began constructing what has become a global fleet of about 750 VLCCs (with 50 more ordered for 2018), and the scrapping of smaller Aframax class tankers began accelerating. This in turn drove down the benchmark price for ocean oil shipping, triggered the LOOP terminal upgrade, effectively consigned oil terminals like those in Burnaby, B.C. to minor league status, and left oil deposits far from deep port tidewater at a significant cost disadvantage.

When the undeniably dirty content of Alberta’s bitumen deposits is added into these negative cost equations, global oil players know when to cut and run. Compared to conventional heavy crude, bitumen contains 102 times more copper, 21 times more vanadium, 11 times more sulphur, 11 times more nickel, six times more nitrogen, and five times more lead, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It also has a much lower ratio of hydrogen to carbon, which degrades combustion efficiency.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/03/07/opinion/fatal-flaw-albertas-...

ETA: In addition to opposition from Unifor and the Alberta Federation of Labour, Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain claim that it will create 15,000 jobs has been called a scam by BC economist Robyn Allan, more examples of the fossil fuel industry denying reality in Canada when it comes to global warming.

In the NEB Kinder Morgan hearings, the largest union in the oilsands, Unifor, intervened. You might be forgiven for assuming that a union, interested in jobs, intervened to ensure Kinder Morgan got built. You would be wrong.

Unifor attempted to enter evidence that building Kinder Morgan would cost jobs. The Alberta Federation of Labour represents 170,000 workers in Alberta. The AFL is also against Trans Mountain’s expansion because of the jobs and economic wealth lost down the pipeline. ...

The claim that the Kinder Morgan expansion would create 15,000 jobs is thrown around in the cloud of confetti. Kinder Morgan’s submission to the NEB said it would employ an average of 2,500 construction workers a year for two years (Volume 5B of its application). ...

B.C. economist Robyn Allan went on a quest for the source of the claim. (“15,000 Trans Mountain jobs an illusion,” Aug. 31, 2017.) She concluded: “Trans Mountain’s 15,000 construction workforce jobs are a scam. The more realistic figure is less than 20 per cent that size. It is a betrayal of the public trust that [Justin] Trudeau, [Jim] Carr and [Rachel] Notley so eagerly got behind Kinder Morgan’s manipulated jobs figure without checking to make sure it made any sense.”

http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/op-ed/elizabeth-may-is-the-pipeline...

The purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline by Trudeau in order to try to ensure it gets built has raised widespread concerns in Quebec. 

Joel Denis Bellevance of La Presse said on CTV's Power Play that after he wrote an article in French on Trudeau's purchase of the pipeline, he heard back from a very large number of readers via email, with the overwhelming majority against Trudeau's decision. Those against the pipeline opposed to the decision divided into two large camps: the hard core and soft nationalists who oppose any interference into provincial affairs and those who oppose the pipeline environmentally and feel betrayed by Trudeau following his enviromental promises in the 2015 election.

Even Liberal Premier Couillard, the most federalist provincial premier in over fifty years, has expressed concerns over the precedent this sets for federal intervention in areas of provincial jurisdiction. 

In April, Couillard cautioned Justin Trudeau that overriding concerns in B.C. over the project's environmental impact was "not a good sign for federalism."

Earlier today, the premier said the pipeline debate shows that "even in projects that are federally regulated in terms of final authorization, there should be room for the expression of provincial jurisdictions."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/ottawa-s-plan-to-buy-trans-mounta...

The Tongan MP mentioned in the last post also discussed how the island nation of Kiribati is dealing with the threat of climate change. 

Kiribati has already seen three of its uninhabited atolls disappear under the waves by 1999 and is negotiating the purchase of 5,000 acres in Fiji to resettle its entire population of 102,000 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17295862).

Here are some other examples of island nations and low lying coastal nations that have been severely impacted by sea level rise due to climate change. 

The Marshall Islands are currently trying to figure out if they will remain a country when their island nation disappears underwater. They may be forced to flee even before their land is lost, due to predictions of dangerous tropical storms and rising salt levels in their drinking water. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/22/environmental-refugees-50_n_826...

Bangladesh has a population of more than 140 million with 20 million the facing becoming flood refugees due to global warming if sea levels rise one metre - http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/04/14/us-bangladesh-climate-islands-... .

Already half a million people on Bhola island in Bangladesh have been flooded out of there homes and more than one million  face bleak future as climate refugees as level of water wipes out villages. The Al Jazeera website below describes their plight.

http://www.aljazeera.com/video/asia/2014/03/rising-waters-swamp-banglade...

A 2013 Aljazeera reported that more than 1,000 schools in Bangladesh have been closed due to rising sea levels and their students forced to go school on boats because of sea level rise from global warming.

The Maldives are another example of an island nation whose existence is threatened. 

The small island nation may be the first country in the world to be entirely swallowed up by rising sea levels caused by climate change. Those rising sea levels are already endangering the nation's cherished beaches, and will before too long render many parts of the country inhospitable. 

The country has established a sovereign wealth fund, drawn from its tourist revenue, to be used to buy land overseas and finance the relocation of the country's population of 350,000.

http://www.treehugger.com/climate-change/sea-levels-rise-maldives-presid...

Nothing focuses one's mind on what is important in life more than the prospect of death, whether it be of the individual, the culture or the nation. 

Hurricanes in the United States and Carribean during the last year have shown how global warming fed superstorms are causing more and more damage. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are still far from fully recovered from these superstorms. 

Summer and fall 2017 saw an unusual string of record-breaking hurricanes pummel the U.S. Gulf Coast, eastern seaboard, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.

Hurricane Harvey brought unbelievable floods to Houston. Irma, one of the two strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the northern Atlantic,wreaked havoc on Florida and many Caribbean islands. Maria devastated Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The destruction begs the question: Has climate change influenced these extreme events? Hurricanes can be difficult to decipher, but experts are gaining a sense of what our warming world might mean for monster storms in the U.S. and worldwide.

Many experts are confident that a warmer world will create stronger storms—and already is doing so. Since 1981 the maximum wind speed of the most powerful hurricanes has risen, according to research (pdf) by Jim Elsner, a climatologist at The Florida State University. That’s because higher ocean heat provides more energy for storms, fueling their intensity. Hurricane Patricia, in 2015, set the record at the time for top wind speed—215 miles per hour—in the north Atlantic. The next year Winston shattered records as the most intense cyclone in the Southern Hemisphere. ...

How climate change will influence the frequency of hurricanes is less well understood. ...

Scientists do agree climate change means higher storm surges are hitting coastlines. This would happen even if hurricanes do not become stronger. “Once you have a higher baseline sea level,” Knutson says, “that's going to add to the water level experienced during storm surges.” If sea level is a half-meter higher, for example, then a storm surge will be a half-meter higher than it would have been otherwise.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/was-the-extreme-2017-hurrican...

lagatta4 wrote:

We always here about the tiny Pacific islands, but there are members of the group far closer to us, at least to us Eastern bastards (and even the Pacific ones are very far from BC). Barbados, Bahamas, Jamaica, Trinidad, and Haiti.  

You are right that in discussing sea level rise, I mostly focused on the South Pacific Islands and Bangladesh. That's because these are the place in most imminent danger of vast flooding and in some cases the existence of their island nations. 

However, Caribbean islands will suffer catastrophic damage from sea level rise but because they are not in general as low-lying as places like the Maldives, whose highest point above sea level is only 4 metres above sea level, this will be over a longer time period.

However, we have seen that in terms of hurricanes, the Caribbean Islands are just as much at risk as much of Asia and also suffer from racism as we can see from the difference in response to hurricanes in 2017 in Texas and Florida compared to Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. This is often seen in the response to disasters in developing countries by developed countries whether or not climate change is involved. However, many of the problems associated with climate change will impact poorer nations even more because they neither have the means or are likely to get the same level of response to climate change problems as occurs with wealthy regions. 

Nearly a month after the hurricane, Puerto Rico still is still struggling with a near-total information blackout. Some 85 percent of the island lacks electricity, and several remote mountain communities have yet to be visited by relief workers. ...

The island is so crippled in part thanks to the federal government’s underwhelming early hurricane response. The historic storm played its role, of course, destroying homes, triggering mudslides and rendering roadways impassable. But the Trump administration delayed dispatching military personnel and material relief until after the hurricane made landfall, and let the Jones Act waiver lapse, reducing the number of ships that can bring aid to the island. These actions have slowed recovery considerably. ...

Numerous commentators – including Ret. Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who ran the U.S. military’s 2005 Hurricane Katrina relief operation – have criticized the Trump administration’s Puerto Rico storm response. Others have contrasted it with the all-hands-on-deck support seen by Harvey and Irma victims in Texas and Florida. 

Based on my experience researching equity and inclusion in U.S. policy, racial bias may explain these disparate relief efforts, at least in part. Environmental disasters lay bare existing inequalities like prejudice and poverty. So in a place like Puerto Rico, where nearly 99 percent of the population is Latino, discriminatory decision-making can hurt the community’s capacity to recover.

In Texas and Florida, the president responded swiftly, visiting these southern states in a matter of days. In Puerto Rico, on the other hand, President Trump arrived to survey the wreckage two weeks after Maria struck. Likewise, while the president vowed to stand with Texas and Florida “every single day” to help them “restore, recover and rebuild,” he seemed to mock Puerto Ricans’ plight at an Oct. 6 Hispanic Heritage Month event.

There is empirical evidence that skin color impacts federal assistance. A 2007 studyperformed by researchers at Stanford and UCLA found that Americans are less willing to support extensive taxpayer-funded disaster relief when the victim population is not white. 

Signs of racial bias in the current federal relief efforts go beyond Puerto Rico. The U.S. Virgin Islands, where 98 percent of the population identifies as black or of African ancestry, were also battered by both Hurricanes Irma and Maria, leaving residents “in survival mode.” The Trump administration has also largely ignored their suffering.

https://theconversation.com/is-racial-bias-driving-trumps-neglect-of-pue...

Depsite Trump's empty promises to the contrary, the United States itself will pay a extremely high price for climate change with five of its cities ranked among the 20 most at risk globally in terms of sea level rise costs: #6 Miami; #8 New York; #10 New Orleans; #16 Tampa-St. Petersburg; and #17 Boston.

To get a sense of how much it will cost the nation to save itself from rising seas over the next 50 years, consider Norfolk, Virginia.

In November, the Army Corps released a proposal for protecting the cityfrom coastal flooding that would cost $1.8 billion. Some experts consider the estimate low. And it doesn't include the Navy's largest base, which lies within city limits and likely needs at least another $1 billion in construction.

Then consider the costs to protect Boston, New York, Baltimore, Miami, Tampa, New Orleans, Houston and the more than 3,000 miles of coastline in between.

Rising seas driven by climate change are flooding the nation's coasts now. The problem will get worse over the next 50 years, but the United States has barely begun to consider what's needed and hasn't grappled with the costs or who will pay. Many decisions are left to state and local governments, particularly now that the federal government under President Donald Trump has halted action to mitigate climate change and reversed nascent federal efforts to adapt to its effects.

• Globally, seas have risen about 7 to 8 inches on average since 1900, with about 3 inches of that coming since 1993. They're very likely to rise at least 0.5-1.2 feet by 2050 and 1-4.3 feet by 2100, and a rise of more than 8 feet by century's end is possible, according to a U.S. climate science report released this year. Because of currents and geology, relative sea level rise is likely to be higher than average in the U.S. Northeast and western Gulf Coast.

• By the time the waters rise 14 inches, what's now a once-in-five-years coastal flood will come five times a year, a recent government study determined. By 2060, the number of coastal communities facing chronic flooding from rising seas could double to about 180, even if we rapidly cut emissions, according to a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists. If we don't slash emissions, that number could be 360.

• The costs from this inundation will be tremendous. One study,published in the journal Science in June, found that rising seas and more powerful tropical storms will cost the nation an additional 0.5 percent of GDP annually by 2100. Another, by the real estate firm Zillow, estimated that a rise of 6 feet by 2100 would inundate nearly 1.9 million homes worth a combined $882 billion. ...

• The Trump administration, however, has revoked or withdrawn at least six federal programs or orders intended to help make the nation's infrastructure more resilient to rising seas and climate change. That includes an executive order signed by President Barack Obama in 2015 that expanded the federal floodplain to account for climate change projections and limited or controlled any federal infrastructure spending within that zone. Trump revoked the order in August. Trump also disbanded a panel that was trying to help cities adapt to climate change.

  https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28122017/sea-level-rise-coastal-citie...

Despite the ever growing evidence that the damage caused by climate change is already occurring and exponentially increasing, the Canadian Liberal government has lowered the proposed carbon taxes on large emitters. Environmentalists have unanimously condemned the Liberal government. But what else would one expect from a party that campaigned heavily on dealing with climate change in the 2015 election and then announced it was adopting Harper's weak climate targets (https://torontosun.com/2016/09/18/trudeau-adopts-harpers-climate-targets...)?

It is already impossible for the Liberals to meet the 2020 Canadian carbon dioxide emission targets and this means they won't be able to meet the 2030 targets that they agreed to in Canada's Climate Action Plan   (the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change) and our internationally binding Paris Agreement commitment.

The Liberal government is curtailing its plan to price carbon pollution after hearing concerns from Canadian industry officials about how the tax would affect their ability to compete. As the Globe and Mail first reported Wednesday morning, Environment and Climate Change Canada plans to release new guidelines that lower the percentage of emissions on which some polluters will have to pay the carbon tax. ...

They should see their tax bill decline substantially, and some of the most efficient could find themselves paying no carbon tax at all. The worst polluters, whose emissions far exceed the average in their industries, will see their carbon tax liability shrink too, but their tax savings will be proportionately much smaller. ...

The move was not welcomed by environmentalists. The David Suzuki Foundation issued a statement saying it undermines carbon pricing and "put(s) industry and citizen progress on climate action at risk." ...

"It's a disappointment not just for groups like Greenpeace, but I think it should be a disappointment for every Canadian," said Keith Stewart, head of Greenpeace Canada's climate and energy campaign.  "If we are slowing down our climate plan, if we are not going to reach the commitments that we promised we would take to change our economy, then we all pay that price."

NDP MP Peter Julian said the decision means that Canada won't be able to meet its climate commitments under the 2015 Paris accord. "The capitulation to Doug Ford this week means, essentially, that Canada will not be playing the role it needs to play in climate change leadership so that we can mitigate the impacts of climate change," he said.

The move was welcomed by conservative politicians in Canada, including Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe. Speaking on CBC News Network's Power & Politics Wednesday, Moe said he wants to see the policy repealed entirely because "watered down poison is still poison."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberals-carbon-price-lower-1.4769530

In 2017, Hurricanes Harvey hit Texas, Irma hit Florida, and Maria hit Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands causing catastrophic damage. These three hurricanes of the most recent hurricane season rank among the most expensive in US history even when inflation is taken into account, raising the question of what will future hurricane seasons bring?

The three big hurricanes of 2017 — Harvey, Irma and Maria — are now three of the five costliest hurricanes in U.S. history, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced this week.

The storms brought widespread death and destruction to Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

While 2005's Katrina remains the costliest hurricane on record at $160 billion, last year's Hurricane Harvey ranks second, with damage costs of $125 billion.

Hurricane Maria ranks third at $90 billion, and Irma ranks fifth at $50 billion. With damages of $70 billion, 2012's Sandy has been pushed down to fourth place. Sandy was popularly labeled a "superstorm" as it neared landfall despite being a hurricane for nearly its entire life cycle. (On this list, the damage costs of both Katrina and Sandy are adjusted for inflation.)

NOAA said the dollar amounts are "the estimated total costs of these events — that is, the costs in terms of dollars that would not have been incurred had the event not taken place. Insured and uninsured losses are included in damage estimates."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2018/01/30/2017-s-three-monster-h...

This week the Republican Puerto Rican government estimated the additional number of deaths brought about by 2017's Hurricane Maria as 1,427 during the last year, an astronomical rise from the official toll of 64. This is due to the failure of the Trump government to deal promptly with the extensive damage caused by the hurricane. The Puerto Rican government is asking Congress for $139 billion (increased from the $90 billion estimate of 2017 mentioned above) in a reconstruction plan for the island. Remember, as we are on the eve of another hurricane season, that this is the estimated rebuilding costs from one hurricane.

Puerto Rico is estimating in a report to Congress that Hurricane Maria killed more than 1,400 people, though an island official said Thursday that the confirmed toll remains frozen at 64 pending a scientific review due out soon.

The government, relying on updated statistics it first reported in June, said in a report to Congress detailing a $139 billion reconstruction plan that there were 1,427 more deaths from September to December 2017 than the average for the same time period over the previous four years.

The territory's government said that the additional deaths resulted from the effects of a storm that led to a "cascading failures" in infrastructure across the island of 3.3 million people. The administration of Gov. Ricardo Rossello stopped updating its official death toll months ago and ordered an investigation amid reports that the number was substantially undercounted. ...

The figure of more than 1,400, Pesquera said, "is simple math" based on the number of excess deaths. "This is not the official number of deaths attributable to Hurricane Maria," he said.

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/08/09/world/americas/ap-cb-puerto-...

The swift and extensive response of the Trump government to the Florida and Texas hurricanes compared to the slow and small-scale response to the Puerto Rican hurricane raises the question of how race and poverty will affect climate change disasters not only in the US but around the world. 

With more frequent and more intense hurricanes predicted due to climate change, can the staggering costs associated with climate change continue to be ignored?

The summer of 2018 is setting temperature records around the world. 

The summer of temperature extremes just keeps going, with record heat waves this month on all four continents that occupy the non-tropical Northern Hemisphere where it is now summer.

On Monday, Japan recorded a temperature never before reached on the island nation since reliable records began in the 1800s.  Kumagaya, a city only 40 miles from Tokyo, hit 41.1 degrees Celsius (106 degrees Fahrenheit) in the midst of a multiweek heat wave that has killed at least 44 people.

The extreme temperatures are also affecting other countries in East Asia: South and North Korea have set heat records with temperatures climbing near 40 C (104 F).

It is these types of heat waves that scientists have been warning would be a consequence of warming the planet through greenhouse gas emissions. ...

Much of Europe has been baking under a massive high-pressure ridge that is allowing tropical heat to climb all the way to the Arctic and blocking cooling rainfalls from ending the stretch of hot weather. 

Temperatures above 32 C extended to the northern reaches of Scandinavia, setting records in Sweden, Finland and Norway for stations above the Arctic Circle. 

The result has been a string of unprecedented wildfires in Sweden that have prompted the country to request assistance from other nations such as Italy, with more resources to fight wildfires. 

The United Kingdom is off to its driest start to a summer, according to the Met Office, and it has been one of the hottest on record, coming in just 0.1 C behind the average temperature during the hottest summer on record in the UK, which averaged 21 C in 1976.  The heat wave is ongoing, with a "level three heat-health watch" issued for much of south and east England through this week as temperatures will climb in to the 30s Celsius through Friday. ...

In Northern Africa's Sahara Desert, certainly no stranger to sweltering temperatures, a record high was recorded July 5 in Ouargla, Algeria. The mark of 51.3 C (124 F) is the highest temperature ever reliably recorded on the African continent, according to the World Meteorological Organization. ...

In the United States, July heat waves have stretched from the highly populated Northeast to the desert Southwest. ...

An exceptional stretch of heat in Dallas-Fort Worth has brought four consecutive days with record highs, hitting 108 or 109 F each day (42 to 43 C). 

July has seen 41 heat records set across the United States -- but zero record minimums.  This lopsided tally has become the norm, as climate change has tipped the scales so far in the direction of warmer temperatures.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/23/world/global-heatwaves-climate-change-wxc...

British Columbia is facing another intense wildfire year. So far in 2018 the province has had 1500 wildfires compared to a ten year average of 1,100.

Last year, B.C. erupted in what was, for the province, an unprecedented wildfire season. An area twice the size of Prince Edward Island burned, leaving at least one neighbourhood in ashes. But it wasn’t a fluke, just like it wasn’t when flames ripped through Slave Lake, Alta., seven years ago.

Back then wildfire expert Mike Flannigan predicted it would happen again, and it did. In 2016, fire tore through Fort McMurray leaving destruction in its wake. A year later it was B.C.

It will keep happening, said Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at the University of Alberta.

On average, a total of 2.5 million hectares burns every year in Canada. That’s an area half the size of Nova Scotia. And, some models suggest that could double or even quadruple by the end of the century, he said. “But who knows, they could be all wrong. Things could be much worse than what we think.”

Last year “will be remembered as one of the worst wildfire seasons that British Columbia has ever seen,” Turcot said. The fires forced more than 65,000 people to evacuate, he said. Fire suppression itself cost more than $568 million. ...

The average area burned in Canada each year almost doubled since the ’70s and human-caused climate change is a major factor. The jet stream, which drives the day-to-day weather, is changing with the climate. It’s becoming more like a “lazy river” meaning extreme weather — including extreme fire conditions — is lasting longer, Flannigan said.

The jet stream gets its energy from the temperature difference between the equator and the Arctic. With Arctic areas warming more quickly than the equator, the jet stream is losing energy. It matters for fires because the atmospheric air current determines high- and low-pressure zones. The lows cause air to rise, cool and condense into rain. In high pressure zones the air warms and dries as it sinks. For wildfires, it’s the highs, or ridges, that are a problem.

https://www.thestar.com/vancouver/2018/06/19/for-bc-fire-and-flood-disas...

While the Ford government introduces the Cap and Trade Cancelation Act in order to pull Ontario out of the cap and trade market and cancels 758 renewable energy contracts, the number and intensity of forest fires around the province reflect just one of the problems high carbon-dioxide-levels bring about in the form of climate change.

Another such problem is reflected in the flooding create by the massive downpour in Toronto this week. This is because "Warmer air can contain more water vapor than cooler air. Global analyses show that the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere has in fact increased over both land and oceans. ... Climate change also alters dynamical characteristics of the atmosphere that in turn affect weather patterns and storms." (https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/our-changing-climate/heavy-downp...)

ETA: Unfortunately, much of the MSM reports climate change problems, such as this, in Ontario and around the globe as disaster porn with compelling and even tragic pictures and video but little or no mention of global warming. 

"This government has completely stopped climate action ... if it wanted to bring in another climate plan, it could have continued with the previous until it had a new one in place. Irresponsibly they decided to stop all action," said NDP energy, environment and climate change critic Peter Tabuns. "What I've seen so far is a complete dereliction of duty." ...

Climate change experts say the Ontario government's move to pull out of cap-and-trade and the carbon tax, and cancel green energy contracts will have long-term effects on the environment beyond their tenure in power.

"It's more than a drop in the bucket. It's quite threatening," said York University professor Dr. ​Carla Lipsig-Mumme. "It undermines the whole country. The causes of climate change don't stop at the borders of provinces or countries." 

Lipsig-Mumme said Tuesday's storm is a "wake-up call" that provinces need to be more proactive on slowing the creation of greenhouse gases.  "What is happening to us now was caused a while ago, but we do have real things we can do now," said Lipsig-Mumme.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/floods-toronto-climate-change-1.4...