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avid Suzuki’s
thoughts on our warming world –
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| David Suzuki. |
My hometown,
Vancouver, is in a rainforest, so we celebrate sunny days. People I talk to are
enjoying the recent warm, dry weather, but they invariably add, “This isn’t
normal”—especially with all the smoke from nearby forest fires.
With no mountain
snowpack and almost no spring rain, rivers, creeks and reservoirs are at levels
typically not seen until fall. Parks are brown. Blueberries, strawberries and
other crops have arrived weeks earlier than usual. Wildfires are burning here
and throughout Western Canada. Meanwhile, normally dry Kamloops has had record
flooding, as has Toronto. Manitoba has been hit with several tornadoes and
golf-ball-sized hail.
Unusual weather is
everywhere. California is in its fourth year of severe drought. Temperatures in
Spain, Portugal, India and Pakistan have reached record levels, sparking
wildfires and causing thousands of deaths and heat-related ailments. Heavy
rains, flooding and an unusually high number of tornadoes have caused extensive
damage and loss of life in Texas, Oklahoma and Mexico.
The likely causes are
complex: a stuck jet stream, the Pacific El Niño, natural variation and climate
change. Even though it’s difficult to link all events directly to global
warming, climate scientists have warned for years that we can expect these
kinds of extremes to continue and worsen as the world warms. Some hypothesize
that the strange behaviours of this year’s jet stream and El Niño are related
to climate change, with shrinking Arctic sea ice affecting the former.
Read the EcoWatch story - “David Suzuki: The Realities of a Warming World”.
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