Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
Rising global temperatures are causing harmful algal blooms in the Great Lakes which can lead to the emergence of three toxins in the water, according to the past president of the International Ozone Association. Saad Jasim, an adjunct professor at the University of Windsor, is preparing for a new research project to prevent these toxins from entering the drinking water supply.
There is a complex, counterintuitive relationship between rising global temperatures and the likelihood of increasingly intense snowstorms across Canada. Winters are becoming on average milder and warmer than they used to be, but there has also been a noted rise across the country in extreme weather events, such as intense snowstorms, said John Clague, a professor of geosciences at Simon Fraser University, in Burnaby, B.C.People might think it illogical that parts of the country are seeing more snowstorms as the climate warms, he said. “What climate modelers are finding is that climate change involves more frequent extremes.”
