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.
As the financial costs of climate change climb, experts and governments are quickly coming to the consensus that man-made structures won't be enough to protect coastal communities. For biologist Dan Stewart, the answer is obvious, and on a recent overcast day, he was looking at it: from the edge of the Boundary Bay dike, a more than 200 metre-thick band of salt marsh reached out to the sea.
A study by international researchers using a supercomputer at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) has found that most of Western Canada's glaciers will disappear by the year 2100. The study, "Global Glacier Change in the 21st Century: Every Increase in Temperature Matters" was published Thursday in the journal Science. "A child born today will witness the near-complete disappearance of one of western Canada's most iconic symbols glaciers," reads a statement from the university.
Here’s your weekly update with what you need to know about global climate change and the steps B.C. is taking to address the climate and ecological crises for the week of Feb. 14 to Feb. 20, 2022. Study suggests climate change made B.C. floods at least twice as likely. Metro Vancouver talks to climate scientist David Holland in Antarctica. More than half of B.C. residents concerned about climate change, but still prefer gas to cook. Sea level to rise by 2050 as much as in past century, NOAA says
As icebergs drifted by his Antarctica-bound ship, David Holland spoke this week of how the melting glacier he's cruising towards may contain warning signals for the coasts of far-off Canada. The atmospheric and ocean scientist from Newfoundland is part of an expedition to one of the world's most frigid and remote spots -- the Thwaites glacier in the western portion of the continent -- where he'll measure water temperatures in an undersea channel the size of Manhattan.
The damage sustained to Vancouver’s scenic seawall during a storm last week could be a sign of things to come as sea levels continue to rise due to climate change. “We know that we are vulnerable,” Ian Stewart of the Vancouver Park Board told CTV National News. “We are looking at… long-term solutions.” During a fierce Jan. 7 storm, high winds and extreme tides battered the popular Stanley Park Seawall, transforming sections into rubble. Littered with upturned and broken chunks of concrete and debris, much of it remains dangerous and off-limits to visitors, robbing the city of part of what is supposed to be the world’s longest uninterrupted waterfront path.
The latest UN climate report this week raised the alarm over the "irreversible" impacts of climate change, such as rising seas and coastal flooding that we will continue to experience for centuries or longer — even if we stop emitting greenhouse gases and halt global warming now. "We are now committed to some aspects of climate change, some of which are irreversible for hundreds to thousands of years," said Tamsin Edwards, a climate scientist at King's College London and co-author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released Monday. The good news is that some impacts, such the warming of the Earth's surface, can be reversed by removing carbon from the atmosphere — at least in theory.
A new study is using millions of satellite images to generate a clearer picture than ever before of the fate of the world's glaciers. Study co-author Brian Menounos of the University of Northern British Columbia says those glaciers are getting smaller, faster — with those in western North America thinning more quickly than almost any others in the world.
