Industrial Pollution Costs Cattle Producers Access to a River in Saskatchewan, Canada.

The Western Producer

Several cattle producers along the Wood River in south-central Saskatchewan have to move about 1,000 head to different pastures after water quality in the river declined unexpectedly. Story here.

Extreme heat warnings issued in Europe as temperatures pass 40C

TheGuardian

PinP photo.

Authorities in 11 countries warn residents and tourists to take precautions amid region’s most intense heatwave – nicknamed Lucifer – since 2003. Story here.

THE FUTURE IS HERE FOR THE NEW GOVERNMENT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

Sierra Club of BC

A wildfire in the Okanagan region of BC a few years ago, from space. NASA.

Record-breaking wildfires and heat waves are a reminder that we have little time to save nature, phase out fossil fuels and leap to a low-carbon economy, all at the same time. Story here.

'The damage is done': Home electricity meters exploding, starting fires in Sask. drought

CBCnews

Regina's driest July in 130 years also threatening livestock, crops and farmers' livelihoods. Story here.

Climate change to cause humid heatwaves that will kill even healthy people

theguardian

Drought-affected area in Karnataka,_India,_2012 - Photo by Pushkarv

If warming is not tackled, levels of humid heat that can kill within hours will affect millions across south Asia within decades, analysis finds Story here.

Blue-Green Algae Fouling Lake Winnipeg Beaches Again 2017

H2O: Ideas & Action for Canada's Water

A blog about the Lake Winnipeg Watershed 

The hot summer weather in Manitoba has brought along another reminder that all is not well in our great Lake Winnipeg, the 10th largest freshwater lake in the world. Story here.

New Studies Show - Goals of Paris Climate Accord Unlikely to be Achieved. by Larry Powell

Wildfires in Portugal. Wikimedia Commons.

Two new studies paint a sobering picture for the future of the Earth in a changing climate.

One report by a team of American scientists estimates there’s only a five percent chance that global warming can be kept below 2 degrees celsius by 2100. On the other hand, there’s a 95 percent likelihood the increase will be more like 2 to 4.9 degrees! That upper range would generally be considered by many experts as catastrophic for life on earth. And it would clearly represent a failure of the Paris Climate Accord. 

That agreement, signed last year, commits almost 200 member countries, including Canada, to limit the increase to “well under 2 degrees” above pre-industrial levels. Achieving that goal, adds the study, “will require carbon intensity to decline much faster than in the recent past.”

The second study (done jointly by a researcher with the Max Planck Institute in Germany and another from the University of Colorado), makes similar findings. Future warming, which “will likely exceed 1.5 degrees” is inevitable even in “the unreasonably optimistic scenario of an abrupt halt to fossil-fuel emissions.” That’s because of carbon dioxide emissions already in the atmosphere from our long-standing reliance on oil, gas and coal. And neither the ability of the ocean to absorb excess heat, nor the presence of aerosols in the air, will be enough to offset that net increase in temperature. Aerosols are tiny, manmade particles which tend to cool the planet. In that unlikely event of a sudden end to fossil fuel burning, those particles would quickly wash out of the atmosphere. But the C02 would remain. 

A leading US environmentalist, Bill McKibben told CNN, "These studies are part of the emerging scientific understanding that we're in even hotter water than we'd thought. We're a long ways down the path to disastrous global warming, and the policy response - especially in the US has been pathetically underwhelming."

Both studies were published this week in the prestigious journal, “Nature - Climate Change.”

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