Currently viewing the tag: "Climate change"
Canada is planning to make a claim to the geographic North Pole. Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants Canadian scientists to change a submission to the UN to that effect. Rightly so, say some. But according to others, a Canadian claim to the North Pole is doomed to fail.
In Texas and other U.S. states, opposition is growing against a proposed pipeline to transport heavy crude oil from the Canadian tar sands to refineries along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Proponents of the Keystone XL project see economic growth, critics fear an oil spill and warn of pollution.
In the town of Churchill, on the shore of Canada’s Hudson Bay, people and polar bears live closely together. Because of climate change, the polar bear population is under pressure. Bears that wander into the village are not killed, but captured and moved away. That’s good for polar bears and for tourism.
The Inuit of northern Canada experience the effects of global warming on a daily basis. Environmental activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee along with former U.S. vice-president Al Gore, warns climate change poses a threat to the cultural survival of her people. “We are the early warning for the rest of the world.”
One of the most noticeable effects of global warming is the large-scale melt of sea ice in the Arctic. Simon Nattaq, an Inuit hunter, experienced the effects of climate change in a tragic way. The ice is no longer the same, he says in Nunavut’s capital Iqaluit.
An exceptionally mild winter has helped propel the issue of climate change to the top of the political agenda in Canada. With the appointment of a new Environment Minister, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is hoping to make a fresh start on environmental policy, the Achilles heel of his government.
The Inuit of northern Canada suffer the consequences of global warming first-hand. The sea ice is becoming impassable and traditional hunting areas are getting smaller. “For us, climate change is something that we live with every day.”
Canada is about to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Ever since the unilateral rejection of the climate treaty by the Bush administration, Canada is in a tough spot, says Environment Minister David Anderson. “Kyoto is very uneven, but it’s a start, and at the moment it’s the best we […]
Nederlands 
English 