Climate change bomb has already gone off says NWT premier

[GliderGuider]

Climate change bomb has already gone off says NWT premier

OTTAWA – The premier of the Northwest Territories doesn’t see climate change as a ticking time bomb _ in his part of the country, it’s already gone off.

Canada’s North is at the forefront of climate change and its effects can be seen with the naked eye on a daily basis, Bob McLeod said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

Warmer temperatures have led to a host of changes, including a shifting tree line, problems with the territory’s winter road network and significant impacts on the caribou population, McLeod said.

“I could go on and on,” he said. “We have permafrost … that’s melting. It is affecting our buildings and our housing so we have to change our building techniques.”

Climate change has also contributed to the disappearance of certain fish species, McLeod noted. “We are seeing wildlife species foreign to this area … moving further north from the south like cougar and whitetail deer.”

What does it mean again when the ticking stops?

[callous taoboy]

1. I used to live in Alaska- It had been 5 years since I visited

when I went up about 4 years ago. It was June (typically still pretty chilly in June up there), and walking out to my friend's car it was just hot. Also, the pine bark beetle infestation had definitely worsened as I looked out and saw lots of dead wood on the mountains.

[Bigmack]

4. A few years ago we drove thru northern British Columbia - the pine bark beetle

devastation of the pine trees up there was even THAN unbelievable. We must have seen thousands of acres of dead pine trees. Scary. Ms. Bigmack

[Hortensis]

2. I don't know, but the bomb already went off in

my garden. Gardeners watched this happen long before most were aware of it.

I love lush, mostly green foliage gardens, but I also spent years learning how to create a succession of events and bloom periods starting in late winter and continuing to hard freeze in the fall. The art I struggled to develop is largely a thing of the past.

Erratic as the weather always was, in my southern Piedmont garden bizarrely unseasonable winter temperatures now usually start leaves and flower buds growing much too early, freezes then kill them, then summer-type heat and undependable rains finish off delicate spring flowers before they come into bloom, while hurrying summer flower into bloom, and then in many years the heat is just too much for that summer bloom also. Plants that are supposed to come into flower months apart sometimes bloom weakly at the same time but not as long and extravagantly as they once did.

In as many years as not, leaves are and look heat- and often drought-stressed long before fall comes, warm temperatures extending into the fall continue the stress while killing the spectacular fall color we planted so carefully, and still the tired dulled leaves hang on if they can (many drop early) months before the landscape should turn to winter gray and begin readying itself for the spring.

Visitors who don't garden much compliment me on what they see, admire daffodils and roses, but they have no idea what's already been lost and won't return in our lifetimes.

And, of course, this is just a garden. Whole nations are losing their farmland and drinking water.

[CrispyQ]

3. What a hauntingly sad post.

But thank you for sharing.

[malokvale77]

5. Yes...

this is my experience also.

Thank you for stating it so well.

[Duppers]

6. I see the same happening in my garden.

We are changing our landscapes forever. The realization is crushing.

[truedelphi]

7. People here condemn Republicans for not accepting the theory of Climate Change.

Yet to stop Climate Change dead in its tracks, each and every one of us would have to give up devices we supposedly can no longer live without, especially cell phones.

The non-ionizing radiation coming off the cell phone tower antennae and the cell phones themselves gets carried up into the atmosphere and then attaches to the magnetic band of energy surrounding the earth.

I' m forgetting the scientific reason why this radiation then is more attracted to the Northern portion of the magneto sphere, than that of the South Pole, but it does seem to be the case.

So are people here willing to divest themselves of their iPads and iPhones, and their "Droid" devices? Probably not, as it is easier to complain about people from the other party than to think about how we ourselves are screwing things up!

[MisterP]

8. that's ... not what's driving global warming ...

[Nihil]

9. If you'd talked about cellphones/iPads/etc and resource exploitation or pollution ...

... then you would have had a point.

Consumer electronics - and especially the "gotta get the latest model" idiocy - is
both ravaging some third world countries due to mineral extraction/exploitation and
polluting others with the "disposal" of the unwanted "obsolete" items.
That is something that all iPad/iPhone/Android/WTFever users need to own and think
about - yes, including computers & TVs too - and consider the first two of the 3 Rs:
Reduce & Re-use.

As it is, your post is just a big combined with more than a little ...

[truedelphi]

13. When I have dcomplained about the planetary resources, the slave labor and

all the other odious aspects of cell phone ownership, no one here ever responds.

Nothing wrong with slave labor, as long as it is young Chinese doing it!

[Nihil]

14. ... which still has SFA to do with Climate Change (the subject of the OP thread). (n/t)

[truedelphi]

15. Look up topic of atmospheric heating, Bernard Eastlund's patents and then

Get back to me. (And not immediately, as a decent investigation into this phenomena will take you time. I have been looking into this subject since 2001 and still am learning things. Published an article that got world wide attention back in 2002.)

Also consider this: at international conferences, biologists and other researchers are deploring the effects of the Microwaving of our entire atmosphere, from the area right next to our ears, to the upper atmospheres.

Birds can no longer migrate successfully, on account of how the electro-magnetic smog is throwing off their ability to navigate.

Same with bees.

[GliderGuider]

10. And then there's Acid Mine Drainage as well...

There Is a New Climate Change Disaster Looming in Northern Canada

For decades, mine operators in Northern Canada have stored waste rock and tailings waste—the "pulverized rock slurry" byproduct of mineral processing that's filled with skeevy chemicals like arsenic, lead, and mercury—in frozen dams reinforced with permafrost, an option far cheaper than constructing artificial structures to house the goop. But if such walls thaw, allowing air and water to interact with the highly reactive tailings, widespread "acid mine drainage" (AMD) could occur. Such a process can generate sulphuric acid and result in the leaching of heavy metals into nearby soil and water sources.

"Permafrost degradation is going to affect everything," says Magdalena Muir, research associate at the University of Calgary's Arctic Institute of North America. "When you have frozen infrastructure, you don't have to build an artificial structure and probably get used to not having to worry too much about breaches. But as soon as you have soil that behaves just like any other soil, you have all the issues you'd have in southern Canada."

The Canadian mining sector produces around one million tons of waste rock and 950,000 tons of tailings per day. As a result, the prospect of widespread AMD could be disastrous for the Canadian North: such scenarios would obviously be nightmares to contain, with the remoteness and cold climate seriously impeding cleanup. Think the Deepwater Horizon of the Arctic, except not nearly as visible and minus the dead dolphins to draw attention to the disaster. And like methane bubbling out of the permafrost, the situation only gets worse as it unfolds.

"Once a chemical process is underway—let's say, the oxidization of mining waste and leaching of heavy metals and acid drainage—it's much, much harder to stop that chemical process than just preventing it from the outset," says Ugo Lapointe, Canadian coordinator for MiningWatch. "It has its own momentum once it starts. Also, the plume of contamination downstream or underground are much harder to clean up and control once it starts, it's very, very costly."

What can one say about a species that fouls its planetary home this badly?

Tool monkeys, fuck yeah!

[hatrack]

11. Oops!

Not getting any smarter out there, is it?

[GliderGuider]

12. Neither smarter nor wiser, it would appear. nt

[hatrack]

16. Coming soon to a cable network near you: Slush Road Truckers!

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