The Oil Heads and Tar Sanders of Parliament Hill should finally listen up - the impacts of climate change are hitting Canada and they're hitting hard. Even the Conservative Television Network gets it:
A Statistics Canada study of southern Canada's water yield – the amount of water that falls as rain, melts from snow and ice packs and flows through rivers and streams – found that it has declined an average of 8.5 per cent since 1971.
The Statistics Canada study looked at water yields between 1971 and 2004 across southern Canada, where 98 per cent of Canadians live.
Heather Dewar, an analyst for the agency, said water yield does not include large existing bodies of water like the Great Lakes.
"It's all the water that flows into the system," she said in an interview with CTV.ca.
Gary Sprules, a biology professor at the University of Toronto who specializes in the ecology of lakes, said that decline represents a serious shortfall in our water supply.
"I think that's a significant loss," he said. "That's close to 10 per cent in a generation and a half and that's troublesome."
He said much of the loss is likely due to the global warming trend, which has changed spring runoff patterns across the continent. "Global climate change has led to changes in rainfall patterns in our part of the world and the amount and time of ice cover on our lakes and rivers."
Hey Iggy, now do you get it? Climate change, anthropogenic global warming, the earth-changing phenomenon being driven by fossil fuels which, I'm just guessing here, probably includes the world's filthiest fossil fuel - the Athabasca Tar Sands.
Now, personally, I happen to live in the coastal rainforest zone. In fact our Rain Festival is probably going to start in just a couple of weeks and carry on until, say, May or June. So don't worry about us. We're okay for water so long as it stays cold enough to build a healthy snowpack on the local mountains. But as for you mainlanders I guess it's a different story. Oh well, you can't say you weren't warned. Then again your friends to the south are really parched and they figure you've got it good - maybe a bit too good.
2 comments:
There goes that meddlesome Statistics Canada again...
There had better be, some attention payed, to the dwindling clean water supply. We have now have, deformed fish in the Athabasca Lake, from oil leaching, from the dirty tar sands. They also, have now found, oil leaching into the mighty Athabasca River. So, the Athabasca watershed is contaminated. Toxic mine waste, is to be dumped, into Fish Lake. So, that will also leach into the eco system. The Enbridge pipeline, to the Port of Kitimat, crosses hundreds of rivers and streams. Enbridge, is responsible for 12 spills. However, our government is an ass. I want Premier Campbell, to be forced fed, water from a stream, close to Fish Lake. I insist, Harper eats the fish from, Lake Athabasca. Lets put the poison, where their big mouths are.
Post a Comment