It is a sweltering 95 F on the second day of August.
The Weather Network calls for four consecutive days of this heat wave. The blistering sun has heated Europe to its highest temperatures. President Trump volunteered to send fire fighters to Siberia–not as Stalin used to do to get rid of agitators–but to assist in fighting fires. Those Siberian fires are raging across 15,000 square miles and are pumping millions of tons of green house gases into the atmosphere.
Canada, too, has reported a rise in Arctic wildfires this year.
Alaska is experiencing fires across a great deal of the state.
The Washington Post reported on August 2 the Greenland ice sheet had 197 billion tons of water into the North Atlantic in July alone. It is reported that 60 percent of the Greenland ice sheet has seen noticeable melting.
This might not sound all that alarming except that those 197 billion tons of water did raise the ocean height .5 mm.
The disappearance of ice has brought about fires that now are burning into the peat releasing gases long decomposed and now exposed again.
All of these are clear signs that our earthly weather patterns are changing, and it is already impacting the lives of people around the world. People living in coastal areas are the first to experience the changes.
Across Northern Canada, in communities where homes were built on permafrost now are watching as those homes have begun to sink into the soil and experience structural problems.
Global warming is an issue. We might like to tease ourselves into liking the impact of global warming in late January and into February where the thermometer hovers less than 10 C below freezing.
Will global warming be an issue in the upcoming federal election. It appears already to be a factor in the U.S. Democratic debates.
Canada has a small population. Yet on a capita basis as individuals we produce more than our fair share of Greenhouse gases. In Canada our homes account for 11 percent of the greenhouse gases Canadians put into the atmosphere while transportation adds another 25 percent. What are our alternatives?
While all parties agree that global warming is an issue, most Canadians do not have a clear understanding of the steps we should take. Electric vehicles have come a long way in the last decade. Is it possible to drive from Fort Frances to Thunder Bay or Winnipeg on a single electric charge in winter? Can electric heat be as affordable compare to gas heat through the winter?
Although the wood fibre power generating plant in Fort Frances is considered green energy because plant life is renewable, studies have shown that those plants produce as much greenhouse gas as does a coal-fired plant.
Solar energy fields and wind turbines and hydro power plants produce the least greenhouse gas emissions.
What are our solutions?