Extreme weather « Transition Brockville

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Tag : Extreme weather (126)

Managing Climate Change and Variability Risks in the Great Lakes Region

GLISA / 2016

GLISA supports the region, as it charts its future, facing multiple and simultaneous changes and uncertainties. The Great Lakes region represents a unique socio-ecological system. Bound by the Lakes that shape both its culture and natural resources, Great Lakes communities have experienced dramatic changes in the past five decades, including deep economic downturn, population shifts, and negative environmental impacts. While climate change impacts are projected to exacerbate some of these challenges, leaders in the region are increasingly committed to a sustainable future by leveraging opportunities to mitigate climate impacts and adaptively respond to them.

As a boundary organization, GLISA produces and integrates information from a wide array of scientific fields, helps develop collaborations among stakeholders and organizations with similar goals, and provides climate information to support decision makers throughout the eight Great Lakes states and the province of Ontario.

[ FULL REPORT ]

Climate crisis fills top five places of WEF’s risks report

The Guardian / Larry Elliott / 15 January 2020

A year of extreme weather events and mounting evidence of global heating have catapulted the climate emergency to the top of the list of issues worrying the world’s elite.

The World Economic Forum’s annual risks report found that, for the first time in its 15-year history, the environment filled the top five places in the list of concerns likely to have a major impact over the next decade.

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

Floods, freezing rain and high winds: are you really ready?

Toronto Star / Carola Vyhnak / 02 January 2020

Whether you live in a house, condo or apartment, “there’s no one who doesn’t have some sort of risk,” Fraser said. “I can’t emphasize enough how important it is for every family and individual to be prepared.”

The emergency plan should include steps to get everyone out safely, a meeting place and means of communicating with displaced family members, says Fraser, calling the Red Cross’s “Be Ready” app a “critical” tool.

With winter’s snow and ice storms threatening power outages, Fraser advised equipping a grab-and-go kit with enough water, food, cash and prescription medication for 72 hours. It should also contain copies of important documents, a battery or hand-cranked radio, phone charger, flashlight and batteries, candles, matches, a can opener, and a book or playing cards to pass the time.

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

Building code being modernized to address climate change

CBC News / 01 January 2020

When storm winds howl and rivers flood, buildings take the brunt.

And as climate change makes all kinds of extreme weather more frequent and more destructive, scientists at the National Research Council are trying to figure out how to ensure Canada’s built environment is ready.

“We’re going to see change in the way we’re designing new buildings to help prevent the spread of wildfire, prevent the damage from flooding,” said Marianne Armstrong, who manages the council’s research effort.

“We want to create a culture of thinking about resiliency.”

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

Lake Erie residents reckoning with worsening shoreline erosion

CBC News / Ellen Mauro / 06 December 2019

O’Brien lives on Erie Shore Drive, a stretch of road near Chatham-Kent in southwestern Ontario that was originally built as a dyke.

It’s prone to flooding, but O’Brien and her neighbours aren’t alone in their struggle. Many communities along Lake Erie have faced a challenging combination over the past year: record-high water levels and significant erosion of the shoreline.

This double whammy has caused property sizes to shrink as the lake swallows land, and has forced some homeowners to make the painful decision to either continue to try save and their lots or abandon them.

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

Mental health expertise meets sandbags in building resilience

The Energy Mix / 04 December 2019

It was judicious use of mental health expertise, along with many, many sandbags, that enabled Fargo, North Dakota to weather the challenges of the epic 2009 Red River flood.

That was one of the experiences that pointed to a basic precondition for building communities’ ability to face the climate emergency: Recognizing climate change as a profound threat to mental health, responding with messages of “hopeful realism” and ongoing compassion, particularly for older adults and children, and helping communities acquire the psychological and social resilience to cope.

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

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