Get Yer Thumb Out.


Species migration - check. Pest migration and proliferation - check and double-check. Ocean acidification - check. Record wildfires - check. Record heat waves and heat domes - check and check.  Atmospheric rivers and severe flood events - check, check.

These things are the face of climate change. They're today's British Columbia. They bring a message: worse is coming.

Experts are hesitant to link any single weather event directly to climate change, but scientists know warmer air holds more moisture — which means any given storm on a warmer planet will produce more rain.

For every 1 C degree of warming, the air can hold around seven per cent more moisture.

The global temperature has increased by 1.2 C since industrialization, according to the World Meteorological Organization. A 2019 report commissioned by Environment and Climate Change Canada found the country is warming twice as quickly, with British Columbia seeing some of the highest rates of change.

"This is the kind of thing that we certainly expect with climate change — the intensity of the landslides and floods could become worse," said Brent Ward, an earth sciences professor and co-director for the Centre for Natural Hazards Studies.

"We would expect to get more frequent atmospheric rivers" — currents that bring large amounts of water vapour north from the equator —"and when we get these atmospheric rivers, they'll probably be bigger."

Ward said officials at the local and provincial level will need to re-examine preventative planning, flood protection and overall infrastructure through the lens of a changing climate as they move to rebuild communities and repair major highways.

Existing dikes and culverts, he explained, were likely made to outdated climate standards and will be too small to withstand stronger, fiercer storms. The same could go for ditches running alongside critical highways, like Highway 1, which was originally built in the early 1960s.

To the locals, it's obvious: "whether it's fire or floods, we can't continue this way."

There is already talk of food shortages across the Lower Mainland as the area is cut off from the rest of Canada. This might be a good time for Pipeline Johnny to figure out how to use that army of his, the guys he sends to shovel snow, to restore some road links. Or he could get those C-17s on standby to start airlifting emergency supplies to Vancouver airport.

It's a good time for the provincial NDP to take stock and figure out if LNG projects and that Site C dam are really what this province needs right now.

C'mon guys. This stuff didn't come out of nowhere. It's been building for at least a decade, more. You just didn't want to see it lest it make your priorities look stupid, childish. It's like residential schools. Once you locate the graves, there's no hiding it any more.

So, take a few minutes to locate your thumb. Got it? Then pull it out of your ass and deal with all these things you've ignored for much too long.

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