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HO/The Canadian Press
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If you’re reading this on the web or someone forwarded this e-mail newsletter to you, you can sign up for Globe Climate and all Globe newsletters here.
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Good afternoon, and welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada.
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If you’ve been extra sneezy this season, you’re not alone. Across North America, seasonal allergies are getting worse, in large part due to changes in pollen driven by climate change.
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On a recent episode of The Globe’s daily news podcast, The Decibel, Dr. Anne Ellis explained how changes in our weather patterns are affecting pollen seasons, leading to a record pollen count in the last two years. Dr. Ellis, a professor in the department of medicine at Queen’s University, says that higher concentrations of CO2 in the air have also been shown to increase the allergenicity of plants.
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Now, let’s catch you up on other news.
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Noteworthy reporting this week:
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More stories below advertisement
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Canada has a data gap in tracking wildfire risk for vulnerable communities
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Ryan MacDonald is a senior editor at The Globe heading the climate, energy and environment team
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Wildfires illustrate the implications of climate change with dramatic visual impact. This wildfire season, perhaps more than in recent memory, is showcasing something else: Just how close to the woods we’ve built our communities.
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It’s all about the Wooee.
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The wildland-urban interface (WUI, pronounced “woo-ee”) encompasses areas where homes and other structures meet, or are interspersed with, forests and grasslands. It’s estimated that more than 12 per cent of Canadians live within it, as well as nearly one-third of First Nations living on reserves. While the majority of today’s wildfires don’t burn buildings, they are expected to become more frequent and intense in a warming climate.
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And Canada has a problem. We don’t have a clear picture of where Canada’s WUI is expanding.
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Matt, a data journalist at the Globe who has looked extensively at flood mapping in Canada, goes further: “We even lack crucial data inputs, such as high-resolution maps of vegetation and other fire fuels, or detailed records about fires over a sufficiently long time period to capture the variability of fire regimes.”
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These data gaps impede our ability to reduce risk for communities by making crucial planning decisions. If WUI growth continues unchecked, wildfire problems will likely get worse. But the question of how to limit expansion into WUI areas is a prickly one, with growing populations and people’s desire to live close to wooded areas bumping up against wildfire threats.
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Holly Hogan: I spend my days staring at the ocean. Trust me, plastic in our waters is a global crisis
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Tony Keller: Danielle Smith wants a fight with Justin Trudeau. But what if there’s not much to fight about?
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Barry Rueger: Nova Scotia’s forest fires make me wonder if our dreams of a green, rural life were misguided
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One of Greece’s top industrial and power companies is launching a $1.7-billion solar-energy project in Alberta that it says will be the largest of its kind in Canada. Mytilineos SA says all five projects should be fully operational by 2026 or 2027. Once finished, the entire project will have 1.4 gigawatts of capacity, enough to power 200,000 homes.
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Each week The Globe will profile a Canadian making a difference. This week we’re highlighting the work of Dr. Melissa Lem prescribing nature to patients.
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Dr. Melissa Lem
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Handout
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Finding nature growing up, whether it was in my suburban Toronto backyard or camping in national parks, is where my inspiration to connect people to and protect nature first bloomed. Today more than 10,000 health professionals are registered in PaRx, including more than 5 per cent of all physicians in the country. In December, we made history at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) when the Canadian Medical Association became the first national physicians’ association in the world to formally endorse a nature prescription program: our very own PaRx. This January, PaRx was proud to be nominated by McGill University for a prestigious Earthshot Prize, launched in 2020 by Prince William and David Attenborough.
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Whether it’s via climate panel appearances on CBC Radio or more than a decade’s worth of television segments as a medical expert, I know how important it is to take lessons we’ve learned through our lives and convey them to the public simply. And people who are more nature-connected engage in more pro-environmental behaviours – making nature prescriptions not only good for human health, but planetary health too.
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Do you know an engaged individual? Someone who represents the real engines pursuing change in the country? Email us at GlobeClimate@globeandmail.com to tell us about them.
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Palestinians gather on a beach in Gaza City on June 2, 2023, during a heat wave.
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MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images
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Catch up on Globe Climate
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