Earth Month is Here

Earth Month takes place in April every year and is an opportunity to raise awareness and advocate for change around the issues most impacting our planet! It surrounds Earth Day on April 22, which after the remarkable 2023 fire season which lasted from late April to late October and impacted the country from coast to coast to coast, feels especially important this year. The window to make changes is closing. The earth is already at a point where damages can no longer be avoided, but human activity and choices can still prevent the “worst-of-the-worst” from happening.

Climate change has already disrupted weather patterns which is leading to more extreme and frequent heatwaves, droughts, and flooding events that directly threaten communities. Many areas are experiencing “sunny day flooding” as rising sea levels cause streets to flood during high tides. In the far North, some entire coastal communities are being moved because the sea level has risen and what used to be permanently frozen ground has thawed to the point where their original location is no longer habitable. Warmer seasons and earlier starts to those seasons are also contributing to rising populations of insect pests that eat a higher share of crop yields, and higher carbon dioxide levels are causing plants to grow faster while decreasing their nutritional content. Flooding, drought, and heatwaves have decimated crops in China and India. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels are threatening rice crops. In the midwestern United States, more frequent and intense rains have caused devastating spring flooding, which delays—and sometimes prevents—planting activities. The ongoing drought in western Canada has made dry riverbeds of once-mighty rivers, the most recent of these being the Nechako River that goes through Prince George, BC. These impacts make it more difficult for farmers to grow crops and sustain their livelihoods. Globally, a 2021 study titled, “Increasing risks of crop failure and water scarcity in global breadbaskets by 2030” claims that the number of ‘staple crop’ failures will be 4.5 times higher by 2030 and 25 times higher by mid-century. The authors state that their analysis points to the world’s top-producing agricultural regions that provide “large quantities of one or more major crops” facing challenges due to climate change and growing water scarcity. That increase in frequency means a major rice or wheat failure every other year, and higher probabilities of soybean and maize failures. (https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac22c1/meta)However, agricultural lands are among the Earth’s largest natural reservoirs of carbon and when farmers use soil health practices like cover crops, reduced tillage, and crop rotations, they can draw carbon out of the atmosphere. These practices also help to improve the soil’s water-holding capacity, which is beneficial as water can be absorbed from the soil by crops during times of drought, and during heavy rainfalls, soil can help reduce flooding and erosion slowing the release of water into streams. From reducing agricultural productivity to threatening livelihoods and homes, climate change is affecting people everywhere. It exacerbates human-caused conflict which results from a scarcity of resources like food and water that become less dependable as growing seasons change and rainfall patterns become less predictable. Many of these impacts are disproportionately affecting low-income, Indigenous, or marginalized communities. For example, in large cities in North America, low-income communities are often hotter during heatwaves, more likely to flood during heavy downpours, and the last to have their power restored after storms. Climate change is affecting our planet in many ways. Average temperatures are increasing; rainfall patterns are shifting; snow lines are retreating; glaciers and ice sheets are melting; permafrost is thawing; sea levels are rising; severe weather such as heatwaves like British Columbia experienced in 2022 are becoming more frequent; and wildfires are burning greater areas as seen by the record-breaking total burned area in Canada last year of approximately 15 million hectares which was more than seven times the historic national average. All of these impacts become more severe the more heat-trapping gases are produced. Climate change is not limited to one country or one geographical space, it affects everyone, but not everyone the same. Around the globe, many of the poorest nations are being impacted first and most severely by climate change, even though they have contributed far less to the carbon pollution that has caused the warming in the first place. Those who have done the least to contribute to the problem often withstand the worst of the impacts and have the fewest resources at their disposal to adapt to it. Adaptation to climate change’s impacts means helping natural and human systems prepare for them. Greening urban spaces helps protect them from heat and floods; architecture designed to provide shade over concrete helps to mitigate heat islands; restoring coastal wetlands helps protect from storm surge; changing ground cover from highly water-dependent grass for lawns to other low-water use plants suitable to that zone. There are many ways to use technology, behavioural change, and nature together to improve resiliency to climate change impacts, but governments and people need to “be on the same page.”

Earth Day Canada is this year launching the national 'Earth Day is Leg Day' Challenge. Since automobiles are one of the biggest contributors to gas emissions in Canada, from now until April 22, Canadians are encouraged to skip the car and instead bike, walk, or bus to work. By logging at least ten ‘sustainable’ commutes (commutes not using a personal internal combustion vehicle) participants will be eligible to win an e-bike, transit passes, and more. To participate download and use the Strava app or go to Earth Day Canada’s website at https://earthday.ca/april-22/campaign/leg-day/)

Carol Baldwin, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Wakaw Recorder