Canada must prepare for climate change.

According to a report by Canada’s forest ministers, the coming effects of global warming include an increased probability of forest fires and ice storms and the spread of tree-eating insects due to warmer temperatures. As Canada is also home to 10% of the world’s forests, the report also suggested that Canada designate some of her forests as carbon sinks to naturally capture CO2 emissions, thus reducing greenhouse gases.

At the Bangkok Climate Conference currently taking place in Thailand at the United Nations, where governments and organizations are meeting to sign a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas reduction, Supreme Master Television spoke with Dale Marshall, climate policy analyst from the David Suzuki Foundation. This organization was co-founded by renowned environmentalist Dr. David Suzuki.

How has climate change affected the people in Canada, just this year?

Dale Marshall :  Canada being a northern country is warming much quicker than the rest of the world.  We’re having impacts on the Arctic environment, on indigenous people that live in the Arctic.  But we also have impacts across Canada.  We have increased droughts on the prairies; the rivers that are there are reducing the amount of water that is flowing through them so there is a lot less water available for natural ecosystems.  Even the water in the great lakes, an incredible source of fresh water, the levels are dropping and Lake Superior, the largest lake in the world, we have lake levels that are dropping.  We have insect infestations because we don’t have cold winters in British Columbia.  We have an insect infestation that has killed half the pine trees in British Columbia. We’re going to experience many, many more changes over the years, especially if we don’t do something. 

Canada finds “superbug” in pork products.

After discovering the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in Canadian pigs, Dr. Scott Weese of Ontario Veterinary College tested pork products in four Canadian provinces for the so-called superbug. On average, 10% of the products tested positive for MRSA, with the highest rate being 33% in one province. MRSA can develop into a staph infection, which may cause a difficult-to-heal boil, pneumonia, or a potentially deadly bloodstream infection. Other known diseases related to pork consumption include human Trichinellosis, Salmonella, E. Coli, Cysticerocosis, Cryptosporidiosis, Taenia solium (human tapeworm from pork), SARS, and Yersinia enterocolitica. The production of pork for humans is also a cause of livestock-based global warming.

UK climate change expert says go veg to save the planet.

Dr. Chris Rapley, Director of London’s Science Museum and former Antarctic survey leader, was awarded the Scotland’s Edinburgh Medal in recognition of his scientific contributions to the understanding and well-being of humanity. During his talk, which focused on human contributions to global warming due to their use of carbon-based energy, Dr. Rapley also advocated a change in our eating habits. He stated that vegetarianism uses far less energy than a meat-based diet and is therefore a key aspect of the climate change solution. 

Carbon dioxide emissions.

In a new research commentary published on April 3 in Nature magazine, scientists pointed out that stabilization of CO2 levels in the atmosphere will require much more “radical ‘decarbonization’” efforts than are currently being undertaken. This is due in part to rising global energy demands as well as a lower than expected rate of development for renewable energy technologies.

To learn more about carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas whose levels are determining climate change, Supreme Master Television speaks with Dr. David Archer, Professor of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago in the US.

Professor of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago, USA

Supreme Master Television correspondent in Thailand:  What is the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air right now and what was it before we noticed that there was global warming going on?

Dr. David Archer: The concentration in the year 1750; nobody could measure concentrations then but we have bubbles of ancient air trapped in ice cores so we can measure. We can know that at that time before human activity, the concentration of carbon dioxide was about 280 parts per million. So out of a million molecules of air, 280 of them were carbon dioxide. And now we’ve gone all the way to 380. The ice core data that tells about the value in 1750 or in the ice age now goes back 800,000 years and the CO2 concentration today is much higher than it’s ever been throughout that 800,000 year time period.

Based on the Earth’s history, scientists know that carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere and in the ocean. Once accumulated, it takes an exceedingly long time for the Earth’s climate to regain its equilibrium.

Is there a certain number, a concentration level that once we reach we’ll see catastrophic events?

Dr. David Archer: I personally think that we’ve already passed a danger limit. The amount of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has been decreasing over the years but then in 2007 it just crumbled. And the earthquake activity and the acceleration of the flowing ice in Greenland, I think these are signs that we are already in dangerous territory. So far the earth has warmed about 0.7 degrees C and even if the CO2 concentration in the air were to stop rising today and just stay at 380 forever, the temperature of the Earth would continue to rise to about 1 degree C. If we want to avoid warming more than 2 degrees C, we have to freeze the emission of carbon dioxide so industry has to stop growing. It has to start going down or else we will exceed a dangerous temperature change of 2 degrees C. 2 degrees C would be warmer than the Earth has been in millions of years.

It is becoming more evident that immediate actions must take place to halt global warming. One of the quickest ways to take action is to stop our own consumption of meat, as meat production has been found to be one of the major emitters of harmful carbon emissions.

Dr. David Archer: It’s very clear that when you grow grain and then feed it to animals and then eat the animals, you lose 90% of the energy from the original grain, and so not only can you feed fewer people on the agriculture that you have but as they discovered, it also requires a lot more fossil fuel energy to make that happen.

We thank Dr. Archer for the insights you have shared on carbon dioxide levels and how urgent the situation is that we face today. May wisdom guide us to make more rapid changes toward a plant-based diet and sustainable energies, for the brighter future of our planet and all her inhabitants.

Please tune in to Supreme Master Television's show, Planet Earth: Our Loving Home, on Wednesday for the full interview with Dr. David Archer, Professor of Geophysical Sciences, to hear more about climate change and potent greenhouse gasses that are creating it.