Globe Climate: Big-wave surfers of Nazaré are helping restore the kelp forest

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Good afternoon, and welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada.

Start your day with a big bite out of this essay titled: I ate a butterfly at a high-end Danish restaurant - and discovered what we’re all hungry for.

Rasmus Munk, head chef and co-owner of the Alchemist restaurant, also started a project called JunkFood when the pandemic closed his restaurant, providing decent meals for the homeless. And he gathers findings from his test kitchen to lessen environmental damage, converting food waste such as the king-crab tail into something tasty enough that the industry might adopt it.

Another project is his cultivation of edible butterflies, seeking a new sustainable protein.

Now, let’s catch you up on other news.

Noteworthy reporting this week:

1. Climate commitments: Rising oil and gas emissions counterbalancing progress toward Canada’s climate goals in other sectors, new estimate shows
2. Energy: Ottawa’s clean electricity regulations put consumers at risk, Alberta’s electricity operator says
3. EV batteries: Sweden’s Northvolt picks Quebec for new multibillion-dollar EV battery factory
4. Urban gardening: Rewilding in the city begins with tree planting, and right now is the prime time to start digging
5. Kelly Cryderman column: Alberta looking to Ontario for an ally on electricity regulations
6. Report on business magazine: Subterra Renewables is bringing geothermal to a condo tower near you
7. From The Narwhal: Nipissing First Nation officials unsettled by tour of North Bay’s new plastics factory

A deeper dive

Seaweed surfers

João Macedo is a big-wave surfer. A renowned one, too, with multiple World Surf League nominations. To be a surfer of his calibre requires a healthy dose of optimism. Innovative equipment. A strategic understanding of the environmental conditions. But most of all, a capacity to embrace risk and pressure in the search for a bigger payoff.

Which makes him perfect for his second career: president and founder of the Hope Zones Foundation, an organization that, among other ocean-centred initiatives, protects marine biodiversity while allowing Portuguese coastal communities to flourish.

Those who spend a lot of time in—and with—the sea witness firsthand the significant challenges affecting marine ecosystems.

For surfing enthusiasts such as Mr. Macedo, his co-founder Moritz Seidel and ambassadors of the foundation, it could be argued that there is no greater accomplishment than to help preserve their very own playing field. In the waters of Portuguese surf haven Nazaré, the team has launched a bold new experiment in seaweed reforestation.

The kelp forests in Portugal are particularly threatened by coastal pollution, including sediment that’s pumped into the sea by various infrastructure projects, as well as frequent heat waves, invasive species, bottom trawling from fisheries, and rising temperatures and intense meteorological events related to climate change, according to Jan Verbeek, the scientific manager at SeaForester, a company whose aim is to replant seaweed forests around the world.

Kelp is not to be underestimated: In addition to fostering biodiversity, it also plays a key role in CO2 absorption, and represents an alternative source of food and protein.

Read the full story and see the great pictures, all from Catherine Canac-Marquis.

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What else you missed

• No new oil, coal projects needed as fossil-fuel demand to peak this decade, IEA report says
• Ontario PCs vow to enshrine Greenbelt boundaries in law, but block NDP bill
• New York area under state of emergency after storms flood subways, strand people in cars
• Brazil’s Amazon rainforest faces a severe drought that may affect around 500,000 people
• Clean electricity regs can be tweaked, but no special deal for Alberta: Guilbeault
• Swiss glaciers lose 10% of volume in worst two years on record
• Wind power industry drifts off course as perfect storm of issues affects dozens of projects
• ‘Unprecedented’ climate trial kicks off at rights court in Strasbourg
• Fly responsibly? Airlines face a storm over climate claims
• U.S. power grids must adapt to rapid electrification, operators say
• A year after Fiona, a traumatized Newfoundland town backs away from the sea
• Landmark Toronto hotel sees net-zero retrofit
• Britain gives go-ahead for its biggest new North Sea oil field in years

Opinion and analysis

Jim Cooperman: As an environmentalist, I knew about wildfire risks. But this time, the fire was headed right to my doorstep

Editorial board: How to blend oil and climate

Peter Kuitenbrouwer: Trees burn – of course they do. That doesn’t make them climate-change villains

Green Investing

• Thinking beyond just ‘the green sector’: Why every organization needs workers with sustainability skills throughout their business
• U.S. hopes Europe will join ‘race to the top’ on green subsidies
• Canadian miner IsoEnergy to buy Consolidated Uranium amid clean energy demand boom

Making waves

Each week The Globe will profile a Canadian making a difference. This week we’re highlighting the work of Cynthia Cruickshank making new infrastructure resilient.

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Hi, I’m Cynthia Cruickshank, 42, from Ottawa.

Eight years ago, I spent my first academic sabbatical at CanmetENERGY-Ottawa as a visiting researcher. I wanted to create new training capabilities that would provide students with high quality training in experimental research. On June 1, we celebrated the grand opening of the new Centre for Advanced Building Envelope Research at Carleton. CABER is a world-class lab that will change how we build and renovate buildings. CABER consists of a two-storey guarded hot box and climate chamber. It allows us to simulate indoor and outdoor environments and examine the thermal performance and durability of large residential and commercial walls, and much more. We will partner with builders, manufacturers and renovators to turn this knowledge into innovative products. Research outputs will support regulators as they renew codes and standards for improved energy and environmental performance.

New infrastructure is essential to our sustainability goals. I hope that by building better building envelopes, we can make our homes, schools and places of work more comfortable, durable, and resilient.

- Cynthia

Do you know an engaged individual? Someone who represents the real engines pursuing change in the country? E-mail us at GlobeClimate@globeandmail.com to tell us about them.

Photo of the week

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Guides and Explainers

• Want to learn to invest sustainably? We have a class for that: Green Investing 101 newsletter course for the climate-conscious investor. Not sure you need help? Take our quiz to challenge your knowledge.
• We’ve rounded up our reporters’ content to help you learn about what a carbon tax is and just generally how Canada will change because of climate change.
• We have ways to make your travelling more sustainable and if you like to read, here are books to help the environmentalist in you grow, as well as a downloadable e-book of Micro Skills - Little Steps to Big Change.

Catch up on Globe Climate

• Studying the start of the solar system may teach us about Earth’s future
• To prevent food insecurity, we should look to the ancient past
• Young farmers help each other embrace new techniques to lower emissions
• Going to court to combat climate change

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