Globe Climate: Drone shows are the new fireworks

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

Earlier last week, for a few hours, Toronto took the No. 1 spot for worst air quality in the world, and smoke lingered in the air during Canada Day long weekend.

Thanks to the wildfires that continue burning in Ontario and Quebec, smoke drifted southward into the U.S., reaching cities including Chicago and Detroit. The Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow.gov site marked the air quality categorized as “very unhealthy.”

• Wildfire maps 2023: Tracking fires and air quality across Canada

This summer, don’t forget to read our explainer about how wildfire smoke affects air quality and your health.

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

Noteworthy reporting this week:

1. Coastal waters: First Nation calls on B.C. to restore shellfish harvesting sites closed for decades because of poor water quality
2. Disaster: Tornado leaves trail of destruction in central Alberta
3. Environment: The fight against the green crab invasion of B.C.’s coast
4. On the ground: A day in the life of a Quebec fire crew’s gruelling work to battle blazes
5. Adaptation: With wildfire smoke clouding Canadian cities, Ottawa unveils a climate adaptation plan
6. ESG: Activist investor Bluebell calls for resignation of Glencore CEO over pursuit of Teck Resources
7. Oil and gas: Canada needs to align fiscal policy to manage the decline of oil and gas
8. Energy: Atlantic premiers warn of higher fuel costs with new Clean Fuel Regulations
9. The Narwhal explains: Manitoba’s environment watchdog isn’t sold on a massive silica sand mine – what’s next?

A deeper dive

Drone shows take flight this Canada Day as environmental concerns over fireworks grow

Kate Helmore is a reporter for the Report On Business. For this week’s deeper dive, she talks about how drones are the future of fireworks.

Canada Day usually ends with a bang. From Parliament Hill to small rural towns scattered across the country, a smorgasbord of colour and sound etched across the sky. Blankets on grass, cold beer in a koozie and synchronized “oohing” and “awing”: the perfect start to summer.

But this year, summer began differently.

Forest fires ranged simultaneously across the country, and we scrambled to deal with blazes in places we thought safe. We shipped in bands of international firefighters to help us put out blazes that burned such unimaginably large swaths of forest that the smoke suffocated cityscapes tens of thousands of kilometres away.

Watching our country go up in smoke, it felt like we had entered a new era. Climate change has arrived. And we would have to change with it.

We hear so much about the substantial changes climate change demands: the transition to renewable energy, the transformation of eating habits, the settling of climate refugees. But the cancellation of firework displays across the country showed us that this “new normal” will affect every area of our lives, even a simple summer evening.

Enter drone shows. The firework alternative. No risk of a blaze. No nasty noises for wildlife. And no pollution from smoke or debris. Drones are also great storytellers. The Forks in Winnipeg used modern technology to tell ancient Cree teachings about the North Star.

July 1 was saved. But the lesson remains. In this new world, adaptation will be our continual struggle. For Canada Day celebrations, we are fortunate to have an alternative. But substitutes for all the other wonderful things we might yet lose, from traditions to forests, are not so readily available.

- Kate

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What else you may have missed

• Environment Canada issues ‘multi-day’ heat wave alert for much of Ontario
• Analysts say Trans Mountain pipeline expansion likely to send more Canadian oil to U.S., not Asia
• Glencore moves to take full control of PolyMet, developer of Minnesota copper-nickel mine
• Oil and gas giants drill deep as profits trump climate concerns
• Environment Canada lifts smog warnings across Quebec
• Climate change, increase in tick-borne illnesses directly linked, Ontario’s top doctor says
• Future federal infrastructure funding to require climate change be taken into account
• Research shows climate, environmental change puts 90 per cent of world’s marine food at risk
• Ottawa urged to back U.S., not TC Energy, in US$15-billion lawsuit over demise of Keystone XL project
• Top oil and gas firms making ‘almost no progress’ toward Paris climate goals, CDP report says

Opinion and analysis

Matthew Bianco, Elena Mantagaris: Canada needs a sovereign wealth fund for the sake of future generations

The editorial board: In the long run we’re all green: The danger of ‘net zero’ becoming a climate delay tactic

Campbell Clark: Poilievre seizes the moment on Atlantic Canada carbon-tax fears

Toby Heaps: On corporate citizenship, Canadian companies still have a lot more to do

Marsha Lederman: With more forest fires, alternate roads to communities like Tofino are no luxury

The editorial board: Canada net zero 2050 – A how-to guide

Green Investing

Let’s be open to paying personally to reduce climate change

“We can delay paying now for the full price of our pollution and for the investments required to climate-proof our infrastructure and food systems. We may decide to do so because the prospect of spending more now is hard on our wallets, and we worry about those who are economically insecure,” writes Paul Kershaw for The Globe.

“But any financial pain experienced now – especially for those of us who are not struggling to pay for groceries, heat or housing – to fight climate change will be but a fraction of the pain that our kids and grandchildren will experience in the decades ahead.”

• Pension plans call on companies to embrace new sustainability disclosures
• BlackRock’s Fink says he’s stopped using ‘weaponized’ term ESG

Making waves

Each week The Globe will profile a Canadian making a difference. This week we’re highlighting the work of Aish Ravi Shankar doing environment non-profit work.

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Hi! My name is Aish Ravi Shankar (she/her), I’m 23, and I reside on the traditional ancestral territories of the Anishinaabe, the Haudenosaunee, and the Mississaugas of the Credit River.

I’m a program manager at the Starfish Canada, a national organization that connects environmental change-makers through storytelling and community. As a part of my job, I get to lead a group of writers and editors to tell their stories and perspectives through the Starfish’s Youth Journal and manage the Top 25 Under 25 Program, where we reward and empower young environmental leaders across the country. When I’m not working at the Starfish, I volunteer my time at Sierra Club Ontario as a communications volunteer.

A lot of the work I do is behind my laptop screen, but working and volunteering at non-profits is rewarding for the difference that we strive to make and the lives we touch every day. Climate change is happening, and it’s time we step up and make choices to build a better future. Something that I’ve learned in the past few years is that even if you’re one person, you can still make a difference, you just need to start.

- Aish

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.

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

• Canada’s music industry is changing its tune
• Meet the Coast Salish woman protecting the North Pacific’s orca whales
• The dangers of breathing wildfire smoke
• Canada’s data gap in tracking wildfire risks

We want to hear from you. Email us: GlobeClimate@globeandmail.com. Do you know someone who needs this newsletter? Send them to our Newsletters page.