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Good afternoon, and welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada.
Sometimes simply asking the question can be as important as the answer itself.
We’ve launched the next chapter of The Climate Exchange, an interactive, digital hub where The Globe answers your most pressing questions about climate change. We’ve been gathering your questions. Now, we begin answering them.
More than 300 questions were submitted as of September. The first batch of answers tackle 30 of them. They can be found with the help of a search tool developed by The Globe that makes use of artificial intelligence to match readers’ questions with the closest answer drafted. We plan to answer a total of 75 reader questions.
Now, let’s catch you up on other news.
Noteworthy reporting this week:
- Carbon tax: B.C. Premier says province will drop carbon pricing if Ottawa eliminates legal requirement
- EVs: Timing of Northvolt’s Quebec battery plant in question as it cuts jobs, looks for strategic partners
- Environment: In Alberta, a plan for a gravel pit near a provincial park is raising concerns around groundwater
- Outer space: SpaceX launches billionaire to conduct the first private spacewalk
- From The Narwhal: Mohawk land defenders refuse to surrender Barnhart Island to New York
- Agriculture: In B.C.’s Okanagan Valley, apple growers struggle to keep pace with big-scale fruit farming
BC Tree Fruit Grower Steve Brown is pictured at his Happy Valley Harvest apple orchard in Summerland, B.C., on July 30, 2024.Aaron Hemens/The Globe and Mail
A deeper dive
25 years after the Marshall decision upheld Indigenous treaty rights to earn a traditional livelihood
Steve Wadden is a photojournalist and avid fly fisher living and working in Unama’ki, Cape Breton. This is an excerpt from a recent photo essay.
He was the best fishing buddy I never had.
A father, a strong voice for the Mi’kmaq, a martyr twice in one lifetime, and a hell of a fisherman – Donald Marshall Jr. was a hero in my eyes.
Junior, as he was known, was convicted in 1996 under the federal Fisheries Act for harvesting and selling adult eels from Welnek, Pomquet Harbour, N.S. The incident, which put First Nations treaty rights centre stage, ultimately ended with Junior’s successful Supreme Court of Canada appeal and a decision 25 years ago, on Sept. 17, 1999, that upheld Indigenous rights to earn a livelihood from the harvest and sale of fish, wildlife, wild fruit and berries as set forth in the Peace and Friendship Treaties of 1760 and 1761.
Whenever I’d run into Junior, we’d always talk about fishing. Finally, one day, I worked up the courage to ask if he’d take me out on the water and let me bring my camera along. He was all for it, and the next few times we bumped into each other it was “we gotta get out soon” or “maybe this weekend.”
When you’re young, like I was back then, you figure you’ve got all the time in the world. But life has a way of screwing up best laid fishing plans, and our day never came. Junior dies a few years after I met him, in 2009, at the age of 55. I still think about him often. Not about how wronged he was throughout his life – he was also at the centre of one of the most infamous wrongful convictions in Canadian history, spending 11 years behind bars for a murder he did not commit – but how special he was. His memory serves as a sure reminder to never take anything for granted, and to always honour my instincts.
When a friend of mine told me that 2024 marked the 25th anniversary of the Marshall Decision, I decided to pay tribute to his legacy. Photographing and chatting with proud, young Mi’kmaq harvesters, conservationists and activists, it was plain to see that Junior’s pursuit of justice had not been in vain. The truth is, the weight of the Marshall Decision and of Junior’s own personal sacrifices are beyond measure.
Junior’s 16-year-old son Donald Marshall recently told me that he shares the same dreams as his father. Dreams of a world where Indigenous communities break free from dependency on government, where young people are given the resources and guidance to become torch bearers for their culture and architects of their own future, and where treaty rights are respected and not abused by greed.
In dreams we can be whatever we want to be and do whatever we want to do. Resilience is in our bones.
Budding environmental and human rights activist Donald Marshall, 16, son of the late Donald Marshall Jr., in a creek near Sydney, NS, June, 2024. Donald was recently awarded a scholarship to attend the Climate Action Leadership Diploma program at Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific and United World Colleges in Victoria, BC. Joey Sylvester Jr., 13, of Membertou, is a grand-nephew of the late Donald Marshall Jr. and is well-known in Cape Breton’s Indigenous community as a proficient moose caller and sportsman.Steve Wadden/Supplied
What else you missed
- Nova Scotia bill would kick-start offshore wind industry without approval from Ottawa
- Proportion of Canadian CEOs concerned about climate change rose dramatically this year, report says
- Canada’s wildfire season ranks among worst but less severe than feared
- One jellyfish arrived in B.C. decades ago. Thousands of clones spread to 34 waterways
- Vietnam typhoon death toll rises to 233 as more bodies found in areas hit by landslides and floods
- Death toll keeps rising as torrential rain and flooding force mass evacuations across Central Europe
Opinion and analysis
Hugo Cordeau: Should farmland be protected from clean-energy projects? A tough conversation
The editorial board: Blinded by the glare from 2023′s wildfires
Green Investing
Calgary’s August hailstorm becomes Canada’s second most expensive weather event
A storm that hit Calgary in August with egg-sized hail was the second most expensive severe-weather incident in history for the Canadian insurance industry, with an estimated $2.8-billion in payouts that could lead to premiums increasing across the country.
Hailstorms are a particularly expensive weather event because they affect a large area, and it is difficult to protect homes and cars from large objects falling from the sky. An estimated 130,000 claims are currently being processed for the August storm, and the IBC said an estimated one in five Calgary homes were damaged.
- Brookfield to invest up to US$1.1-billion in sustainable fuels provider Infinium
- Globe advisor: CFA Institute looks to simplify ESG investing with new fund classifications
Photo of the week
A drone drops seeds during a demonstration of a city seeding program at Campo Grande in Rio de Janeiro, Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. A municipal seeding program aims to speed up the planting of green areas in the city with the aim of reforestation and minimizing the impact of heat, according to municipal climate official Artur Miranda Sampaio.Silvia Izquierdo/The Associated Press
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, what happened at COP28, 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
- Norway’s gamble into sustainable salmon farming
- Green Steel? Algoma wants to go electric
- As backyards disappear, urban planners still want to bring nature to our doorstep
- Tracing the burn scars
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