Globe Climate: Wildlife photography of the year

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

This week I learned that Canada’s dairy industry has dumped about 7 per cent of all milk it produced over a 10-year period, needlessly creating excess greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 350,000 passenger vehicles annually.

The authors of a recent study determined that more than 6.8 billion litres of raw milk – and possibly as much as 10 billion litres – disappeared from Canadian farms between 2012 and 2021. That’s at least $6.7-billion worth of milk gone, the result of an inefficient supply management system intended to control output and keep prices stable, according to the report. Something to think about over your next bowl of cereal.

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

Noteworthy reporting this week:

1. Oil and gas: Global oil demand to peak by end of the decade as countries push to electrify their economies
2. Environment: With coastal development regulations gone, Nova Scotia’s communities must face rising seas on their own terms
3. From ROB Magazine: Canada’s largest metal recycling firm built with a focus on community
4. From The Narwhal: Construction starts soon on Saskatchewan’s largest infrastructure project ever. Here’s what you need to know

A deeper dive

Worth 1,000 words

From sleeping macaques in Sri Lanka to curious seals in Antarctica, Wildlife Photographer of the Year winners found some captivating creatures in 2024

In nature photography, every image has a story behind it, and the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition has collected some of the world’s best every year since 1965. The organizer, London’s Natural History Museum, will display the winners starting Oct. 11, with a Canadian exhibition at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum from Dec. 21 to May 5. Until then, here are some of the winners and Canadian entries that earned honorable mentions.

The Swarm of Life

Taken on Vancouver Island by Shane Gross • Winner, Adult Grand Title and Wetlands: The Bigger Picture category

A mass of western toad tadpoles rippled past as Shane Gross, a Canadian marine conservation photojournalist, snorkelled beneath the lily pads of B.C.’s Cedar Lake. Mr. Gross stayed immersed for hours to ensure that the silt and algae on the lake bottom would not be disturbed and cloud the shot.

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A Diet of Deadly Plastic

Taken in Australia by Justin Gilligan • Winner, Oceans: The Bigger Picture

The 403 pieces of plastic in this mosaic came from a dead flesh-footed shearwater recovered by Adrift Lab, whose work the photographer has followed for several years. On Lord Howe Island, a breeding ground far off the east coast of Australia, the lab found most adult shearwaters and all fledglings had plastic in their systems, which can scar the linings of their digestive tracts.

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The Demolition Squad

Taken in Hessen, Germany, by Ingo Arndt • Winner, Behaviour: Invertebrates

This blue ground beetle is already dead, and the red wood ants are doing an efficient job dismembering it. These ants largely feed on honeydew from aphids, but can kill larger insects to get much-needed protein. Lying down to capture the beetle’s fate left Mr. Arndt “full of ant,” he says.

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A Tranquil Moment

Taken in Sri Lanka by Hikkaduwa Liyanage Prasantha Vinod • Winner, Behaviour: Mammals

After a morning looking for birds and leopards in Wilpattu National Park, the photographer realized a troop of toque macaques was on the move above him. Between feeding sessions, this young one caught a nap, unaware of the telephoto lens capturing the moment. A macaque’s life is not always so tranquil: Increasingly, many are shot, snared and poisoned by farmers whose plantations encroach on the monkeys’ habitat.

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When Worlds Collide

Taken in Toronto by Patricia Seaton Homonylo • Highly Commended, Photojournalism

These 3,900 birds, comprising 103 species, perished in window strikes across Greater Toronto in 2022. Members of the Fatal Light Awareness Program collected and arranged the bodies to illustrate the deadly toll of lit windows at night, which disorient birds and kill millions of them nationwide each year. Patricia Seaton Homonylo won 2024′s Bird Photographer of the Year award for this shot.

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What else you missed

• World lags on 2030 nature goals as UN biodiversity summit COP16 begins
• Climate scientists warn Nordic ministers of changing Atlantic Ocean current
• Pulp company fined $1-million for releasing toxic wastewater into Alberta’s Peace River
• Ontario’s top court orders new hearing for youth-led climate change case
• U.S. grants nearly $2-billion to harden power grid against extreme weather

Opinion and analysis

Kelly Cryderman: Alberta targets Ottawa’s oil-and-gas cap as Danielle Smith to face the heat in a leadership review

Editorial board: The free-market economics powering renewable energy

Green Investing

Volkswagen’s new, retro electric ID.Buzz is in a class of its own, but it isn’t cheap

The German maker saw the bus’s resurgence and now, after a 20-year absence in North America, there’s an entirely new, all-electric version that will be in dealerships by January. Volkswagen won’t sell millions of Buzzes, at least not at those prices, but it will surely be a popular vehicle. It’s called a halo model, something to aspire to that will be a status symbol and offers the best of what’s available in its market.

• Helene and Milton are both likely to be US$50-billion disasters, joining ranks of most costly storms

The Climate Exchange

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. More than 300 questions were submitted as of September. The first batch of answers tackles 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 questions.

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

• Tree equity in Toronto neighbourhoods
• What happens to Alberta’s wild horses?
• Sicily illustrates Europe’s climate crisis
• Scientists believe this is the answer to nuclear waste

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