Category Archives: Canada

The Guardian view on the heat dome: burning through the models | Editorial

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Politicians must respond to the latest warnings that climate science has underestimated risks

Last week’s shockingly high temperatures in the northwestern US and Canada were – and are – very frightening. Heat and the fires it caused killed hundreds of people, and are estimated to have killed a billion sea creatures. Daily temperature records were smashed by more than 5C (9F) in some places. In Lytton, British Columbia, the heat reached 49.6C (121F). The wildfires that consumed the town produced their own thunderstorms, alongside thousands of lightning strikes.

An initial study shows human activity made this heat dome – in which a ridge of high pressure acts as a lid preventing warm air from escaping – at least 150 times more likely. The World Weather Attribution Group of scientists, who use computer climate models to assess global heating trends and extreme weather, have warned that last week exceeded even their worst-case scenarios. While it has long been recognised that the climate system has thresholds or tipping points beyond which humans stand to lose control of what happens, scientists did not hide their alarm that an usually cool part of the Pacific northwest had been turned into a furnace. One climatologist said the prospect opened up by the heat dome “blows my mind”.

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‘Heat dome’ probably killed 1bn marine animals on Canada coast, experts say

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British Columbia scientist says heat essentially cooked mussels: ‘The shore doesn’t usually crunch when you walk’

More than 1 billion marine animals along Canada’s Pacific coast are likely to have died from last week’s record heatwave, experts warn, highlighting the vulnerability of ecosystems unaccustomed to extreme temperatures.

The “heat dome” that settled over western Canada and the north-western US for five days pushed temperatures in communities along the coast to 40C (104F) – shattering longstanding records and offering little respite for days.

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Temperatures rising – Inside the 9 July Guardian Weekly

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Is the world getting too hot for humans?
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Last week’s searing temperatures in North America’s Pacific north-west were more than just another heatwave. The 49.6C registered in the tiny British Columbian town of Lytton was not simply the hottest temperature on record in Canada, it also defied computer modelling of how the world might change as emissions rise. Our global environment editor Jonathan Watts looks at how the rare phenomenon known as a heat dome is part of a growing trend towards extreme weather events, while climate science professor Simon Lewis explains why global heating is making more of the planet too hot for humans.

Starting with the Soviet invasion of the 1970s, Afghanistan has spent four decades as a battleground for proxy wars between competing nations and ideologies. As US and British troops withdraw, Emma Graham-Harrison returns to Kabul, where she spent several years as a foreign corespondent, to find little optimism and much anxiety at the resurgence of the Taliban.

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North America endured hottest June on record

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Satellite data shows temperature peaks are lasting longer and rising higher

North America endured the hottest June on record last month, according to satellite data that shows temperature peaks lasting longer as well as rising higher.

The heat dome above western Canada and the north-west United States generated headlines around the world as daily temperature records were shattered across British Columbia, Washington and Portland.

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‘Historic’ step as Trudeau appoints Canada’s first Indigenous governor general

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Mary Simon takes post at time of strained relations between Canada and First Nations after discoveries of unmarked graves

Canada will have its first ever Indigenous governor general after prime minister Justin Trudeau appointed Inuk leader Mary Simon as the Queen’s representative in Canada.

Describing the move as a “historic” step, Trudeau announced Simon’s appointment on Tuesday after coming under mounting pressure to choose a new viceregal. His previous selection resigned after allegations of bullying in January.

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Burned churches stir deep Indigenous ambivalence over faith of forefathers

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After hundreds of unmarked graves were found at Canada’s former Catholic-run residential schools, churches in First Nations territories have been destroyed by suspected arson

For more than a century, the clapboard church set amid rolling hills in western Canada has been a spiritual home to the Upper Similkameen Indian Band.

To build St Anne’s, residents of Chuchuwayha Indian Reserve #2 travelled 40 miles to the closest town, hauling lumber back to their community by horse and wagon.

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‘We thought it wouldn’t affect us’: heatwave forces climate reckoning in Pacific north-west

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Left-leaning states had focused on how global heating would affect others. Then the ‘heat dome’ arrived

The record heatwave in the Pacific north-west is forcing a reckoning on the climate crisis, as many living in the typically mild region consider what rising temperatures mean for the future.

A “heat dome” without parallel trapped hot air over much of the states of Oregon and Washington in the United States, and southern British Columbia in Canada, in past days, shattering weather records in the usually temperate region.

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Record heatwave may have killed 500 people in western Canada

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British Columbia reports jump in number of ‘sudden and unexpected deaths’ and links them to extreme weather

Nearly 500 people may have been killed by record-breaking temperatures in Canada’s westernmost province, as officials warn the grim toll from “heat dome” could rise again as more deaths are reported.

On Friday, British Columbia’s chief coroner said that 719 “sudden and unexpected deaths” had been reported over the past week – triple the number during a similar period in a typical year.

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Deadly British Columbia heatwave sows wildfires across Canada’s west

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Residents recovering from record-breaking temperatures face a new threat, with more than 100 fires burning

On the heels of an unprecedented heatwave that left hundreds dead in British Columbia, Canada’s westernmost province is now battling a fresh threat.

More than 100 wildfires are burning across the province, as of late on Thursday, 86 of which started in the past two days. Evacuation orders and alerts have gone out in a dozen communities. The province’s premier, John Horgan, suggested that the crisis could become dire enough to see the Canadian military deployed.

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Canadian inferno: northern heat exceeds worst-case climate models

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Scientists fear heat domes in North America and Siberia indicate a new dimension to the global crisis

If you were drawing up a list of possible locations for hell on Earth before this week, the small mountain village of Lytton in Canada would probably not have entered your mind.

Few people outside British Columbia had heard of this community of 250 people. Those who had were more likely to think of it as bucolic. Nestled by a confluence of rivers in the forested foothills of the Lillooet and Botanie mountain ranges, the municipal website boasts: “Lytton is the ideal location for nature lovers to connect with incredible natural beauty and fresh air freedom.”

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Queen Victoria statue toppled in Canada over deaths of indigenous children – video

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Protesters in Manitoba have pulled down a statue of Queen Victoria outside the state legislature as outrage grows over the discovery of unmarked graves belonging to indigenous children sent to the country’s notorious residential schools. A smaller statue of Elizabeth II was also toppled on the east side of the grounds. Both royals are seen as representative of the country’s colonial history

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Queen Victoria statue toppled in Canada amid anger at deaths of Indigenous children

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Smaller statue of Queen Elizabeth also removed in Winnipeg during protest at treatment of Indigenous children in notorious residential schools

A statue of Queen Victoria has been toppled in Canada amid growing outrage over the discovery of unmarked graves belonging to Indigenous children.

A group gathered at the Manitoba legislature pulled down the statue on Canada Day – an annual celebration on 1 July that marks the country’s confederation.

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Canada heatwave: resident films escape from wildfire as flames engulf Lytton village – video

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Buildings, cars and trees are shown ablaze in footage taken by a resident fleeing a wildfire in the British Columbia village of Lytton. Flames tore through the settlement 95 miles north-east of Vancouver so fast that officials did not even have time to issue evacuation orders. Within hours, most of the village's buildings had been consumed by flames.

A GoFundMe campaign has been set up to help people who have lost their homes

This video has no sound.

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‘Lytton is gone’: wildfire tears through village after record-breaking heat

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Officials didn’t have time to issue evacuation orders while dry conditions make suppressing wildfires in Canada impossible

After three days of unrelenting heat, the people in the British Columbia village of Lytton were hoping for a modest respite.

Temperatures which had shattered longstanding national records – at one point reaching a blistering 49.6C (121.28F) – eased slightly on Wednesday, raising hopes that the worst was over.

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How residential schools in Canada robbed Indigenous children of their identity and lives – video

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In Canada, more than 1,000 unmarked graves have been discovered on the grounds of three former church-run residential schools, where an estimated 150,000 First Nations children were sent as part of a campaign of forced assimilation for more than a century until 1996. 

On Wednesday, the remains of 182 people were found at a former school in British Columbia – weeks after 215 unmarked graves were found at an institution in the province and 751 in Saskatchewan.

A historic truth and reconciliation commission was conducted in the 2000s. In 2015 it concluded that the residential school system amounted to cultural genocide and that unmarked graves would be found in the former school grounds, but the recent findings still shocked many Canadians and prompted calls for a new investigation. Leyland Cecco explains how the discovery is just the tip of the iceberg in uncovering Canada's traumatic colonial past

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British Columbia sees 195% increase in sudden deaths during Canada heatwave

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Chief coroner says more than 300 deaths could be attributed to the extreme temperatures

At least 486 sudden deaths were reported over five days during British Columbia’s unprecedented heatwave, suggesting the extreme weather that affected western Canada in recent days was far deadlier than initially believed.

Typically, 165 sudden deaths would occur in the province over that period, the province’s chief coroner said, suggesting more than 300 deaths could be attributed to the heat. The new tally, announced on Wednesday, marks a 195% increase over normal years.

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Latest First Nations discovery reveals 182 unmarked graves at Canada school

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Lower Kootenay Band finds human remains at former residential school in British Columbia – the third such discovery in weeks

A First Nations community in western Canada has discovered the remains of nearly 200 people on the grounds of a former residential school, adding to the growing tally of unmarked graves across the country.

The Lower Kootenay Band said on Wednesday that ground-penetrating radar had revealed 182 human remains at St Eugene’s Mission residential school, near the city of Cranbrook, British Columbia. Some of the remains were buried in shallow graves only three and four feet deep.

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My relatives went to a Catholic school for Native children. It was a place of horrors | Nick Estes

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After the discovery of 751 unmarked graves at the site of a former school for Native children in Canada, it is time to investigate similar abuses in the US

There is so much mourning Native people have yet to do. The full magnitude of Native suffering has yet to be entirely understood, especially when it comes to the nightmarish legacies of American Indian boarding schools. The purpose of the schools was “civilization”, but, as I have written elsewhere, boarding schools served to provide access to Native land, by breaking up Native families and holding children hostage so their nations would cede more territory. And one of the primary benefactors of the boarding school system is the Catholic church, which is today the world’s largest non-governmental landowner, with roughly 177 million acres of property throughout the globe. Part of the evidence of how exactly the church acquired its wealth in North America is literally being unearthed, and it exists in stories of the Native children whose lives it stole, which includes my own family.

The full magnitude of Native suffering has yet to be entirely understood, especially when it comes to the nightmarish legacies of American Indian boarding schools

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Calls to cancel Canada Day after graves found: ‘Indigenous people paid with their lives’

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Two grim discoveries on the grounds of former residential schools have shifted country’s mood as national day looms

Indigenous groups have called for Canada’s national celebration to be cancelled over the discovery of nearly 1,000 unmarked graves, most of which are believed to belong to Indigenous children.

July 1 marks 154 years since Canada became a country – and until recently, festivities in cities across the country were expected, amplified by the arrival of summer and the pent-up excitement of a country emerging from the coronavirus pandemic.

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