I was sort 
of impressed with Amy Larkin’s “Environmental Debt” presentation at GoogleTalk. I’m saying “sort of”, only because, what she’s saying is not exactly new. She urges companies to switch from short term profit to ‘long term profit and sustainability’: her primary example is the Thai flooding of 2011, which affected (and still affects) international and local industries. The main cause of the flooding however, was the massive deforestation that happened in Thailand years ago. Cause and effect, simple. Once again, not exactly new, but worth a watch.
Locally, in SJ/NB, we barely got past the July heat spell which brought an interesting weather phenomenon to New Brunswick: The tornado. Without being too alarmist, I believe NOAA reported that once again the heat records were broken this year (link) and subsequently, global warming is frequently tied to extreme weather events (quote):
According to the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP, 2008), “most of North America has been experiencing more unusually hot days and nights, fewer unusually cold days and nights and fewer frost days. Heavy downpours have become more frequent and intense. Droughts are becoming more severe in some regions”.
Both TO and SJ have had their share of torrential rains this year, not to mention, the freak rain incidents back in Alberta. Are they all related to global warming? That’s up for the weather statisticians and scientists to tell (quote Canadian underwriter):
“I think as long as our economic policies are they way they are, and we keep putting more carbon dioxide up into the atmosphere, the temperature’s going to continue to rise, so we will see more of these events continue to happen. If you took a poll of a bunch of researchers, I think they would agree.