A preceding article included a 1989 video of Isaac Asimov. He recalled talking about the greenhouse effect 20 years before and noted that other people had done it before him. NASA illustrates Asimov’s point:

• In 1824, Joseph Fourier calculated that an Earth-sized planet, at our distance from the Sun, ought to be much colder. He suggested something in the atmosphere must be acting like an insulating blanket.

• In 1856, Eunice Foote discovered that blanket, showing that carbon dioxide and water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere trap escaping infrared (heat) radiation.

• In the 1860s, physicist John Tyndall recognized Earth’s natural greenhouse effect and suggested that slight changes in the atmospheric composition could bring about climatic variations.

• In 1896, a seminal paper by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius predicted that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect.

• In 1938, Guy Callendar connected carbon dioxide increases in Earth’s atmosphere to global warming. In 1941, Milutin Milankovic linked ice ages to Earth’s orbital characteristics. 

• Gilbert Plass formulated the Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change in 1956.

In the same piece, NASA asserts the evidence for rapid climate change is compelling:

• Global temperature is rising.
• The oceans are getting warmer.
• Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are shrinking.
• Glaciers are retreating.
• Snow cover is decreasing.
• Sea level is rising.
• Arctic sea ice is declining.
• Extreme events are increasing in frequency.
• Ocean acidification is increasing.

In a recent quarterly report, BC Hydro admitted it is affected by some of the factors listed by NASA. Other hydropower-rich Canadian provinces are also experiencing water shortages.

Water inflows to the system for the six months ended September 30, 2023 were significantly below average and lower than the same period in the prior fiscal year. The below average water inflows were due to below average 2022/23 snowpack and persistently dry conditions across BC Hydro’s basins over the summer and start of fall.

BC Hydro, Quarter 2 Fiscal Year 2023-24

Despite evidence of harm from scientists and other sources, some people have little desire to address climate change. A survey by Pew Research revealed 26% of Americans say warming is mostly caused by natural patterns in the environment and another 14% do not believe there’s evidence the Earth is warming at all.

Given the ultimate consequences, reasonable people should be applying the precautionary principle on climate and environmental matters. According to a paper in the USA’s National Library of Medicine, these are central components of that proposition:

• Taking preventive action in the face of uncertainty;
• Shifting the burden of proof to the proponents of an activity;
• Exploring a wide range of alternatives to possibly harmful actions;
• Increasing public participation in decision making. 

I suppose that means our governments are not populated by reasonable people. Canada’s federal and western provincial governments reject the precautionary principle because they are determined to increase to coddle fossil fuel producers, no matter the cost to future generations.

Andrew Nikiforuk provides a timely example. For years, scientists have warned about methane emission dangers. Yet today, Nikiforuk reported at The Tyee that McGill University researchers recently discovered an unplugged Alberta gas well that leaks methane gas into the atmosphere at the highest rate ever recorded in North America.

Alberta’s environment minister Rebecca Schulz, whose husband Cole Schulz is an oil and gas lobbyist, quickly denied scientific evidence that the oil and gas industry has grossly underestimated its methane leakage problem.