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Climate induced catastrophe in British Columbia, Canada

BC is Canada’s westernmost province, bordering the Pacific Ocean and including part of the Rockie Mountains. This summer a large area of the province was covered by a ‘heat dome’ for weeks, and experienced record breaking high temperatures. At the same time, forest fires burned uncontrolled over large areas, causing thousands to be evacuated from their homes for weeks and actually totally destroying one town.

And now large parts of the province are experiencing flooding and landslides that are literally washing parts of major highways away. Travellers have been trapped in their cars, some for two nights so far, with washouts ahead of and behind them. A couple of hundred people were rescued by helicopter yesterday.

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I’d never heard of an atmospheric river before. The article didn’t seem to imply any connection between depleted ground cover and flooding, or am I jumping to the wrong conclusion?

More broadly: are weather events more extreme, more frequent, more salient, all of the above? The attention they attract certainly seemsvto fit a certain ‘frame’. Not to try and diminish the trauma to the people affected.

You are right, Karen. Extreme weather events are increasing in frequency but in addition, logging and fires have cleaned off the sides of mountains so the heavy rainfall doesn’t get absorbed like it normally would. Plus, people are building on floodplains. One of the devastated towns is a natural lake.

So there are lots of reasons for the devastation, pretty much all due to human activity. It’s time to come to terms with that. This particular incident will get peoples’ attention in a big way because supply chains for exports and imports are going to be severely impacted.

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Exactly why we’re seeing this messes happen, Jackie. Tragic!

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