Ontario launching climate-change website

TENILLE BONOGUORE
Globe and Mail Update
July 19, 2007 at 12:27 PM EDT

TORONTO — In a project that serves as both seer and censure, the Ontario government has launched an online climate change map that graphically shows a hotter, drying province is on its way.

But just how hot, and how dry, is far from decided. The story may not be new, but the provincial government hopes new ways of telling people will trigger the change needed to protect Ontario’s future.

The interactive map (http://gogreenontario.ca/maptool.php) presents a basic, functional look at what could happen in the coming 100 years under two scenarios: greenhouse gas emissions go up, or they go down.

By mapping out the temperature and rainfall changes likely with each predicament in the next 40, 70 and 100 years, it is clear that change is on the way.
The province’s north is set to warm significantly, posing a large danger for permafrost and the people and animals that rely on it, while higher temperatures and lower rainfall in southern areas spell higher forest fire danger and the potential for diseases like Lyme’s disease to expand in range, Ontario Natural Resources Minister David Ramsaytold The Globe.

“We know this is coming one way or the other,” Mr. Ramsay said. “To what extreme is still unknown.”

The dire forecasts are not new, but Mr. Ramsay said he hopes tools like the interactive map will help “shake people up a little bit”.

“We’re the generation that helped cause this mess. We have to make sure we help change it,” he said.

Some of the primary beneficiaries of such a shake-up will be Ontario’s polar bears, whose habitat in southern Hudson Bay is poised to undergo the greatest change in the province, according to predictions on the climate change map.

In another announcement on Thursday, Mr. Ramsay said the government will direct $315,000 into a three-year polar bear research project exploring the impacts of climate change on the Ontario bear population.

The study will monitor seasonal movement patterns and the physical condition of the southern Hudson Bay polar bears, which have been added to the priority list for scientific assessment by Ontario’s Committee on the Status of Species at Risk.

Peter Ewins, director of species conservation at World Wildlife Fund Canada, said the reduction of greenhouse gases must be a holistic effort from governments, businesses and individuals.

“Polar bears are under increasing threat around the world as their essential habitat warms faster than any other place on the planet,” he said.

“This research project will help us better respond to the disruption melting sea ice poses to Ontario’s polar bears and the communities that share their ecosystem.”

The province also appointed two environmental academics — Laurentian University earth sciences professor David Pearson and Ian Burton, emeritus professor at the University of Toronto — to develop a strategy for how Ontario can cope with the impact of climate change.

(Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com)