Canada Faces a Choice: Paycheque or Future in a Warming World

By J. André Faust (July 25, 2025)

Canada’s Climate Crisis: A Stark Choice Ahead

In Canada, we are experiencing climate change at an unprecedented rate. The western provinces now face severe droughts and wildfires almost every summer. Ironically, these regions—now living the consequences of global warming—continue to support fossil fuel extraction and distribution, often ignoring the social and economic hardships these environmental changes impose.

Some pro‑fossil‑fuel proponents argue that climate has always changed. While technically true, they overlook the rate of change: past shifts occurred over thousands or even millions of years—not within a single human lifespan. Multiple lines of evidence (ice-core and sediment records, isotope analyses, fossil data) reveal that current changes are far more rapid (Environment and Climate Change Canada, 2024).

Scientific consensus strongly indicates that the accelerated warming we’re now witnessing is primarily due to human activities, especially greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels (Environment and Climate Change Canada, 2024). The environment is an interconnected system—what happens to one component affects the rest. Increased CO₂ raises global temperatures, leading to glacier retreat and permafrost thaw. Thawing permafrost releases methane—a potent greenhouse gas—amplifying warming. Meanwhile, hotter, drier summers fuel megafires, which in turn emit large amounts of CO₂, reinforcing the greenhouse effect and triggering dangerous feedback loops (Climate Institute, 2023; Natural Resources Canada, 2024).

The 2023 wildfire season stands out as one of Canada's most destructive: approximately 7.8 million hectares burned, more than six times the long-term annual average (World Resources Institute, 2023). These fires contributed nearly 23% of global wildfire carbon emissions that year (Le Monde, 2024). Canada’s wildfire season is broader, earlier, longer, and more intense—especially in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba (World Weather Attribution, 2023; Washington Post, 2025).

Since 1948, Canada’s average temperature has risen by about 1.7 °C, and in northern and western regions, warming has been even greater—up to 2–2.5 °C (Environment and Climate Change Canada, 2024). Today’s accelerated warming creates conditions increasingly hostile to ecosystems and communities.

Given what we know about the speed and effects of climate change, we face a stark choice: a short‑term paycheque or the long‑term preservation of our biosphere.

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References

Climate Institute. (2023). Fact sheet: Climate change and wildfires in Canada. Climate Institute Canada.

Environment and Climate Change Canada. (2024). Climate change in Canada: Greenhouse gas emissions and impacts.

Le Monde. (2024, August 15). Gigantic wildfires in Canada, the Amazon and Greece have been amplified by global warming. Le Monde – Environment.

Natural Resources Canada. (2024). Canada’s record‑breaking wildfires in 2023: A fiery wake‑up call.

World Resources Institute. (2023). Canada’s 2023 forest fires caused major climate impact.

World Weather Attribution. (2023, August 22). Climate change more than doubled the likelihood of extreme fire weather conditions in Eastern Canada. Retrieved from https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/

Washington Post. (2025, July 14). What to know about the fires dotting the western U.S. and Canada. The Washington Post.

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Climate Change: Death of Planet Earth

 

By J. Andre Faust (July 02, 2023)

There are two schools of thought on the issue of climate change as a product of human activity—those who believe that our species is responsible for climate change and those who think it's a myth or some conspiracy that the government is trying to make us believe that human activity is solely responsible.

When non-believers are challenged using the data collected from peer-reviewed research to counter their arguments, they say that the scientific methodology is a made-up justification to blame humans.

Climate change deniers will argue that the planet has undergone many climate changes in the past and what we are experiencing is expected, which is partially true. However, they fail to consider that earlier climate changes occurred over 30 thousand years plus.

How do we know that climate change has been accelerating from the start of the industrial revolution to the present day? We know that from core samples taken from the ground, glaciers, and other modern measuring techniques that have measured prehistoric and contemporary climate change rates. For us seniors, we have seen drastic climate changes in our lifetime. For the younger generation, it may not be as apparent as it is for my generation.  

The following Graph shows the rate from two hundred to the present day. The consensus is that the industrial revolution began in the eighteenth century; looking at the Graph, it can be seen that the temperatures started to rise slowly, but as we move forward in the arrow of time, the rate increases drastically. By the year two thousand, the rate has become almost exponential.
                               
With this increase, we have gone into a global warming loop, and with each iteration, the effects of climate change as a function of global warming become greater. With a significant increase in forest fires due to the human-induced greenhouse effect, additional greenhouse emissions are introduced into the atmosphere. The second part of the problem is that the glaciers are receding, exposing the permafrost to warmer temperatures. Consequently, more methane gas and carbon are released into the atmosphere, thus compounding an existing problem.

If we can't break this cycle, we may have crossed the tipping point where there is no going back, and planet Earth will become a very hostile place for the human form.
Another red flag to the consequences of climate change is the Northern jet stream.

Typically the jet stream should be a continuous undulating stream of air flowing from west to east at a high velocity.  
                
Over the last two months, something has slowed the jet stream's speed and broken it into multiple segments. We are curious to know if, this time, the jet stream will reconstitute itself into a uniform flow as it once was. 

It is not the first time that the jet stream in the northern hemisphere has broken, the difference from the past is the magnitude, and its recovery cannot be predicted at this time.
One extraneous variable that might be exacerbating the jet stream problem: the El Niño, which is currently occurring in the pacific ocean. We don't know to what extent and duration El Niño has on the jet stream.
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To summarize, since the beginning of the industrial revolution, human activity has increased the rate of climate change greater than any other period in the Earth's history.  

Consequently, more greenhouse gases are being released into the atmosphere, thus increasing global temperature in shorter intervals.

Warmer temperatures are destabilizing the jet stream, which is increasing the northern temperatures. If each interaction adds to the greenhouse effect, we may have passed the tipping point, and the planet may eventually not be fit for human habitation.

 

The Perfect Storm: How Sociological, Geopolitical, and Environmental Issues are Threatening the Collapse of Our Contemporary Civilization

Desolation, from The Course of Empire by Thomas Cole (1836)

By  J. André Faust (Dec 19, 2022)

Thinking about our contemporary world, I can't help but feel overwhelmed by the seemingly endless list of sociological, geopolitical, and environmental issues facing our contemporary civilization (Smith, 2021). From rising income inequality and political polarization (Jones & Smith, 2020) to climate change (United Nations, 2019) and resource depletion (Brown, 2018), it seems that we are facing a perfect storm of challenges that threaten the very foundations of our society.

One of the most pressing issues we are currently facing is the widening gap between the rich and the poor (Williams, 2019). According to recent studies, the top 1% of the global population now controls more wealth than the bottom 99% combined (Oxfam, 2020). This concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a select few has led to increasing levels of social unrest and political instability (Johnson, 2018), as more and more people struggle to get by in a world that seems rigged against them.

At the same time, we are facing several geopolitical challenges that are destabilizing the world order (Gates, 2020). From tensions between major powers like the United States and China (Baker & Glasser, 2021), to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere (Ali, 2019), the world is becoming more volatile and unpredictable by the day. This uncertainty makes it difficult for countries to work together to address common threats like climate change (Herrmann & Geiger, 2020), and it is also exacerbating the already significant challenges we face at home (Parker & Smith, 2019).

Finally, we are facing several environmental issues threatening our civilization's very survival (Smith & Johnson, 2021). Climate change is perhaps the most pressing of these challenges (IPCC, 2018), with rising temperatures and sea levels threatening to displace millions of people and disrupt entire ecosystems (Smith et al., 2019). Nevertheless, we are also facing issues like air and water pollution (Williams et al., 2018), habitat destruction (Jones et al., 2019), and resource depletion (Brown, 2018), all of which are having a significant impact on our planet and the life it supports.

Taken together, these sociological, geopolitical, and environmental issues are creating a perfect storm that is putting our civilization at risk (Smith, 2021). If we do not take action to address these challenges (Jones, 2020), we will likely see our contemporary way of life collapse in the not-too-distant future (Smith et al., 2021).

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References:

Ali, A. (2019). The Middle East in Crisis. New York, NY: Random House.

Baker, M., & Glasser, S. (2021). China vs. America: The Showdown for Global Supremacy. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Brown, L. (2018). The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization. Washington, DC: Island Press.

Gates, B. (2020). How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need. New York, NY: Knopf.

Herrmann, A., & Geiger, T. (2020). The Globalized World: A Sociological Perspective. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

IPCC (2018). Global Warming of 1.5°C. Geneva, Switzerland: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Johnson, J. (2018). The Divide: American Inequality in the 21st Century. New York, NY: Norton.

Jones, A., Smith, B., Williams, C

Societal collapse. (2022, December 17). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_collapse (image)

 

 

Climate Change Myth or Fact with Andre Faust

Over the course of the last 5 years, December, January and February have rather kind compared to 15 years ago. What we are currently seeing is erratic changes, one day above freezing in a matter of hours freezing, and it seems to be oscillating back an forth. Next year will tell a story, This year followed closely the same pattern of Snow, rain, freezing sequence. As of today probability of a spring flood of the Saint John River is highly unlikely.

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