Debates of November 30, 2007 (day 6)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the NWT has enjoyed the benefits of a pristine, natural, regulated environment as a sustained traditional lifestyle for centuries. A very large impact is about to make dramatic changes to the northern environment as we know it. This is climate change. The time frame for this change is very short.

Although the climate change issue has been in the public for some time, people are still unaware of the predicted consequences specifically for the NWT. Even if people worldwide were to stop pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere today, we face very serious changes in the North over the next 40 years. This is because greenhouse gases do not break down and remove themselves from the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Scientifically developed computer models indicate that by year 2050 Yellowknife would have a climate similar to Calgary. That means the plant and animal species now living here will not survive or will move to the far Arctic islands, including caribou.

A key concern is that the world has never, in a billion years of history, seen such a rapid pace of warming. The fast pace of change will not allow for movement of some species north, meaning that many species will become extinct. The climate here will be very dry in the summer with large amounts of precipitation in the winter, causing havoc to riverbeds and fish populations. The dry, hot summers will increase, the pressures from massive forest fires and invasive, destructive pests like the Pine Beetle, which has already crossed the Rocky Mountains into the Great Boreal Forest, and predictions for continued existings of our boreal forest is dire indeed.

We will be left with vast areas of barren rock and little vegetation to support wildlife. Even our parks and protected areas cannot survive the changes and will succumb to the destruction of fire and infestation. I want to emphasize that these are not Nostradamus-type dreams of some doomsayer. These are scientifically based predictions developed by many worlds predominance for science. Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause