Tag Archives: Bethany Coulthard

Cost of Climate Change, Weather

FOCI’s Climate Change and Drought Report

When the rain finally started about 5 PM on Sunday, October 23, Cortes Island had received almost no precipitation for 97 days. The “Rain’ chart at Cortes Island School shows that 3.5 mm of rain fell overnight and I can hear the drizzle continuing to fall on my roof early Monday morning. Hopefully light rains will continue to soften up the soil before we receive a downpour.

“The 2022 drought is worse than people think, it’s worse than scientists predicted, and its impacts up and down the coast are a lot worse than I had even feared when I started researching it,” said Forrest Berman-Hatch, author of FOCI Report: Climate Change and Drought.

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Water

Cortes Island’s impending water shortage

Cortes Island is experiencing a wetter than normal Spring this year, but some of Cortes Island’s shallow well owners experience water shortages every summer. Scientists appear to agree that there will be more severe shortages in the future. 

This is a global phenomenon and there appear to be many causes: the depletion of forest coverage, growth of human infrastructure, natural drought cycles and, on top of all that, the transition to a warmer global temperature.

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Water

In a level four drought, what lies ahead?

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CKTZ News, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Cortes Island is in the midst of a level four drought. 

There have been worse dry periods in the instrumental records, much worse according to a University of Victoria study of tree ring data, and most likely more severe droughts in the years to come.

“Summer is very typically a very dry time of year for the Island, as well as for the Gulf Islands. The problem is that because we didn’t get the Spring rains, we’re starting at a level that is lower than what it would be within a typical year,”  said Ashlee Jollymore, a Hydrologist with the Water Management Branch in Victoria

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Food, Food Security

Site C Will Submerge Needed Agricultural Lands

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British Columbia grows less than half of the fresh produce it needs. Much of what we consume comes from California. The ongoing drought conditions, and a weak loony, have sent vegetable prices spiralling 11.7% this year.  Fresh, nutritious fruits and vegetables are becoming an occasional luxury for some middle-low income B.C. families. Though this will only worsen worse as global temperatures continue to rise, the government of BC is far more preoccupied with the get-rich promise of mega-energy projects. Once it is completed, Site C will submerge prime agricultural lands.

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Cost of Climate Change, Water

Mega-Sized Drought Coming To BC

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By Roy L Hales

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Though British Columbia’s hydrologists have fifty years of stream flow data to formulate its’ responses to climate change, a recent study from the University of Victoria shows this is not enough. Tree ring data shows that, since 1658 AD, there have been 16 droughts exceeding anything evidenced in the instrumental record. The most recent and severest of  these events took place in 1958. According to one of the study co-authors, Bethany Coulthard, “It was a cool time and yet we still saw these extreme natural droughts.” Add problems like urbanization, deforestation and rising Global temperatures into the equation and we can expect a mega-sized drought coming to BC.

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