Get used to scorching summers

Some scary new research about climate change is coming out of the University of Victoria. Francis Zweirs, president of the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium at UVic, co-authored a study that determined sweltering summers have become 70 times more common than the historical average over the past four decades. And there’s more to come: By 2050, virtually every summer will be hotter than any experienced to date. Some parts of the world may become inhospitable for humans as a result, the report goes on to say, and cities must begin to address the issue of cooling infrastructure.

The study puts the likelihood that greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for the temperate increase at 95 per cent. And there’s more where that came from, too. According to Peter Tertzakian, chief economist at Calgary’s ARC Financial, even aggressive moves by governments to ban the sale of internal combustion engines (ICE) will at best cap fossil fuel use in the decade between 2030 and 2040, as the legacy fleet of ICE vehicles just keeps on trucking.