Tories, Grits lax in fighting climate change: Nunavik MP

When it comes to taking concrete action to fight climate change, the Conservative and Liberal parties are shirking their responsibilities, says New Democrat MP Romeo Saganash.

In a May 1 news release, Saganash, who represents the riding of Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik-Eeyou, condemned the lack of support from Conservatives and Liberals for an NDP motion that called for quick action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and measures to help adaptation to climate change.

“It’s disheartening to see the old parties continue to ignore the warnings of the international scientific community,” Saganash said. “Only the NDP understands the urgency of the situation and need for action.”

Last week, scientists with California’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography said “for the first time in human history, concentrations of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide could rise above 400 parts per million for sustained lengths of time throughout much of the northern hemisphere as soon as May 2013.”

This parts-per-million or ppm measurement of carbon dioxide provides a way of measuring the traces of this gas in the atmosphere.

And the level of 400 ppm for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is alarming because for the past 800,000 years the levels of carbon dioxide have never exceeded 300 ppm.

Scientists estimate that the last time that carbon dioxide levels remained as high as 400 ppm was probably between 3.2 million and five million years ago.

Then, Arctic was as much as 14 C to 22 C warmer than today, trees like larch, birch, alder and cedar, covered the land, and giant beavers and eight-foot-tall camels roamed the High Arctic.

“The 400-ppm threshold is a sobering milestone, and should serve as a wake-up call for all of us to support clean-energy technology and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, before it’s too late for our children and grandchildren,” said Tim Lueker, an oceanographer and carbon cycle researcher who is a longtime member of the Scripps Carbon Dioxide Group, in a news release from Scripps.

This graph from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography shows how the concentration of climate-warming carbon dioxide has increased since 1960. It’s expected to rise about 400 ppm next month.