Climate Change and Canadian Mining: Opportunities for Adaptation

Tristan Pearce from the University of Guelph provided the EIA Concordia students a formidable opportunity to discuss how climate change is impacting Canada's north: impacts on communities (food shortages), impacts landscape (i.e.: loss of ice roads), and impacts on mining activities (i.e.: increased storm activities) through the report published for the David Suzuki Foundation.

The report highlighted many important issues but I was struck by the fact the perception gap that exists within many Canadian mining companies: only 25% of senior executives and management viewed climate change as a problem in contrast, 100% of day-to-day workers in those same companies perceived climate change as a threat. If you are obviously sitting in a Toronto corporate office and have very little contact with operating facilities (apart from the occasional site visit), then you do not readily "see" the changes which are occurring.

Should the Canadian mining industry ramp-up its efforts to better adapt to climate change? If so, what should some of those methods be? (i.e.: alternative routes?).

Thanks once again to Tristan Pearce, Maude Beaumier and James Ford for this great presentation and stunning visuals!