Adapting Canada to the Future of a World With Scarce Water Essay

Canada, like so many other countries in the world continues to deal with many different environmental resource issues. Throughout our history, one of the issues affecting our country has been the treatment of our First Nations people. For the purpose of this paper, the focus will be on the safe water crisis facing Canada’s First Nations communities. The Oxford Dictionary (2016) defines a crisis as a time of great difficulty or danger. The research included will help clarify the reality of the Canada’s First Nations safe water crisis. Despite some improvements over the past few decades, many of our First Nation citizens still lack access to safe and clean water. Our reserves have water that is contaminated, difficult to access or toxic because of outdated and faulty treatment systems. (Klasing, 2016) This safe water crisis is in need of immediate attention. It is Canada’s responsibility to provide the right to clean and safe water for all of its citizens.

Describe realistic strategies that Canadians could take to reduce their negative impact on land, water and the atmosphere.

Today corporate profitability outweighs any environmental consequences and certainly takes precedence over implications to future generations. Canadas situation can be accurately surmised in a quote from Alanis Obomsawin, an Abenaki from the Odanak reserve, located northeast of Montreal and is quoted as saying:

Living Canada, it is hard to believe what it would be like to not have a virtually unlimited supply of freshwater. In places and areas where freshwater is not that easy to get, such as the drought in California that is so highly talked about, as well as places in Africa who wonder if they will have enough fresh water to last the rest of the week. Being a country of high strength in this resource we have to think if we are going to help some to these countries or not. This piece writing will explain what freshwater really is and whether Canada should export our water to the United States of America and why we should not.

Companies have the technology and the knowledge to divert or sell water in a way that is safe on the environment. Part of the Canadian population has been misled to believe that Canada will not have enough water for its residents if it sells water to the United States. This is a myth. Toronto MP Dennis Mills says, “Many people just don’t understand the issue. They have this idea that the Americans are going to build the biggest pipeline the world has ever seen and drain the Great Lakes dry.” There are many proposed diversion schemes that would have minimal effect on ecology. The water diversion scheme in Manitoba is an example of this. It proposes that an insulated pipeline be stationed at the mouth of the Nelson River just before it empties into Hudson Bay. This scheme would allow the Nelson River to run its full, natural course and only divert 1% of the fresh water that is currently being emptied into Hudson Bay. The Canadian people have being misled that the world is going to run out of water. According to cbc.ca, the amount of water on the earth has stayed the same for the last four billion years, and will not change. Canadians have enough water especially compared to many other countries. According to The Globe and Mail, Maude Barlow has said “…31 countries are facing water stress and scarcity and more than a billion people lack adequate access to clean drinking. By the year 2025, as much as two-thirds of the world’s population will be

We once lived in a world lush and plentiful where we enjoyed all the natural resources peacefully. However at the beginning of the industrial revolution more people moved to the cities therefore increasing their dependency load. Fastforward to today and the world has seen a drastic change in the loss of natural resources as well as a number of health related illnesses like asthma. This is mainly due to the effects from carbon pollution, greenhouse gases and global warming. Canada as a country is thought of as environmentally aware and progressive. Actually has many issues regarding this topic and if it is not taken care of it will affect the future of the nation. I care about this topic because it has to

The breaking of continental ice from Greenland and the Antarctic has been slowly breaking off and melting for a long time. The continental ice which has broken off melts faster and faster as it drifts towards the equator, eventually deposing all the fresh water ice into the ocean. This process, which would slowly drown the coastlines of the entire world, including Canada, is very dangerous for the survival of human civilizations. Due to Canada’s larger and more exposed urban coastal regions, it will suffer a harder blow than most other countries. Islands like Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia will be hit particularly hard, losing a lot of its farmland and coastal towns due to the melting and breaking off of continental ice. The continental ice

For the last two decades, the increased use of fossil energy caused the environmental problems. The evidence of global warming, like drying rivers, extinction of species, melting of glaciers, became more often around the planet. The climate change became a threat to healthy environment and prosperity of humanity and wildlife, and the world community started searching for solution to combat climate change. In 2008 British Columbia introduced carbon tax on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to reduce global warming. Starting from $10 per tonne of CO2, the price was increasing annually till it reached $30 per tonne in 2012. During that period British Columbia was reducing harmful emissions and improving economy comparing to the rest of Canada. However, since the price rise on carbon stopped in 2012, no improving changes in cutting emissions, economy, and overall quality of life have been noticed. In this essay I will persuade that British Columbia should continue gradually increase price on carbon tax to the level where it will significantly cut the use of dirty energy, provide enough investments into the green projects, and support low-income families.

With Canada being a country that relies heavily on natural resources throughout the continents it poses a great threat to level of severity this may impact. Therefore, with the rising levels of average air temperature as well as ocean causing large mounts of melting of ice, thus increasing sea levels. In addition with the increase in temperature levels this poses a threat to the certain weather patterns such as heat waves (GOC, n.d.). Canada has already witnessed changes such as, rising ocean temperature this being detrimental to the levels of survival rates for fishing (David Suzuki foundation, n.d.). Forest fires have increased decreasing the values of the trees, prairie drought; mining industry has taken a toll due to the low levels of water (David Suzuki foundation, n.d.). all these being of the utmost importance in maintaining Canada economic system. These areas that are being affected are job losses and natural resource

Water is essential to life. It is a vital resource that makes up 70% of the earth’s surface. However, only 3% percent of the earth’s water is freshwater and two-thirds of that freshwater are frozen in glaciers and ice caps, leaving an incomparably small portion available for sustaining earth’s life forms (“How Much Water is in the Ocean?”). Rising surface temperatures, caused by greenhouse gasses that are released when burning fossil fuels, are threatening this water supply by accelerates the rate of water evaporation and limiting precipitation, which leads to droughts and water shortages. Furthermore, earth’s growing population is consuming an increasingly larger fraction of freshwater, which is causing the earth’s natural aquifers to dry up. This global water crisis is especially acute in the western United States where California is experiencing critical drought conditions that are endangering the state’s ability to sustain life. The current California water crisis will ultimately make the state uninhabitable because of several severe, long-term consequences.

In 1985, Canada signed the “United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) Helsinki Protocol” which demanded it reduce its sulphur compound emissions and thus the amount of acid precipitation by 1993. In addition, Canada also signed the Oslo Protocol which aimed to cap acidic emissions to 1.75 million tonnes in areas ravaged by acid precipitation. Canada evidently responds effectively to pollution in terms of acid precipitation in that it found the root cause, sulfur and nitrogen oxides, and uses various technologies and agreements to lower the levels at which they are emitted. Canada effectively sets goals such as the Oslo protocol that are realistic or achievable, specific, measurable, and reflect Canada’s fore thoughtfulness in that it recognizes the importance of non acidic water bodies for future generations. Canada responded effectively to pollution in terms of harmful substances being released in water bodies. These pollutants are classified as pathogens, nutrients, and toxic materials and many measures were taken to eliminate or lower the levels of these factors. For

about the problem with the water several days before they told the public about it. (In-depth:

The First Nations water issue made the UN and at least one NGO to get the attention of Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to focus on water issues for First Nations Canadian. The UN also reported that the First Nation doesn’t have proper water protocols. It results for the government to respect to economic rights to water and its cultural meaning for First Nations peoples. According to Vice News, the company Unique Foods Canada announced that they will give 30,000 of their vitamin-enriched water to Shoal Lake 40 and to other First Nations. The Chief of Six Nations said that the community was grateful for the donation, but Daryl Redsky of Shoal Lake 40 says it’s only a temporary solution for the problem. The First Nations peoples also

Water pollution in a unique ecological system called the Great Lakes has recently become a national problem for the two countries - the USA and Canada. The primary ways by which the Great Lakes were polluted for many centuries include wastewater discharge, toxic pollution of water with heavy metals and pesticides, soil erosion, as well as urbanization and, consequently, air pollution.

The industrialization of Canada is severely affecting the nations lakes, streams, and rivers. If something is not done to improve the situation it is going to have some severe environmental problems in its future. The following essay will be looking at the factors that cause pollution, and the effect that pollution has on the environment of Canada. It will also explore some of the methods used to treat and clean-up wastewater, and oil spills.