Climate Change is Here: The Growing Zones in Canada are Changing
If growing citrus in Canada sounds unlikely, well...
Climate Change is hitting Canada hard.
I’ve run into plenty of deniers south of the border on my travels through the United States — including one memorable occasion where an older gentleman told me, in all seriousness, that ‘the government controls the weather anyway.’
Yikes.
But here in Canada, I don’t run into nearly as many people living in denial. It’s difficult to do that when the changes are so stark and obvious that you’d have to be an idiot to not notice.
I used to need a snowsuit to go Trick or Treating on Halloween. Now, we’re lucky if we see snow by December. Most of our Yuletide celebrations take place with green grass outside my window, and October snows are unheard of.
Canada is warming at a staggering rate. Our climate is shifting twice as fast as the global average, and the consequences are brutal. Rolling heatwaves in the summer challenge our cold-hardy infrastructure, causing droughts and worsening our yearly fire season.
Entire towns have quite literally been burned off of the map over the past few years.
This summer hasn’t been quite as bad where I live, thank goodness. We’ve had some cooler days. But even then, they’re few and far between.
Climate Change is an existential threat that far too few people take seriously, and as a result, we are all suffering. My countrymen and I are especially vulnerable, but it isn’t going to stop with us.
If you need proof of how severely we’re being impacted here in the north, here’s a fact for you: our growing zones have just been updated for 2025.
If citrus trees in the North sounds far fetched, think again. This could be our reality much sooner than you’d think.
I’ve waxed poetic about Canada’s relationship to winter before.
It’s part of our national identity. Kind of a big deal.
You can read my thoughts about it here, if you like. I’m pleased to report the bee and hummingbird populations have perked up in my neighbourhood this year!
I’m not built for the heat, and I’ve found that out the hard way. On my trip to Washington D.C. with my partner, I could barely keep up with him walking up and down the hills and I had to keep stopping to rest in the shade.
Seriously, how do people survive that temperature? I could hardly breathe with all of the humidity. To him, it was perfectly normal and he was quite bemused at my struggles.
Mind you, he hasn’t gone through a proper Canadian winter yet. We still get blizzards and ice storms now and then, so I’ll get my chance for revenge.
Whether I’m built for the heat or not — definitely not — I’m having to learn how to cope with it anyway.
I’m spending my summers drenched in sweat, limiting my time outside to quick walks with the dog and a few early morning hours in the garden before it gets unbearable. I water my plants in the evening so they have time to drink instead of losing it all to evaporation in the sun.
Air conditioning is a must now, not for convenience, but for survival. We have a dehumidifier and an air filter running frequently, too. We need it for the wildfire smoke and the mugginess.
Lethal wet-bulb temperatures are a legitimate concern.
With the shifting hardiness zones in Canada, our gardens and farms are able to expand the kind of crops that are available to us.
Over the next few years, we’re going to start to see citrus and other warm-weather plants being raised in previously unsuitable lands.
While this may seem cool and exciting for our markets, it comes at a cost. The loss of our own natural habitats and biodiversity, which evolved and adapted to suit the climate we used to have.
It also costs human lives; like I said, our infrastructure isn’t built for this.
Back in February of 2021, we got a crash course in what it looks like when the climate shifts out of the range people expect in a local area. Texas was hit with a snap freeze of a kind that almost never occurs, and as a result, over 200 people lost their lives.
246 is the low estimate. The true death toll is likely a lot higher than reported; it always is.
Part of the problem was that, since this is not typically a concern in Texas winters, their housing just wasn’t built with the necessary insulation. Here in Canada, we build to handle winter cold.
In Texas, they build to handle heat.
When the freeze struck, pipes starting bursting open as the water within them froze and expanded. The state’s power grid failed, killing electric heating and allowing temperatures within homes to drop too far for survival.
I saw one anecdote where a lady reported her dog’s water bowl actually froze over indoors.
Hypothermia was a leading cause of death for victims of the freeze, followed closely by vehicle collisions from drivers unused to icy roads, and carbon monoxide poisoning as people desperately tried to find alternative ways to stay warm.
Here, we’re dealing with the reverse. We build to handle the blistering lows of winter, but we’re in no way prepared for sweltering highs.
We’ve had several short power outages recently, most likely caused by a sudden increase in the electrical needs of our village. Our system isn’t built with constant air conditioning in mind, and we’re drawing more power than is typically expected for summer.
Humans construct our lives and societies around norms. What is the normal temperature and weather range of our location? We build for that. What is the typical rate of rainfall for our landscape? We farm based on that — or we used to.
Looking at you, California almond farmers.
We try to stay within norms. So what on Earth do we do when those norms abruptly change?
Survivial of the fittest is a clever slogan, but it isn’t how things usually work.
Strength is not the mark of a survivor. Adaptability is.
How well are you able to look at what’s happening, and how quickly can you change course when the need arises? Are you able to pivot, make alterations to your expectations and chart a new path?
If the answer is no, then you will fail. As a species, the way we’re doing things right now demonstrates that we’re going to fail.
We keep relying on fossil fuels rather than changing our ways in the face of new information. We keep pouring poison into the ocean even though we know it will kill life on our planet faster than anyone can possibly imagine.
We keep building homes built for winter cold even as the climate shifts and snow becomes less and less likely every year.
We are not adapting to our new reality.
We’re letting normalcy bias kick us in the teeth.
Normalcy Bias Will Be the Death of Us
A long while back I started watching the Handmaid’s Tale show.
The lack of momentum for change has nothing to do with a lack of information. Our world governments know exactly what’s going on, they’ve all got the reports, their scientists are all in full agreement about where we’re at.
The only things stopping them are moneyed interests and public pressure.
It is selfish, short-sighted, and stupid.
As long as they stand to profit from the status quo, nobody in power is going to allow progress. And thanks to normalcy bias, there aren’t enough people hitting the streets to force their hands.
There are still people who think Climate Change is a hoax for fuck sakes.
So, where does that leave us?
Unfortunately, it leaves us with changing hardiness zones and towns burning off the map.
It leaves us scrambling to do for ourselves, to try and increase community sustainability at the ground level. It leaves us building networks of support in case of natural disasters, and learning how to produce our own food in the face of shifting agricultural conditions and food shortages.
It leaves us learning how to survive in a world where our elected leaders are shirking their responsibilities.
Climate Change is here. And so are the consequences of our own mistakes.
I just hope we can pivot before it’s too late.
Solidarity wins.
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In the U.S., it's all going to hell. The economy is heading for a major crash so climate change is far from most people's minds right now. I think about it all the time now. It's obvious for anyone who wants to look. I have taken certain steps here but there is only so much I can do. It's been in ordinarily hot here this summer and my A/C has been running hard. So much so that it even surpassed the output from my solar panels.
I am very worried about the future, what little of it I still have above ground. For you young people, things are going to continue to become much worse in your lifetimes. As I noted in a recent podcast, the world has gone past the point of no return, according to the world's leading climate scientists. One of whom is a Canadian.
There are no good answers any more. All we can do is figure out how to adapt as best as we can.
Northern Ontario has changed so much in my 58 years. So many people claim this is normal climate change and that it’s a liberal scam and that I am being a Libtard. Could they be telling me the truth?