What happened in climate news in 2024? Take our quiz

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This week:

• What occurred in local weather information in 2024? Take our quiz
• The Massive Image: The Unhurried Home
• High secret quiz solutions (no peeking till you have completed the quiz)

What occurred in local weather information in 2024? Take our quiz

It was a 12 months of unhealthy local weather information, however some excellent news too. Despite the fact that the 12 months hasn’t wrapped up, 2024 will be the hottest year on record, and scientists are warning it might find yourself greater than 1.5 C above the pre-industrial common. There have been some damaging climate disasters. However we additionally shared some excellent news about reducing emissions and local weather options. Had been you paying consideration? 

Listed here are 10 questions to check your information of this 12 months’s local weather tales. Maintain observe of your solutions and verify them on the backside of the web page.

1. In September and October, Florida was hit onerous by two hurricanes made worse by local weather change. What had been the names?

a) Francine and Helene.
b) Helene and Milton.
c) Isaac and Oscar.
d) Beryl and Ernesto.

2. An organization in California is sending balloons stuffed with sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere in an effort to replicate daylight and funky the Earth to fend off international warming. What is that this course of known as?

a) Marine cloud brightening.
b) Cloud thinning.
c) Area sunshades.
d) Aerosol injection.

3. Nations have been assembly this 12 months to hammer out a treaty on plastic air pollution. How heavy was the plastic thrown away globally between 1950 and 2015? As heavy as:

a) Greater than 13 million 747 jumbo jets.
b) Greater than two million Saturn V rockets.
c) Greater than 54,000 CN towers.
d) Virtually 25,000 Icon of the Seas cruise ships (the present largest one).

4. The massive deal at this 12 months’s UN Local weather Summit, COP29, was local weather financing for growing international locations. In an settlement known as the NCQG, international locations conform to ship $300 billion yearly by 2035. What does NCQG stand for? 

a) Nationwide Local weather Quotas for Governance. 
b) New Collective Quantified Objective.
c) Close to Disaster Quarterly Grants.
d) Wants-based Local weather Quotient Objective.

5. The Insurance coverage Board of Canada stated this summer season shattered data for insured losses from climate disasters. Of those 4 summertime catastrophic occasions, which price probably the most? 

a) Flooding in Toronto and different components of southern Ontario.
b) Jasper wildfire.
c) Calgary hailstorm.
d) Flooding in areas of Quebec.

6. Canada’s greenhouse gasoline emissions dropped barely in 2023 to the equal of 702 megatonnes of carbon dioxide, however emissions from the oil and gasoline business continued to rise. What proportion of Canada’s whole emissions come from oil and gasoline?

a) 72 per cent.
b) 31 per cent.
c) 13 per cent.
d) 6 per cent.

7. “Waste” warmth is a inexperienced and environment friendly method to warmth buildings. What supply(s) of waste warmth is/are being utilized in Canada?

a) Sewage.
b) Industrial warmth from a pulp and paper mill.
c) Information centres.
d) All the above.

8. In Montreal, one type of public transportation has grown 55 per cent since 2021. It has additionally seen double-digit development in different main Canadian cities. What’s it?

a) Bike sharing.
b) Electrical buses.
c) Monorails.
d) Subways.

9. Canada exports extra oil and gasoline than it consumes. How do estimated emissions from our exported fossil fuels evaluate to our whole nationwide emissions? 

a) One third of our nationwide emissions.
b) About half of our nationwide emissions.
c) Equal to our nationwide emissions.
d) Greater than our nationwide emissions.

10. Folks working in conventional vitality jobs have expertise which might be transferable to the clear vitality and clear economic system sectors. Drilling and pipe set up are used wherein of the next industries?

a) Battery recycling.
b) Geothermal or geoexchange heating and cooling.
c) Wind turbine upkeep.
d) EV manufacturing.

Previous problems with What on Earth? are here. The CBC Information local weather web page is here. 

Take a look at our podcast and radio present. In our newest episode: They’re on billboards, entrance pages, TV … however do they move the sniff take a look at? We dig into the information behind Alberta’s “Scrap the Cap” marketing campaign. Then, warmth and drought may very well be the Grinch that stole one in every of New Brunswick’s beloved Christmas tree species. CBC Fredericton journalist Danielle McCreadie shares some options farmers and business are eyeing to climate-proof the balsam fir.  

What On Earth drops new podcast episodes each Wednesday and Saturday. You’ll find them in your favorite podcast app, or on demand at CBC Listen. The radio present airs Sundays at 11 a.m., 11:30 a.m. in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Have a compelling private story about local weather change you need to share with CBC Information? Pitch a First Person column here.

Reader suggestions

Reynold Reimer despatched us this photograph and wrote: “I learn the story about the efforts of Montreal and Toronto to control greenwashing by the fossil industry (Oct. 10) with curiosity.  Not less than somebody is making progress on the greenwash file. I reside in Calgary and we’ve our personal model of greenwashing on transit buses. Day-after-day I see buses which bear indicators that say ‘Cleaner. Quieter. Higher. Powered by Pure Gasoline.’ With what we now know in regards to the results of fossil gasoline on the local weather we must always not permit this propaganda.”

That promoting is Calgary Transit’s personal, and Reynold, you are proper that pure gasoline is a fossil gasoline made principally of methane, a robust greenhouse gasoline that may leak into the environment.

Calgary Transit makes use of compressed pure gasoline (CNG) in these buses and explains the messaging this fashion: “When in comparison with diesel buses, our CNG-powered buses emit round 20 per cent much less greenhouse gasoline (GHG) emissions, as much as 95 per cent much less nitrogen oxides, and nearly no particulate matter. Since their introduction in 2014 our CNG buses have helped us cut back our whole bus fleet CO2 emissions by roughly 5,650,000 kilograms. (That is the CO2 emissions equal to consuming about 2.4 million litres of gasoline).”

In response to the U.S. Division of Power, heavy-duty pure gasoline autos can present “small to moderate” emissions reductions compared to diesel by means of their life cycle, however precise reductions rely upon relative gasoline economic system in addition to methane leakage all through the system. 

Calgary Transit says it plans to purchase 180 extra pure gasoline buses by means of 2026 to switch diesel and buses and in addition “plans to deploy” electric buses and test hydrogen and renewable diesel.

Write us at whatonearth@cbc.ca. (And be at liberty to ship images too!) Please hold sharing your recommendations for greener vacation gifting or different methods to make the vacations greener – we’ll compile them for a future concern.

The Massive Image: The Unhurried Home

We just lately featured an article and a What on Earth podcast episode on deconstruction as a substitute for demolition. That prompted Heidi Mack to put in writing and ship images of her personal deconstruction mission: 

“I purchased a demolition-destined 150-year-old farm home on Wolfe Island (off Kingston, Ont.) for beneath $200,000 in 2019 and deconstructed it board by board, door by door, body by body (together with eradicating concrete poured into all of the partitions — now the bottom of my vegetable backyard) and rebuilt/renovated it right into a deep vitality retrofit extremely environment friendly home — I employed an “vitality engineer” (sustainability guide) and have taken 5 years to de-nail, reuse, repurpose, scrounge, and “reside with” previous and out-of-date issues, dumpster dive constructing websites, purchased used issues from Fb Market, dismantled previous furnishings and included it, and mainly labored very onerous to not purchase new. 

All of this took a LOT of additional time — a renovation that’s seeing its completion 5 years later. We name the mission The Unhurried Home as a result of deconstruction and cautious reconstruction with these saved and scrounged supplies takes endurance, dedication and creativity!” 

Heidi says she’s presently writing a memoir in regards to the mission, and shares extra about it on her Instagram @theunhurriedhouse.

Scorching and bothered: Provocative concepts from across the net

High secret quiz solutions

1. In September and October, Florida was hit onerous by two hurricanes made worse by local weather change. What had been the names?

a) Francine and Helene.
b) Helene and Milton.
c) Isaac and Oscar.
d) Beryl and Ernesto.

Reply: B. Hurricanes Helene and Milton slammed into Florida in September and October, solely two weeks aside. Each storms intensified quickly, fueled by the Gulf of Mexico’s heat water, which analyses found were made hundreds of times more likely due to human-caused climate change. 

2. An organization in California is sending balloons stuffed with sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere in an effort to replicate daylight and funky the Earth to fend off international warming. What is that this course of known as?

a) Marine cloud brightening.
b) Cloud thinning.
c) Area sunshades.
d)  Aerosol injection.

Reply: D. Aerosol injection is likely one of the most-talked about forms of solar radiation management and it might cool the planet in a method that is just like a big volcanic eruption. 

3. Nations have been assembly this 12 months to hammer out a treaty on plastic air pollution. How heavy was the plastic thrown away globally between 1950 and 2015? As heavy as:

a) Greater than 13 million 747 jumbo jets.
b) Greater than two million Saturn V rockets.
c) Greater than 54,000 CN towers.
d) Virtually 25,000 Icon of the Seas cruise ships.

Reply: Truly, any of the above. All of these solutions weigh 6.3 billion metric tonnes, which is what a 2017 research estimated is the quantity of plastic the world has tossed out. And it’s only set to grow. 

4. The massive deal at this 12 months’s UN Local weather Summit, COP29, was local weather financing for growing international locations. In an settlement known as the NCQG, international locations conform to ship $300 billion yearly by 2035. What does NCQG stand for? 

a) Nationwide Local weather Quotas for Governance. 
b) New Collective Quantified Objective. 
c) Close to Disaster Quarterly Grants.
d) Wants-based Local weather Quotient Objective. 

Reply: B. Sure, add it to the record of boring but important climate terms. And if $300 billion a 12 months seems like loads, growing international locations say it is not sufficient. 

5. The Insurance coverage Board of Canada stated this summer season shattered data for insured losses from climate disasters. Of those 4 summertime catastrophic occasions, which price probably the most? 

a) Flooding in Toronto and different components of southern Ontario.
b) Jasper wildfire.
c) Calgary hailstorm.
d) Flooding in areas of Quebec.

Reply: C. IBC says an August hailstorm in Calgary price insurers practically $3 billion — a sum that some researchers say may help emphasize climate change’s impact on our wallets.

6. Canada’s greenhouse gasoline emissions dropped barely in 2023 to the equal of 702 megatonnes of carbon dioxide, however emissions from the oil and gasoline business continued to rise. What proportion of Canada’s whole emissions come from oil and gasoline?

a) 72 per cent.
b) 31 per cent.
c) 13 per cent.
d) 6 per cent.

Reply: B. Manufacturing in Canada’s oil and gasoline sector hit a document excessive in 2023, cancelling out most of the reductions from different sectors. The sector emissions have elevated 83 per cent between 1990 and 2022, in line with the Nationwide Greenhouse Gasoline Emissions Stock.

7. “Waste” warmth is a inexperienced and environment friendly method to warmth buildings. What supply(s) of waste warmth is/are being utilized in Canada?

a) Sewage.
b) Industrial warmth from a pulp and paper mill.
c) Information centres.
d) All the above. 

Reply: D. All the above. District heating systems throughout Canada are utilizing waste heat from industrial sources, wastewater and knowledge centres. Some buildings are storing extra warmth for future use in giant water batteries underneath downtown Toronto.

8. In Montreal, one type of public transportation has grown 55 per cent since 2021. It has additionally seen double-digit development in different main Canadian cities. What’s it?

a) Bike sharing.
b) Electrical buses. 
c) Monorails.
d) Subways.

Reply: A. Montreal’s Bixi was the primary public bike-sharing system in North America. In 2023, 576,000 people took 11.7 million trips within the city. Riders say bike sharing is a handy method to make one-way journeys with out the trouble of sustaining your individual bike. Cities say it is a low-cost method to fill the gaps within the public transportation system. 

9. Canada exports extra oil and gasoline than it consumes. How do estimated emissions from our exported fossil fuels evaluate to our whole nationwide emissions? 

a) One third of our nationwide emissions.
b) About half of our nationwide emissions.
c) Equal to our nationwide emissions.
d) Greater than our nationwide emissions.

Reply: D. Estimated exported emissions from Canada’s oil and gasoline business are as excessive as 1.3 occasions our nationwide emissions, outweighing each sector throughout the nation.

10. Folks working in conventional vitality jobs have expertise which might be transferable to the clear vitality and clear economic system sectors. Drilling and pipe set up are used wherein of the next industries?

a) Battery recycling.
b) Geothermal or geoexchange heating and cooling.
c) Wind turbine upkeep.
d) EV manufacturing.

Reply: B. The geothermal or geoexchange heating and cooling wants employees to drill boreholes to collect underground heat. In some circumstances, the boreholes can feed warmth into district heating networks, the place employees lay pipes similar to those used in the gas industry.

Keep in contact!

Thanks for studying. Are there points you need us to cowl? Questions you need answered? Do you simply need to share a sort phrase? We might love to listen to from you. Electronic mail us at whatonearth@cbc.ca.

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Editors: Emily Chung and Hannah Hoag | Brand design: Sködt McNalty