Bidets are making a splash with Canadians worried about waste

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The Big Picture: The eco benefits of cheap rail tickets

While the effects of climate change have been plain to see this summer, more attention has been paid to the rising cost of living, which is also exacting a toll around the world. According to some new research, at least one inflation management strategy is having a positive environmental effect: super-cheap public transport.

In Germany, the lobby group VDV studied the country's experiment with a low-cost public transport ticket, which allowed for countrywide travel on buses, subways, streetcars and regional trains for only nine euros (or $12 Cdn) a month. The program took effect in June and ran out in August. It was part of a broader strategy to help citizens deal with rising energy and fuel prices largely sparked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

When it was broached, many politicians and commentators warned that it was going to be a costly subsidy for the government. The jury is still out on that, but according to VDV, three months with the nine-euro ticket prevented 1.6 million tonnes of CO2 emissions, or the equivalent of powering about 350,000 homes for a year. The carbon savings come largely from commuters not using their cars as much.

Spain announced something similar in July, as it made much of its public transport network free, with a similar eye to protecting people's pocketbooks while easing the strain on the planet.

First Nations, scientists wrestle with Yukon's thawing permafrost

First Nations, scientists and climate change experts are sharing how the Yukon's landscape — shaped by permafrost — is thawing and what that means for adaptation, land use, industry and wildlife.

The issue was the main theme of last week's North Yukon Permafrost Conference, a collaboration between the Tr'ondëk Hwëchin and Vuntut Gwitchin governments, the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyak Dun and the Canadian Permafrost Association.

The permafrost shift is especially noticeable in Dawson City, said Jackie Olson, a Tr'ondëk Hwëchin citizen who has lived in the community her whole life. 

"Buildings are starting to twist. You can see it in the old buildings that have never been touched … how they're starting to lean in," she said. "So the evidence of permafrost is there."

Olson said sharing more information about climate change will push decision-makers into action.

"As an individual, it may seem like an impossible task, but if we all start to think about it … we can bring that information with us and speak more … intellectually on it, so that people who can make the change will hear it."

Olson said weather is getting more unpredictable, fires are burning more intensely, glaciers are changing and so are the animals. 

"I think it's very important the message gets across that First Nation [and elders'] voices matter and they have a huge amount to contribute and they need to be heard," she said. "The youth are on it. I just have to say, 'Don't give up. Don't lose faith, because our ancestors stand behind us and they will continue to guide us everywhere we go.'"

Chris Burn, a permafrost and ground ice expert from Carleton University in Ottawa, organized this conference and has spent four decades studying permafrost in the Yukon. 

Burn said while large conferences that require flying and driving cause their own emissions, they allow scientists and First Nations to build relationships and deepen their understanding of the first-hand impacts of thawing permafrost.

"This is not something that is commonly appreciated in the training of many Western scientists," said Burn. Roughly 20 years ago, there was little permafrost disturbance on the Dempster Highway.

In the northern end of the traditional territory of the Na-Cho Nyak Dun, there are "numerous" permafrost disturbances that can be seen for "miles and miles."

"Things are happening that haven't happened for 14,000 years," said Burn, and many of those changes pose risks to fish and wildlife.

The photo above is an aerial image of the site of a 2021 permafrost slump that caused a landslide into the Yukon River near Whitehorse. 

The Vuntut Gwitchin in Old Crow have a front row seat to climate change, where permafrost thaw is causing land to slump into the river. Vuntut Gwitchin Chief Dana Tizya-Tramm said eventually the permafrost thaw will affect the fish and wildlife.

"We really need to come together because the decisions we make now are exponential and will resonate, and those decisions are based on the quality of the conversations today." 

Bill Slater has worked in water management in the Yukon for 30 years and as a consultant to Indigenous governments on the impacts of mining and mine cleanup projects. 

He said climate change conversations are often centred around vehicle emissions or burning of fuel, but rarely on the type of emissions that could be created by digging up a wetland and releasing carbon that has been stored for thousands of years. 

"We need to be more comprehensive … in our consideration of the implications of the projects that we do and how they might affect permafrost" and traditional uses of land, he said.

— Avery Zingel