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With global action being outpaced by climate change impacts, communities in climate-vulnerable countries are at increased risk of incurring climate-induced losses and damages. In the last few years, disasters from extreme weather events such as typhoons have increased and have breached records, with typhoon Haiyan being the strongest ever typhoon to make landfall. Such an event solicited global compassion and altruism where Canada and the USA, apart from doling out traditional humanitarian aid, also offered immigration relief opportunities to typhoon Haiyan victims who have familial connections to their residents. Drawing from these immigration relief interventions, this paper uses a sociopolitical approach in proposing a climate humanitarian visa that would be offered to climate change victims on the basis of transnational family networks and skilled labor. Noting that several countries such as in Europe have demographic deficits and labor shortages, such a scheme would benefit both climate change victims and receiving countries. To counter the risk of selective compassion against economically trapped populations, potential receiving countries could provide skills upgrading geared toward addressing their labor shortages through their existing development programs. While migration is only one strategy in a spectrum of responses to climate change impacts, a climate humanitarian visa could provide climate change victims a legal choice for mobility while invoking altruism, hospitality, and compassion from potential receiving countries, whether or not they historically cause climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A wealth of pre-Confederation weather and climate observations were recorded in Canada by individuals and institutions during both the French and British empires. This scientific heritage came about for a number of reasons. For instance, the Hudson's Bay Company wanted to reduce operating costs by having their posts in Canada's north-west become self-sufficient in agriculture. Others wished to save lives from cholera or shipwrecks, or to satisfy curiosity about the ever-present debate concerning anthropogenic climate change. Today, historical climate observations can be found in many diverse locations. Despite our rich scientific heritage, turning archival paper and ink observations into scientific data remains an enormous technical challenge. This challenge falls to our generation, both to use this heritage to investigate the historical context of current climate change and variability, and to use the digital resources in development today to safeguard our scientific heritage for future generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While climate scientists have developed high resolution data sets on the distribution of climate risks, we still lack comparable data on the local distribution of public climate change opinions. This paper provides the first effort to estimate local climate and energy opinion variability outside the United States. Using a multi-level regression and post-stratification (MRP) approach, we estimate opinion in federal electoral districts and provinces. We demonstrate that a majority of the Canadian public consistently believes that climate change is happening. Belief in climate change’s causes varies geographically, with more people attributing it to human activity in urban as opposed to rural areas. Most prominently, we find majority support for carbon cap and trade policy in every province and district. By contrast, support for carbon taxation is more heterogeneous. Compared to the distribution of US climate opinions, Canadians believe climate change is happening at higher levels. This new opinion data set will support climate policy analysis and climate policy decision making at national, provincial and local levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the literature on Indigenous health, human dimensions of climate change, and place-based dimensions of health by examining the role of environment for Inuit health in the context of a changing climate. We investigated the relationship between one key element of the environment – sea ice – and diverse aspects of health in an Inuit community in northern Canada, drawing on population health and health geography approaches. We used a case study design and participatory and collaborative approach with the community of Nain in northern Labrador, Canada. Focus groups (n = 2), interviews (n = 22), and participant observation were conducted in 2010–11. We found that an appreciation of place was critical for understanding the full range of health influences of sea ice use for Inuit. Negative physical health impacts were reported on less frequently than positive health benefits of sea ice use, which were predominantly related to mental/emotional, spiritual, social, and cultural health. We found that sea ice means freedom for sea ice users, which we suggest influences individual and collective health through relationships between sea ice use, culture, knowledge, and autonomy. While sea ice users reported increases in negative physical health impacts such as injuries and stress related to changing environmental conditions, we suggest that less tangible climate change impacts related to losses of health benefits and disruptions to place meanings and place attachment may be even more significant. Our findings indicate that climate change is resulting in and compounding existing environmental dispossession for Inuit. They also demonstrate the necessity of considering place meanings, culture, and socio-historical context to assess the complexity of climate change impacts on Indigenous environmental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an empirical investigation of the historical relationship between the destination climate and tourist arrivals in the Caribbean, this study presents the first revealed preference evaluation of a climate index informed by tourists' stated climatic preferences for coastal-beach tourism (i.e., a sun-sand-surf or 3S travel market). The goal of this multi-organization collaboration was to examine the potential application of a newly designed climate index—the Holiday Climate Index (HCI):Beach—for three Caribbean destinations (Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Saint Lucia). This paper provides an overview of the evolution of climate indices, including the development of the (HCI):Beach. To test the validity of climate indices for a beach travel market, daily climate ratings based on outputs from the Tourism Climate Index and the HCI were correlated with monthly arrivals data from Canada (a key source market) at an island destination scale. The results underscore the strength of the new index, with each destination scoring consistently higher using the HCI:Beach, including a stronger relationship (R2) between index scores and tourist arrivals. These findings demonstrate the value of combining stated and revealed preference methodologies to predict tourism demand and highlight opportunities for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses Leslie Sharpe's sound and sculpture installation project "Beak Disorder," exhibited at Manizales, Columbia for Balance-Unbalance 2016. The work addresses how anthropogenic climate change may be affecting birds in the Pacific Northwest regions of Canada and the United States. "Beak Disorder" is a project that references an unexplained condition documented in birds in the Northwest of Canada and Alaska called "avian keratin disorder" where the bird's beak becomes distorted and elongated. The work includes a series of 3D printed distorted beaks as well as a sound piece and web component. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]