Is Global Warming a Good Thing for Canadians?

How Canada may benefit from climate change.

By: Brady Gidge

As arctic animal populations diminish and extreme weather becomes more common, Canada will see several positive changes because of global warming. Could Canadians possibly be immune to the suffering global warming is expected to inflict on the planet?

Scientific predictions of the effect

In his book, The World in 2050, Arctic scientist Laurence C. Smith predicts some of the positive changes Canada will see in the coming years. Smith says Canada’s population will rival India’s, increasing by more than 30 per cent. Canada will also be one of the very few places on earth that crop production will actually increase and a rise in our oil resources will make us second in the world, only behind Saudi Arabia.

Robert Mendelsohn, an economics professor at Yale University, goes so far as to say that positive effects will outweigh the negative.

While there’s the argument that a climate that’s 2 degrees warmer would be beneficial and harmless for the world, Benny Peiser, an anthropologist at John Moores University, goes further in saying that Canada and Russia could handle changes that are much more drastic.

“They could cope with that kind of increase, though other regions might struggle” he goes on.

Peiser also says that the threat of human extinction or billions dying is an alarmist’s perspective, as he continues to explain that weather fluctuations have been prominent in human history and that we would adapt smoothly. He goes on to say:

“In periods of warming you always had thriving societies, and the periods that were troubling for societies were the cold periods, obviously because that’s when agriculture suffers.”

This indicates that we should be more concerned about our world cooling than our world warming up, because warm weather is good for agriculture.

In response to the severity advertised by politicians and activists, Julienne Stroeve of the National Snow and Ice Data Center says “You’ll find since about 2000 every month you have positive temperature anomalies,” in other words, Global warming is nothing new, and there’s nothing to be alarmed about.

Conclusion

Overall, being a Canadian is proving to be more beneficial than just free Healthcare, or promoted equality. It now makes you a member of a growing safe house from global warming, so let’s just chill out.

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Brady Gidge is a freelance writer and audio engineer currently living in Nova Scotia. He enjoys writing and speaking about controversial topics, world issues and technology