Supermarkets and farms have acted to ensure they discard fewer “ugly” and “wonky” fruit and vegetables. However, the bulk of the problem lies with households.
About 100 homes in Angus, Ont. were damaged by a tornado in June 2014. Ten lost their roofs and had to be demolished.
Gregory Alan Kopp, Western University
Weather-related catastrophic events have cost Canadians more than $17 billion in the past decade. That only stands to grow, unless building codes change to make homes more resilient.
Without a solid national plan to confront climate threats, there’s plenty more hardship on the horizon.
AAP Image/Rob Blakers
With heatwaves, droughts and fires all on the rise, the federal government is urged to merge its separate strategies on disaster resilience and climate readiness.
Dan Smale, Marine Biological Association and Thomas Wernberg, The University of Western Australia
Marine heatwaves, like their land counterparts, are growing hotter and longer. Sea species in southeastern Australia, southeast Asia, northwestern Africa, Europe and eastern Canada are most at risk.
Chicago’s Lake Michigan waterfront froze during the 2019 polar vortex.
AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato
Australian wheat growers need to boost yields to stay competitive in the face of climate change. They could do this by sowing earlier, but need new varieties of wheat to help them do it.
A ‘stuck’ monsoonal system dumped a year’s worth of rainfall on Townsville in just a week.
AAP Image/Dave Acree
What do the recent Townsville floods and Tasmanian heatwave have in common? Both were caused by weather systems that stayed put for days or weeks on end. And global warming could worsen that trend.
People typically become sick between one and 21 days after being infected.
Goran Jakus/Shutterstock
The bacteria that causes melioidosis usually lives 30cm underground in clay soil but is dredged to the surface during heavy rains and floods, and can enter the body through small breaks in the skin.
The heat makes the drought even worse, because it makes the plants more thirsty so they have to drink more.
Tim J Keegan/flickr
We can’t make it rain. But you are already helping if you don’t use more water than you need. And you can talk to your parents about the planet getting warmer, because the heat makes drought worse.
The source of the Yamuna River, one of the major rivers draining the Himalayas.
Anthony Dosseto
A new report predicts that one-third of the ice in the Himalayas will melt, even if we contain global warming to 1.5C. So what does that mean for the flood-prone valleys below?
Shark Bay was hit by a brutal marine heatwave in 2011.
W. Bulach/Wikimedia Commons
Everyone knows the Great Barrier Reef is in peril. But a continent away, Western Australia’s Shark Bay is also threatened by marine heatwaves that could alter this World Heritage ecosystem forever.
Treacherous bushfire conditions are predicted to grow even more frequent as the climate changes.
AAP Image/Andrew Brownbill
Black Saturday in 2009 was Australia’s worst bushfire tragedy. But climate projections predict more bushfire danger in the future, threatening our water supplies as well as homes.
Monitoring the whereabouts of floodwaters is vital for protecting infrastructure.
AAP Image/Andrew Rankin
The flood zone around Townsville extends for hundreds of kilometres, making monitoring difficult even from the air. But scientists are testing a new satellite method that can peer through the clouds.
Dozens of brumbies were found dead near Santa Teresa in Australia’s remote interior.
AAP Image
Mass wildlife die-offs, such as those wrought by Australia’s recent heatwaves, make for grim headlines. But the wider effects of extreme weather are more complex, and can be remarkably long-lasting.
Heavy, wet snow can knock down tree limbs – and power lines.
AP Photo/Bill Sikes
Life-threatening cold temperatures in the central US are caused by changes in wind circulation in the Arctic that bring cold air south. Climate change could make these events more frequent.
As global warming intensifies violent weather events, the most vulnerable countries affected need help to respond more effectively.
Haiti had not yet recovered from its devastating 2010 earthquake when it was hit hard by Hurricane Matthew in 2016. It is one of the world’s most vulnerable nations to climate change.
AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell
Haiti is extremely vulnerable to climate change. It is also very poor. International donors have stepped in to help the country fund climate mitigation, but is the money going where it’s most needed?