Chris Hatch

5 days ago | nationalobserver.com | Chris Hatch

Only seven years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected the world wouldn't heat beyond 1.5 C until the 2040s. Two years ago, the IPCC authors shifted the projection to the mid-2030s. Now, we're on the doorstep. It was always a stretch goal. The nations of the world have been far quicker to adopt targets than to tackle fossil fuel burning. And the WMO's new forecast means any faint hope is mathematically implausible.

2 weeks ago | nationalobserver.com | Chris Hatch

It's hard to imagine a more terrifying and excruciating way to die - trapped by wildfire as the flames close in. Richard and Sue Nowell were killed this week by the Manitoba wildfires, leaving two sons orphaned and homeless. The deaths turned "an emergency into a tragedy," said Premier Wab Kinew. It had seemed to be a relatively subdued beginning to fire season in Canada compared to the past couple of years.

4 weeks ago | nationalobserver.com | Chris Hatch

"How we build matters," says Efficiency Canada. The organization calculates the most effective way to minimize additional carbon pollution comes from adopting the most ambitious tier of Canada's building codes (the net-zero energy ready standard). There's some dispute whether Orr and the team in Saskatchewan truly "invented" super efficient or passive house design (there are even killjoys who contest Canada's claim to the zipper).

1 month ago | nationalobserver.com | Chris Hatch

There were a long few moments of icy fear as the early vote results trickled in from Atlantic Canada on Monday evening. Befuddled pundits began wondering aloud whether the pollsters had indeed been wrong and Maple MAGA would vastly outperform expectations. The next morning it became clear that a similar foreboding must have shuddered through Danielle Smith's watch party. Viewed from beyond the Prairies, the argument is breathtakingly audacious. Oil and gas production is at an all-time high.

1 month ago | nationalobserver.com | Chris Hatch

The most sensible intervention of the federal election campaign came not from the federal leaders but a more humble layer of government: mayors and councillors from across the country banded together urging the federal parties to get their "elbows up for climate." One of the most poignant signatures to the open letter was Richard Ireland, the mayor of Jasper. Just nine months ago, an inferno roared into the beloved townsite in the Rockies.