How the Prairies must adapt to meet the challenges of climate change

CBC Alberta and Saskatchewan have teamed up for a new pilot series on weather and climate change on the prairies. Meteorologist Christy Climenhaga will bring her expert voice to the conversation to help explain weather phenomena and climate change and how it impacts everyday life.

As our climate changes we hear a lot about mitigation or reducing emissions, but another piece of the puzzle is adaptation. 

With rising sea levels, for example, the importance of hard adaptations like shoreline armouring and seawalls are obvious, but as important are the so-called soft adaptations like emergency management and planned relocations or retreats.

With flooding and fires in Alberta and droughts in Saskatchewan, the Prairies are experiencing catastrophic events more frequently.

But before looking at what adaptation will look like, we need to examine who is most at risk.

According to Natural Resources Canada's Regional Perspectives report, social groups such as Indigenous peoples, women, lower income people, rural communities and new Canadians are more vulnerable to climate change. 

Sharlene Alook, from Kisipikamahk, Bigstone Cree Nation, in northern Alberta, is a masters student and collaborator with an Indigenous-led conservation and sustainability project at the University of Alberta.

"I was born and raised in an environment that was abundant in freshwater and beautiful landscape," Alook says.

"I went back home and I saw the river had receded. I went to the places I used to pick berries and they are not there. I see more logging trucks than ever before and the water in the lake is not healthy, there's not much wildlife."

Alook says climate change affects Indigenous people by limiting access to food sovereignty and threatening language, treaty rights and culture.

"They have to go further to hunt and gather food," she says. "Climate change has affected the waters, the unpredictable weather. 

"Our calendar months are based on the descriptions of the animals, the migrations and it's now unknown. We have traditional areas where we fish and pick berries. We conduct ceremonies here, this is where our language comes from."

Jeff Birchall, director of the Climate Adaptation and Resilience Lab at the University of Alberta, says people that are marginalized are most exposed to the impact of climate change.

"In order to make your community actually resilient, those folks need to be incorporated not just in what is community resilience, but in becoming resilient," Birchall says.