Climate Change in The Prairies

By Deniel Ryzhkov

What is happening in the prairies concerning climate change? The prairies are well known for there agriculture, they produce over 62% of Canadas food, meaning there are a lot of farm animals that add Co2 into the atmosphere. They are also well known for there mining and oil extraction. All those machines add Co2 through combustion. As u can tell the prairies produce a lot of carbon, but how do we get rid of it? Well trees are an option, trees take carbon from the atmosphere and instead give fresh oxygen, but as you can probably tell the prairies pretty much do not have any trees, this is due to the Rocky Mountains that border them from the West coast of BC. As the mountains grew taller, they started creating rain shadows that prevented the growth of trees. Well how about water? Water is good at storing large amounts of carbon, but there are no large bodies of water in the prairies, because they are in the middle of a country, far from any ocean or sea. As u can imagine with all this carbon in the air, it is getting hot in the prairies, by 2050 the temperature is supposed to rise by about 2.0 to 3.0 degrees in Celsius. Well what does this mean to the environment, droughts will become more frequent and water will become more insufficient. These two factors will make it harder for crops to grow and for animals to stay alive. Heat waves will affect people living in the prairies, making the air more humid and affecting people with breathing problems. Heat strokes will become more common. Although there are not any trees down south, trees up north will become more prone to wildfires. These fires will burn trees realising more carbon into the atmosphere, animals will die, and habitats will be ruined. Living near the Rocky Mountains means Alberta gets a of glacier water. But what happens when it thaws to quickly? Alberta will receive a lot of floods damaging homes and animal habitats, killing humans and animals alike. Although all this is bad, when there is not heat waves and droughts, the prairies will see a big advancement in agriculture. Having shorter and warmer winters meaning they can use more potential and profitable seeds such as corn, soy, peas and lentil. So how can we help reduce the Co2. We need to focus on renewable energy such as electric cars and solar panels. Solar panels will be most likely in the prairies since they are so flat u can put solar panels almost anywhere and since its getting hotter solar panels will have a better use.