TABLE OF CONTENTS Video Summary & Related Content 3 Video Review 4 Before Viewing 5 While Viewing 5 Talk Prompts 7 After Viewing 11 The Story 13 Activity #1: Canada’s Climate Change Future 17 Activity #2: What you can do to help fight climate change 19 Sources 23 CREDITS News in Review is produced by Visit www.curio.ca/newsinreview for an archive of all CBC NEWS and curio.ca previous News In Review seasons. As a companion resource, go to www.cbc.ca/news for additional GUIDE articles. Writer/Editor: Sean Dolan Additional editing: Michaël Elbaz CBC authorizes reproduction of material contained VIDEO in this guide for educational purposes. Please Host: Michael Serapio identify source. Senior Producer: Jordanna Lake News In Review is distributed by: Packaging Producer: Marie-Hélène Savard curio.ca | CBC Media Solutions Associate Producer: Francine Laprotte © 2019 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Supervising Manager: Laraine Bone GLOBAL WARMING WARNING: What Yukon's Glaciers Tell Us Video duration – 13:10 Global warming is having a massive impact on the planet. In October 2018, the world’s leading climate scientists met in South Korea and warned that we have only 12 years to limit global warming. They predict urgent change is needed or the planet will be in peril. Much of that warming can be linked to human activity. Glaciers are barometers of climate change, and their melting results in a rise in sea levels that has catastrophic results for coastal communities. The CBC’s Susan Ormiston speaks with a glacier expert in the St. Elias mountains in the Yukon to find out what she is seeing in terms of ice field melt. RELATED CONTENT • Climate Change: Worst-Case Scenario • Geologic Journey II – Pacific Rim: The Americas • News in Review, October 2018 – Extreme Weather 2018: Is this Climate Change? • News in Review, December 2015 – Global Warming: Canada’s Melting Glaciers • News in Review, September 2006 – Canada’s Changing Arctic • Secrets from the Ice curio.ca/newsinreview / 3 VIDEO REVIEW curio.ca/newsinreview / 4 BEFORE VIEWING Did you know Conduct a simple search engine query using the words that the Yukon Territory was “glacier melting.” See what you come up with. What problems officially does the planet face in light of the melting of the world’s glaciers? renamed Yukon in 2003? Now there is a hearty grammar debate about WHILE VIEWING whether to call the territory just Yukon or The Yukon. Visit 1. The Kaskawulsh Glacier in Yukon is: https://whatsupyukon.com/ a) 10 km long and 2 km wide c) 50 km long and 1 km wide and look for the article entitled “The controversial three-letter b) 30 km long and 8 km wide d) 70 km long and 5km wide word” for a full explanation of the debate. 2. In some places, the Kaskawulsh Glacier is as thick as: a) 800 m b) 700 m c) 600m d) 500m 3. The Kaskawulsh Glacier is losing about a metre of ice per year. TRUE or FALSE? Global Warming Warning: What Yukon's Glaciers Tell Us curio.ca/newsinreview / 5 4. Roughly what percentage of the world’s glaciers can be found in Canada? a) 5 b) 15 c) 25 d) 35 5. The Kaskawulsh Glacier has receded so much since 1900 that: a) The glacier will be gone by 2020. b) The glacier melt no longer drains into the Slims River and instead follows the Kaskawulsh River. c) The glacier melt has overwhelmed the Slims River basin. d) The Slims River is no longer on the map of Yukon. 6. Because of decreased water flow in the Slims River, the shores of Kluane Lake have receded, affecting the communities of Burwash Landing and Destruction Bay. TRUE or FALSE? 7. Canada’s highest peak is: a) Mount McKinley b) Mont Tremblant c) Mount Logan d) Mount Saint Elias 8. It’s already warmed up by _____ °C in Yukon. Global Warming Warning: What Yukon's Glaciers Tell Us curio.ca/newsinreview / 6 TALK PROMPTS curio.ca/newsinreview / 7 TALK PROMPT #1 Consider pausing the video and giving students the opportunity to talk to an elbow partner for a few minutes or use these questions as part of a class discussion. Pause the video after glaciologist Gwenn Flowers says, “…it turns out that in the last two decades we as humans are responsible for about 70 per cent of the mass loss from small glaciers and ice caps,” @ 05:42 1. What are Yukon’s glaciers telling us about the health of the planet? 2. Are we on track to get climate change under control by 2030? 3. Why does Canada play a special role in protecting the world’s glaciers and ice caps? Global Warming Warning: What Yukon's Glaciers Tell Us curio.ca/newsinreview / 8 TALK PROMPT #2 Pause the video after Andy Williams says, “Well, I would say that water is probably our major natural resource. Certainly, when you translate the changes that are occurring here into areas like the Andes or the Himalayas, where there are millions of people relying on a steady flow from glaciers to provide irrigation and drinking water, then the results are catastrophic,” @ 10:41 1. What has Kluane First Nation Chief Bob Dixon noticed about changes to the natural landscape along the Slims River? 2. How has the re-routing of the Slims River affected life for the people of Burwash Landing and Destruction Bay? Global Warming Warning: What Yukon's Glaciers Tell Us curio.ca/newsinreview / 9 3. What stark warning does Kluane National Park Superintendent Diane Wilson give to tourists coming to visit the north? 4. Since Andy Williams founded Icefield Discovery, what changes has he noticed? Why is he worried about people living close to the Andes and the Himalayas? TALK PROMPT #3 Play the video through to the end and consider the following questions as a class: 1. Why are people like Gwenn Flowers trying to grab the attention of Canadians? 2. What message does she want people to receive? Global Warming Warning: What Yukon's Glaciers Tell Us curio.ca/newsinreview / 10 AFTER VIEWING The CBC documentary you just viewed was filmed by Jared Thomas, edited by Sheldon Beldick and produced by Mia Sheldon. Watch the video again and answer the following questions: 1. How well do the producers of the documentary capture the beauty of Canada’s Kaskawulsh Glacier and Kluane National Park? 2. What images stand out for you? 3. Why does an effectively produced documentary lend itself to the message of the story? 4. Would people be more inclined to take steps to preserve our natural environment based on what they have seen in the documentary? Global Warming Warning: What Yukon's Glaciers Tell Us curio.ca/newsinreview / 11 In Canada we have about 35 percent of the world's glaciers and icecaps. Those are the smaller ice masses outside of Greenland and Antarctica. So we as Canadians are stewards of about a third of the world's mountain glaciers and icecaps, and this is our responsibility. – Gwenn Flowers, Glaciologist, Simon Fraser University THE STORY It has to go somewhere. Canada’s special role to disappear at the rate of about half a metre per year. When glaciers melt, the mass Canada is host to about a third According to some estimates, of water will travel into of the world’s glaciers and ice the Saint Elias Mountain range tributaries, rivers, lakes and caps, giving our nation a (of which the Kaskawulsh oceans. Since glaciers exist on special role in doing its utmost the polar extremes of the to protect this planet, and they are melting at natural resource. an alarming rate, the runoff Unfortunately, water is changing the global the news isn’t ecosystem. Rivers are good. Scientists changing course, lake levels working in Yukon are rising and falling, and have noted that oceans are rising — putting the Kaskawulsh coastal populations at risk. Glacier is starting Global Warming Warning: What Yukon's Glaciers Tell Us curio.ca/newsinreview / 13 glacier is a part) has lost 17 square kilometres of snow and ice since 1977. Scientists blame the 2°C climb in global temperatures associated with climate change. Those same scientists worry that temperatures could rise by another 3°C by 2100. Kluane Lake’s in trouble The Kaskawulsh Glacier is currently 70 kilometres long and five kilometres wide — a melting became so runoff stopped feeding the fraction of its former self. In transformative that the glacier main tributary of the ice sheet, the summer of 2018, the receded to the point that the the Slims River. This caused Global Warming Warning: What Yukon's Glaciers Tell Us curio.ca/newsinreview / 14 the river to just about dry up World Heritage downstream, leading to dust site. According to storms along the Alaska the park super- Highway and causing Kluane intendent, Diane Lake to drop by nearly two Wilson, Kluane metres. The diminished National Park has capacity of the lake affected seen a 20 per cent the communities of Burwash reduction in glacial Landing and Destruction Bay, area coverage in two Indigenous towns that the past 60 years. Wilson says, Getting it under control count on Kluane Lake for “Kluane is an icon. People are This sentiment is echoed by fishing. Now the whitefish and so excited to come and visit climate scientists the world trout have shifted their this wonderful place, but they over. Most models predict spawning areas. should know that it’s that glacial melting will changing. Climate change contribute to rising sea levels The lake is part of Kluane knows no boundaries.” that could see oceans rise by National Park, a UNESCO Global Warming Warning: What Yukon's Glaciers Tell Us curio.ca/newsinreview / 15 as much as 30 cm by 2100.