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Good afternoon, and welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada.
If you’re a parent, now might feel like an good time to encourage your kids to engage in the political world around them. We can teach young people about civic engagement through the issues they might care about, like climate change and education, to help them better understand political structures in Canada, know how to advocate and, eventually, make an informed decision when voting.
Now, let’s catch you up on other news.
Noteworthy reporting this week:
- ESG: Investors push Canadian banks to disclose how much lending goes to high-emissions sources
- Environment: Ottawa to designate ‘forever chemicals’ linked to cancer, liver damage, as toxic
- Oil and gas: To face tariffs, Canada should declare pipeline projects in the national interest, Enbridge CEO says
- World: River-linking project faces backlash in water-stressed India
- Travel: As more travellers look to stay in Canada, RVing grows in popularity
- From The Narwhal: In Canada, tariffs are in. Messing with our clocks twice a year should be out
A deeper dive
Glacial pursuit
For this week’s deeper dive, we excerpt from Sarah Palmer’s piece from the Underexposed series. Underexposed is a year-long photojournalism project dedicated to shedding light on the unseen lives of Canadians in every province and territory. Learn more and share your thoughts with The Globe.
Tourists stand atop an ice-cored moraine on the side of the Athabasca Glacier on Sept. 24, 2024.Sarah Palmer/The Globe and Mail
The first steps onto a glacier can feel like you’re on another planet. Some people compare it to being on the moon or Mars, likely because of the look of the surrounding rocks and glacial silt.
The air is as fresh as you might expect from a mountain range, but on Alberta’s Athabasca Glacier you can still catch a whiff of diesel fuel from the giant tour buses that escort tourists up and down each day.
As features of our planet disappear – coral reefs, rain forests and glaciers – tourists have begun to get curious about experiencing these last-chance wonders.
Located in the Rocky Mountains, the Athabasca glacier recedes approximately five metres every year. It is expected to disappear entirely by 2100.
Guests taking part in the Tread Lightly glacier tour peer into a crevasse that has been sculpted by water drainage from melting ice.Sarah Palmer/The Globe and Mail
Traditionally, tours shuttled guests onto the ice on diesel buses. Recently, smaller outfitters have taken a new approach – one that considers the climate crisis.
Max Darrah, owner of Rockaboo Mountain Adventures, created the Tread Lightly Glacier Hike, which he describes as “the world’s first net-zero daily glacial monitoring program involving park visitors.”
Through his tours he encourages visitors to deepen their connection to the land.
One of the ways he does this is by asking them to help out with collecting research data. Guests on the ice mass take measurements of the incoming and reflected solar radiation on the glacier, as well as surface ice loss.
Eric Dahlberg, a guide with Rockaboo Mountain Adventures, holds a data log used in the company's Tread Lightly program.Sarah Palmer/The Globe and Mail
“There’s something powerful about being able to hold this field book and to see all these entries and know every one of those entries was done because somebody chose to join our hike,” Darrah says.
The data gathered is then shared with scientists around the country.
An Decorte, from Belgium, took part in a Rockaboo hike and described the experience of learning about the glacier’s history and future as “both humbling and awe-inspiring.”
Nlaka’pamux guide Tim Patterson, owner of Zuc’min Guiding, also runs an eco-friendly operation.
Tim Patterson, an Indigenous interpretive hiking guide and owner of Zuc'min Guiding, teaches a group of visitors about glacial striations on rocks.Sarah Palmer/The Globe and Mail
His mission is to be respectful to the glacier, while introducing visitors to an Indigenous perspective. He wants to remind people that Indigenous culture and knowledge is alive, present and thriving in everyday life.
“What I do and what my guides do is no different than what our people did historically in how we observe and navigate the terrain. Our mountain knowledge and our Indigenous culture continues here.”
During the tour, Patterson offers observations on how much the ice has receded, the different moraines of the glaciated landscape and the process of how glaciers are made.
“Every time I come onto the glacier, I’m shocked at how much it’s changed,” he says. His aim isn’t to reverse climate change directly, but to open people’s eyes to the power and beauty of the land.
Visitors pass over a glacial stream on the Athabasca Glacier.Sarah Palmer/The Globe and Mail
Sarah Palmer is a photographer based in Toronto. She explores pop culture and current events with a focus on the subcultures that these gatherings draw in. She is deeply interested in how we navigate ourselves in the world, with her recent work exploring the climate crisis and the impact we have on each other and the environment.
What else you missed
- Monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico rebound this year
- Alberta wildfire conditions in ‘substantially’ better shape than last year, minister says
- Beautiful Canadian drama Shepherds revels in a life on the lamb
- What Canada’s only national urban park can teach us about accessible, eco-friendly design
Opinion and analysis
Eric Tang: The move-fast-and-break-things era is over. Businesses now need a licence to innovate
Eric Reguly: Elon Musk is learning that his haters hate his Tesla cars too
Green Investing
Scotiabank to disclose how much lending goes to high-emissions sources
Bank of Nova Scotia will start disclosing how much of its lending is directed at low-carbon energy versus high-emitting sources, prompting a group of Canadian and international investors to withdraw a shareholder resolution they had planned to try to force the issue.
- National Bank sets $20-billion renewable energy funding target
- Canadian Natural Resources says volatility from U.S. tariffs not changing appetite for acquisitions
- BlackRock strikes deal to bring ports on both sides of Panama Canal under American control
The Climate Exchange
We’ve launched the next chapter of The Climate Exchange, an interactive, digital hub where The Globe answers your most pressing questions about climate change. More than 300 questions were submitted as of September. The first batch of answers tackles 30 of them. They can be found with the help of a search tool developed by The Globe that makes use of artificial intelligence to match readers’ questions with the closest answer drafted. We plan to answer a total of 75 questions.
Photo of the week
Indigenous Semai women dance during the Women's March gathering at a public park on March 8, 2025, in Selangor, Malaysia. Women's March Malaysia organized a picnic-style gathering for this year's International Women's Day. Participants peacefully rallied and advocated for urgent global and social issues, including addressing the climate crisis and protecting Indigenous land rights.Annice Lyn/Getty Images
Guides and Explainers
- Want to learn to invest sustainably? We have a class for that: Green Investing 101 newsletter course for the climate-conscious investor. Not sure you need help? Take our quiz to challenge your knowledge.
- We’ve rounded up our reporters’ content to help you learn about what a carbon tax is, what happened at COP29 and just generally how Canada will change because of climate change.
- We have ways to make your travelling more sustainable and if you like to read, here are books to help the environmentalist in you grow, as well as a downloadable e-book of Micro Skills - Little Steps to Big Change.
Catch up on Globe Climate
- The climate Changemakers
- Adapting limb by limb
- To survive winter, we need to slow down
- Canadian clean tech versus U.S. politics
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