Keeping Calm: The Need to Adapt to New Climate Realities on Canada's West Coast

Like many people living on Canada's "wet" coast, Don He Morrison, from Vancouver, said the weather was changing rapidly across British Columbia. doing. Summers, which used to be relatively mild here, are now punctuated by blistering heat and humidity.

But Morrison is in a unique place to manage the heat — through the trees. He is an urban forestry manager for the city of Vancouver, and his job is to plant as many trees as possible throughout the city. Not just trees. He is increasingly about species that provide large, broad canopies and are resistant to climate change.

Tree, he says, "is one of the city's most untold and untold heroes." On days when summer temperatures soar, “[…] you can notice the difference between a street that is actually shaded and one that is not.”

The climate emergency forced BC summer temperatures are rising on the south coast of The number of projected summer days (days above 25 degrees Celsius) is projected to surge from about 22 today to 50 days per year by 2050.

As a result, there is a growing awareness among planners. , that policy makers, the lives of the general public, and lifestyles are changing along the West Coast. Gone are the days when few people in this part of Canada paid attention to air conditioning, or when people "elsewhere" had to worry about heatstroke.

And while many people on the West Coast rejoice whenever the weather forecast calls for heat There is also a growing realization that summer is not. t always such positive things.

READ MORE: Heat warning continues across Canada amid scorching temperatures and humidity

Urban dendrologist Morrison said there is growing recognition that trees are an important part of reducing heat, just as important as other forms of infrastructure such as roads, bridges and utility poles. said that

Like most cities in Canada, Vancouver is trying to increase tree cover. It's now about 23% citywide. Vancouver, like other cities in the Pacific Northwest, Morrison says he wants to get to 30%.

This is not an easy task, considering that trees take time to grow and require a lot of land to do so. In a city like Vancouver, "a square foot of soil" is so valuable that trees have to compete for the same land as buildings and new developments, Morrison says.

But as temperatures rise, people across British Columbia are realizing that few strategies exist to combat the heat, and that is no longer acceptable.

Enter, trees.

Planting doesn't come cheap. Replacing mature trees could cost the city $20,000

. It goes without saying that the ability of trees to retain water and hold communities together is enormous.

"We're not thinking about heat," says Andréando Dojon, Associate Professor of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University.

For those living along the west coast of Canada, it is becoming increasingly and painfully obvious. There are almost no heat-reducing strategies here, and it's not "cool" anymore.

Rethinking Urban Planning

Brent Torderian works in the field of urban planning. He has been designing and engineering for over 30 years, including from 2006 until 2012 when he served as Chief of Vancouver his planner. In the face of extreme weather, building climate-resilient cities has become an urgent need. But many planners are still stuck in the ways of the past.

"Urban planning, and I say this as an indictment to my own profession, should have planned before [climate change] started happening," he told Global News. Told. "Planning experts don't have to wait until things are clear. It's the opposite of planning, it's reaction." There is no such harsh reality.

READ MORE: As heat waves heat up, experts warn against 'air conditioning society'

Toderian says North American cities have long been built to make the most of the sunlight that hits the streets. In short, it was a view that the sun is good and the shade is bad. “It prevents buildings from entering that would cast shadows on the street,” he says. But as cities like Vancouver heat up, the strategy should be to incorporate shade into city planning designs.

"There are other regions that are specifically planning to shade their roads, and those plans are getting more and more right."

In Australia: Sidewalks, playgrounds, and public squares are regularly covered with awnings, overhangs, or other forms of covering to protect them from the intense heat of the sun.

"It's normal and an obvious part of the design," says Toderian. Compare places like Melbourne or Sydney plan for heat to how places like Vancouver plan for rain.

In North America, most cities are covered with vast expanses of unpaved asphalt, including large outdoor parking lots. That asphalt absorbs the sun and heats the surrounding area, causing a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect. The

tree offers his one solution. But Doyoung says there are many other ways to deal with the heat. For example, there are laws that require roofs and other surfaces to be painted white to reflect the sun, rather than black, which absorbs the sun.

Regarding trees, Toderian said, cities often cite lack of funds as a reason for not planting trees. "We think of [the tree] as 'I wish I had money left over from all my other priorities.'"

forms of infrastructure such as sewers and storm drains that claim that if we start to value them, we will be able to use both money and land.

That transition hasn't happened to the extent it should, he says. "We are just beginning to feel the effects of urban heat events." Dozens of tents and temporary homes line both sides of Hastings Street.

Often referred to pejoratively as 'Canada's Poorest Postcode', this vibrant district is marked by large, leafy trees that cover the rich part of the city. is lost.

On days when the temperature hit him in the mid-30s or worse, the tents and dilapidated one-room dwellings that dot the area became dangerously hot, and temperatures rapidly increased. may rise.

Excessive heat, like most climate impacts, is associated with income inequalities. Most homes in BC still don't have built-in air conditioning, so if you can barely meet your objectives for food and essentials, let alone rent, buying a portable unit is downright impossible.

"We need to be aware that some of the [communities] most affected are not always the ones we are connected to," said a public health researcher. Christopher Carsten mentions people struggling with mental health. challenges, and he is one of the most vulnerable groups when temperatures soar.

READ MORE: Summer is here in Canada, and heat is coming. How to Stay Safe

If day-to-day survival is someone's primary concern, he says: It may not come to mind.

These inequalities are captured in something as simple as a tree cover.

It is well documented that urban areas that are not covered by trees and are warm tend to be less wealthy. Conversely, wealthier areas are greener and, as a result, more likely to be cool and windy during the hottest months of summer.

In the United States, a program calledTree Equity Score calculates how "equal" a community is based on the number of trees.  On average, the lowest income regions show 41% less tree cover than the richest regions.

In Vancouver, the difference is just as pronounced. East He parts of Vancouver, which were traditionally less wealthy, tend to be four or five degrees he higher than the wooded Westside neighborhoods (although the average home price is well above $1 million). In a city that exceeds, wealth is relative).

The city is actively addressing this imbalance.

Don Morrison is not saying that the city does not want to correct inequalities, but that geographical realities prevent them from planting bigger, more mature, leafy trees. He said there are big challenges.

Areas with less trees in cities tend to be smaller and more concrete covered. This means less access to the soil that large, mature trees rely on to grow.

"[Planting more trees] on a small plot is really hard," he says. "I'd like to try more with less resources,"

but progress, he argues, is happening one tree at a time. The city has a view to planting more trees in the neighborhood, downtown he has been removing stumps from the East Side.

According to Toderian, the reality of adapting to heat is slowly starting to appear on planners' radar screens.  From Ottawa to Guelph to Victoria, more and more cities are making trees a more important priority.

He hopes that the hitherto slow rise will change and change rapidly as heat becomes more and more part of the new reality.

``No more plans for him 20 years or he 30 years.''