Canada and the World Backgrounder articles from January 2005

Canada and the World Backgrounder archives from January 2005

Tsunami: on boxing day 2004, nature reminded us of its awesome power.(Introduction)
January 1, 2005... The world's land masses sit on top of plates that float on the molten core of our planet. These plates move and where they meet up with one another earthquakes and volcanoes are common. About 160 kilometres off the west coast of the...

The water planet: earth is the only planet that we know about with such an abundance of water; nature provides humanity with an incredibly valuable resource in the world's oceans.(Resources)
January 1, 2005... Robert Costanza is a different kind of economist. He and his colleagues call themselves "ecological economists." They factor in the value of Nature when calculating the worth of goods, production, and national wealth. In 1997, Dr. Costanza...

Sea sickness: global warming, pollution, and other human activities are causing problems everywhere in the world's oceans.(Health of the planet)
January 1, 2005... There are plenty of signs that all is not well ,with our planet's biggest ecosystem: * Pollution is changing the chemistry of seawater; * Between 1992 and 2000, the portion of coral reefs that has been severely damaged from direct...

The end of the line.(depletion of world fisheries due to over-fishing)
January 1, 2005... One out of every six humans depends on fish for protein needs, yet 75 percent of the world's fisheries are over-fished or fished at their biological limit. Factors that contribute to over-fishing are the lack of understanding of the ocean...

Chilling news: the world's oceans store heat, fresh water, salt, and carbon dioxide, and circulate them around the globe. They transport about as much heat as the atmosphere does, and that makes them a powerful influence on the world's climate.(Climate)
January 1, 2005... El Nino is a prime example of how oceans affect climate: this mass of warm water that builds in the western Pacific Ocean contains 20 to 30 times more water than all the Great Lakes put together. It also has vast amounts of energy: according to...

Perils at sea: according to The Navy League of Canada, one third of Canada's gross domestic product is transported by water. In short, we're a maritime nation dependent on water for transportation, commerce, food, minerals, power, employment, and recreation.(Trade)
January 1, 2005... The international shipping industry handles 80 percent to 90 percent of world trade. That makes it an indispensable ingredient in the global economy. It's estimated that ships, which themselves can cost more than $100 million to build, put...

A new perspective.(Management of the world's oceans)
January 1, 2005... As The Economist observed in 1998, to make the most of the water that surrounds us it must become more like the land, with owners, laws, and limits. "Fishermen must behave more like ranchers than hunters. Polluters should pay something for the...

Quote ...(oceans and marine environment)
January 1, 2005... "If fish farming starts to become a big business in international waters, it could become a big, hard-to-regulate and polluting industry: in other words, a tragedy of the commons." The Economist, August 2003 "(Over-fishing has occurred in)...

Land of lakes.(Introduction)
January 1, 2005... Canada has more lakes than any other country in the world; so many that we don't know exactly how many. If any body had an accurate count it should be Environment Canada. But, that federal department's website says only that: "There are an...

Lake-making.(Formation)
January 1, 2005... There are more ways for lakes to form than you can shake a canoe-paddle at. Most of Canada's lakes were formed by glaciers. Huge fields of ice, several kilometres thick, pushed out across the land during the last Ice Age. This started...

Bulk-water exports.(Lake Superior)
January 1, 2005... Measured by surface area (82, l00 [km.sup.2]), Lake Superior is the biggest freshwater lake in the world. (Lake Baikal in Russia is much deeper and, therefore, has a greater volume of water.) The lake contains 11,400 cubic kilometres of...

Destructive invaders.(Lake Huron.)
January 1, 2005... Lake Huron is the second largest of the Great Lakes with a surface area of 59,570 [km.sup.2] the Canadian portion of the lake (36,000 [km.sup.2]), however, is the greatest expanse of inland water in the country. The Lake Huron fishery has...

Arctic giant.(Great Bear Lake)
January 1, 2005... 3 Great Bear Lake is called Sahtu in the Slavey language. At 31,153 [km.sup.2] it is the largest lake completely within Canada. Lake Superior and Huron are bigger, but are only partly in Canada. Great Bear Lake is located on the Arctic Circle...

The deep one.(Great Slave Lake)
January 1, 2005... 4 Great Slave Lake is an enormous (27,200 [km.sup.2]), complex body of water. As with most of the lakes in Canada, it was formed by the scouring action of glaciers. The lake bottom plunges to a maximum depth of 614 metres, making Great...

Making a comeback.(Lake Erie)
January 1, 2005... 5 The shallowest of the Great Lakes (the mean depth is only 19 metres), Lake Erie used to be infamous as the most polluted one as well. In the 1960s, it was declared "dead." Lake Erie's main supply of water comes from the St. Clair River. The...

Run-off receptacle.(Lake Winnipeg)
January 1, 2005... 6 There used to be a vast lake that covered much of Manitoba as well as parts of Ontario, Saskatchewan, Minnesota, and North Dakota. Called Lake Agassiz, after a Swiss geologist, it was formed about 12,000 years ago from glacial melt water. At...

Don't go fish.(Lake Ontario)
January 1, 2005... 7 Lake Ontario is Canada's seventh largest lake, but is the smallest of the five Great Lakes (19,100 [km.sup.2]). Within the Great Lakes, water flows from west to east into the Atlantic Ocean. The major inflow to Lake Ontario is from Lake Erie...

Wasted wetlands.(Like Athabasca)
January 1, 2005... 8 A bout 70 percent of Lake Athabasca lies within Saskatchewan and the balance is in Alberta. The major water sources are the Athabasca (53 percent) and Fond du Lac (21 percent) Rivers. The lake is drained by several rivers that eventually join...

Fishing paradise.(Reindeer Lake)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... 9 On the boundary between northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Reindeer Lake is the 22nd largest body of fresh water in the world. It boasts 5,500 islands, so the lake is sometimes described as thousands of lakes in a single body of water. ...

Flooded homeland.(Smallwood Reservoir)
January 1, 2005... 10 The biggest artificial lake in Canada is also the biggest in North America. At 6,527 square kilometres, Smallwood Reservoir checks in as the tenth largest lake in Canada. In 1967, the Churchill River in Labrador was dammed to create...

A tough choice.(The Next 10 Plus)
January 1, 2005... 4 Of the two million or so lakes in Canada it's tough to decide which ones are worthy of a mention. In fact, they all are, but that would make for a weighty volume. Here are a few somewhat erratic choices from the many avail able. By surface...