From Environmental Expert:
“Ottawa, Ontario – A comprehensive multi-disciplinary synthesis just published in Environmental Reviews reveals the urgent need for further investigation and policy development to address significant environmental, social and economic impacts of invasive alien species (IAS) and climate change. “Effects of climate change on the distribution of invasive alien species in Canada: a knowledge synthesis of range change prediction in a warming world” is the collaborative effort of a team of dedicated researchers at York University’s Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS).
‘Many species’ distributions are already changing in response to a warming climate, and ecosystems are predicted to become more vulnerable to invasive species as climatic barriers are eliminated,“ says author Dr. Andrea Smith, IRIS Senior Fellow, currently conducting a legislative review of invasive species policy in Canada for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and the Canadian Aquatic Invasive Species Network. “The interactive effects of climate change and invasive species are expected to have profound consequences for environments, economies and societies worldwide. For example, many new infectious diseases will likely spread to the Arctic, and coordinated circumpolar disease monitoring and targeted healthcare planning will be needed to handle this new pressure. Yet, these two drivers of global change are rarely considered jointly in policy and management initiatives.’”
Read the full article here.
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New shipping lanes opening in Arctic with diluted salinity and dormant temperature activated virus being released from melting glaciers and Arctic lakes will help facilitate the spread of disease and invasive s in ballast water as shipping traffic increase along with increased oil tanker activity moving oil from Canada to China where they will, hide and not verify emission releases. Invasive s and human health concerns from living pathogens could be reduced, along with carbon by reducing shipping of oil both from Canada and our brother continent of South America to China, creating a need to import oil with a dirty water trail and carbon emissions of tankers from violent parts of the world causing more wars creating environmental destruction.