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Good afternoon and thanks for catching up with us after the long weekend. Welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada.
A mysterious illness has killed billions of sea stars. Just yesterday, scientists shared how they’ve solved the case.
The breakthrough was reported in the Nature Ecology and Evolution journal: a bacterium whose relatives include pathogens associated with seafood-borne illnesses and with cholera.
But it also sheds light on a long-suspected connection between sea star disease and climate change. Because vibrio bacteria tend to be more active in warmer water, rising ocean temperatures along the Pacific coast may account for why the disease has become so rampant.
Now, let’s catch you up on other news.
Noteworthy reporting this week:
- ESG: Canadian companies’ boards could face lawsuits if they don’t address nature-related risks
- Heat: Toronto under heat warnings for more than half the summer, putting city’s most vulnerable at risk
- Plastic: Geneva meeting to try and finish global plastics treaty kicks off
- Forestry: Federal forest report obscures logging’s impact on wildlife and climate, conservation groups say
- Wildfires: Heat warnings, air-quality alerts abound for long weekend as destructive wildfire season continues
- Evacuations: Hundreds of residents evacuated after fire threatens Peachland, B.C.
- The bees: Rise in honeybee mortality rate coincides with stricter antibiotic regulation, study finds
- Abroad: India aims to combat deadly snake bites in a country where some believe ‘it is a curse, not a medical emergency’
A deeper dive
Large container ships navigate through New York Harbor on April 25, 2025. All large whale species in this region are detected in the New York Bight.Lauren Owens Lambert/The Globe and Mail
Ship strikes jeopardize this endangered whale’s survival
Jenn Thornhill Verma is a journalist reporting on fisheries, ocean issues and climate change.
For this week’s deeper dive, she is taking a closer look at the fourth story in The Globe’s Entangled series, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network, examining Canada-U.S. cross-border measures to protect North Atlantic right whales.
Vessel strikes are a leading cause of serious injury and death for the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.
From 1980 to 2024, in U.S. and Canadian waters, researchers recorded 122 right whale vessel strike injuries, including 42 fatalities — 27 in the U.S. and 15 in Canada. These figures are likely an underestimate, say researchers.
As climate change alters the distribution of food sources, right whales are foraging in areas not adequately covered by current vessel strike protections, including re-routing or slowing down vessels.
One such area is the New York Bight, which extends between New York and New Jersey to Hudson Canyon, the largest submarine valley off the U.S. East Coast.
All large whale species – Blue, Fin, Sei, Sperm, humpback and North Atlantic right whales – frequent New York waters. Humpbacks are increasingly detected, evidenced by the New York City Humpback Whale Catalog, maintained by the nonprofit, Gotham Whale.
What began as a catalog of five humpbacks in 2011 has grown to over 450 detected as of 2025.
Except for humpbacks, all these species are federally listed as endangered, and all face threats from human activities, primarily vessel strikes and fishing gear entanglements.
While many vessel-strike deaths and injuries go unseen or unreported – two-thirds go unobserved – Canada has seen no right whale vessel-strike-related deaths since implementing its enhanced measures.
A North Atlantic right whale known as 'Lemur' shows its severely damaged tail, the result of a ship strike, in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence in Canada.Nick Hawkins/The Globe and Mail
But re-routing or slowing down vessels outside of seasonal closures when right whales are detected is voluntary south of the border and has lower co-operation compared with mandatory measures.
Food availability is the primary driver of whale presence in the New York Bight. The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than any other part of the global ocean, shifting the distribution of whales’ prey.
There are currently 372 North Atlantic right whales alive today. If safeguards do not meet North Atlantic right whales where they are, the risk of vessel strikes will increase, further threatening this already imperiled species.
- Jenn
What else you missed
- Trump rollbacks and pressure from oil-producing countries threaten global plastics treaty
- Tsunami advisory for B.C. coast cancelled after 8.8 magnitude earthquake hits Russia
- Alberta’s coal mine reclamation regulations failing to protect water, fish, scientists say
- Toronto’s air quality index at ‘high risk’ due to Prairies wildfire smoke
- Trump administration moves to repeal scientific finding that underpins climate regulation
- Montreal’s rat problem worsens despite city’s promise to tackle it
- Hong Kong hit by heaviest August rain since 1884, shuttering clinics, schools and courts
- Destructive floods expose climate risks to infrastructure in South Asia
Opinion and analysis
Editorial board: Smoke. The new reality in summertime
Gary Mason: China is becoming a green energy superpower. Canada should take note
Green Investing
Jasper residents risk running out of coverage for expenses as rebuilding efforts lag, report warns
Residents and business owners in Jasper, Alta., are at risk of running out of insurance coverage for additional living expenses and business interruption, as delays in rebuilding after last year’s wildfire continue to challenge the town, an industry association warns.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada said in a new report that, while rebuilding efforts are progressing, only 56 of the 358 properties destroyed in the western Alberta town have as of July 7 received the necessary permits and approvals to proceed with the restoration of homes and businesses.
- Companies take concrete steps toward capturing revenues from carbon dioxide
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
A person takes a picture of the Golden Monkey, an inflatable sculpture by Australian artist Lisa Roet that calls for reflection on the relationship between humanity and nature in times of climate change at Faria Lima avenue, an important financial and business centre in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on July 31.Amanda Perobelli/Reuters
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
- Beauty is a thing of joy, a driver for change
- A park to remind us about the past
- In the fires, after the floods
- Another tick-infested summer
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