Unseasonably dry and hot weather in Fort McMurray, northern Alberta has inflicted disaster on the city.

Canadian scientists have collected stories from more than 90,000 people whose traditional ways of life rely on nature, in an effort to capture signs of climate change where weather stations are absent.

Their findings, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, fill a knowledge gap in climate change science, which is dominated by data and computer models, said the six researchers from Simon Fraser University.

Last December members of the International Trade Union Confederation joined other civil society activists in a mass sit-in at the COP21 talks in Paris. Unionists and their allies, some 400 strong, filled the social space adjacent to the negotiating rooms for several hours, in defiance of a French ban on protests that remained in effect in the wake of the November 13 terrorist attacks.

It’s going to come down to science, not job creation.

That’s the message that a group of B.C. First Nations leaders received from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) when they travelled to Ottawa and Parliament Hill to voice their opinion that the Pacific NorthWest LNG proposed LNG export terminal on Lelu Island does not have universal support from Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities alike in the northwest.

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It’s been a tough month for climate advocates, who at the close of last year would have been justified in feeling Canada had turned a corner on climate change, with even our laggardly politicians starting to grasp its uncompromising scientific realities.

[For the section on climate change and the Leap Manifesto click on 'Read the full article' below and then go to minute 20.35 of the speach.]

CAIRO, Apr 21 2016 (IPS) - “Africa’s human existence and development is under threat from the adverse impacts of climate change – its population, ecosystems and unique biodiversity will all be the major victims of global climate change.”