[ISL] CBC News on how climate change is eroding Lennox Island

[rfmcdonald]

CBC News's Nick Purdon and Leonardo Palleja's photo essay "'It's a little scary': On Lennox Island, no one debates whether climate change is real" tells the sad story of how Lennox Island, PEI's main Mi'kmaq reserve, is being eaten away by a rising sea.

Rising sea levels, storm surges and coastal erosion threaten its very existence; an estimated 300 football fields of land have already fallen into the sea.

In Canada, Lennox Island is a place where you can see the effects of climate change happening right now — and it's a community preparing for a changing world.

Scientists agree that the world's climate has warmed over the past 120 years and that the warming is a result of human activities. The effects of this change in climate include melting ice caps, rising sea levels, drought in some parts of the world and extreme storms in other areas.

Looking west from the shores of Lennox Island sits the shining waters of Malpeque Bay. Locals say they used to play baseball where boats now float.

Gilbert Sark, 37, has skipped rocks on Lennox Island's beaches since he was a little kid. Today he's the comprehensive community planner for the island.

A generation ago, Sark says, Lennox Island measured 1,300 acres. Now it is down to 1,100. "We lose Lennox, we lose a lot," he says.

"Honestly, I worry about Lennox Island not being here … In my son's and my daughter's generation, maybe my grandkids' generation, there may be no Lennox Island. It will be eroding away if something is not done."