Governments collect the information that seems important at the time. In 1911, the Dominion Bureau of Statistics duly recorded the total tons of freight passing through Canadian canals. There are no official statistics, however, on the date the first snowdrops appeared in Edmonton that year, or the frequency of goldfinch sightings. This lack of baseline data makes it hard to know if climate change is altering birds’ migration patterns, or if the growing season is getting longer…full story
Originally published in the Globe and Mail, written by Francis Wooley