Article content continued

Police hate this weather. It brings out the worst in people, especially the steamy nights when tempers, like city pavement, get no chance to cool off.

The latest round of climate projections is just out as well. More warming is coming, of course.

Photo by Robert Cross / Postmedia

This is, admittedly, just one vision of the future and of climate change.

Canadians are often told that the temperature will warm up and the world around us will change, somehow. But government projections tend to be vague on details, or give sweeping forecasts for huge areas of the country all mashed together.

The Citizen set out to ask a question to experts in climate, in natural world issues such as forests and farms and lakes, and in human health: What will Ottawa’s local climate be like later in this century as climate change takes its toll? How will our actions today shape our future lives?

Together they have painted a picture of our region as our grandchildren, or even our children, will see it.

So how many degrees warmer will it be?

There is no single answer, a fact that frustrates policymakers and the public alike. We want someone to tell us: “Ottawa will be 2.3 degrees warmer by a fixed date.” It would give us something to talk about in concrete terms of global warming and climate change. The experts won’t venture into those kinds of specifics.

The reason? We don’t know how much more climate-warming gas our society will produce in future decades.

Experts, you see, believe we get a say, that we have some agency in this unfolding planetary narrative.