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climate canary

British

noun

a human being or other living organism whose lack of health indicates environmental problems, reminiscent of the way in which live canaries were once used to detect the presence of poisonous gas in coal mines

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

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As for the climate canary, Buhl believes red cedar is unlikely to disappear from the landscape entirely but probably won’t grow back in areas where it’s dying off.

From Seattle Times • Nov. 17, 2023

More recently, scientists have started calling this water-loving relative of redwoods by a less flattering name: the climate canary.

From Seattle Times • Nov. 17, 2023

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023