You Might Have Noticed There's Smoke Everywhere

 


There's photos aplenty - smoky Calgary, smoky Toronto, smoky Ottawa, wildfire smoke just about everywhere. A lot of it is from wildfires burning out of control in British Columbia but there's another next of fires in northwest Ontario adding to the mix.

It's not just Canada and the western U.S. beset by wildfires. Severe heatwaves have also brought "Airpocalypse" to Siberia.



The extraordinary forest fires, which have already burned through 1.5m hectares (3.7m acres) of land in north-east Siberia have released choking smog across Russia’s Yakutia region, where officials have described this summer’s weather as the driest in the past 150 years. And that follows five years of hot summers, which have, according to villagers, turned the surrounding forests and fields into a tinderbox.

“For a month already you can’t see anything through the smoke,” said Varvara, a 63-year-old pensioner from Teryut, a village in the Oymyakonsky district. “We have already sent the small children away. And the fires are very close, just 2km [1.2 miles] from our village.”

“Emergency workers have come and villagers are also fighting the fires but they can’t put them out, they can’t stop them,” she said by telephone. “Everything is on fire.”

The smoke has been seen as a health hazard for young children and the elderly in particular. “It’s like standing next to a campfire,” said Aytalina, a 26-year-old from Yakutsk. “This year you open a window and the stench just fills the room. People are feeling very poorly.”

This is our "new normal." The wildfires sweeping the northern hemisphere are knock-on effects of climate change.  Areas that are supposed to be frozen aren't. Regions that are supposed to receive regular precipitation aren't. And all those fires are adding massive volumes of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Almost 25 years ago the nations of the world made a solemn vow they would never allow this to happen. At the time we called it the Kyoto Protocol.  

So we must adapt. Many people I know have added a few gizmos: air conditioners, respiratory masks, indoor air purifiers - to help on the bad days.  This smoke isn't just nasty, it can be very dangerous to your health. It's laced with PM2.5 particles that, when inhaled, can embed in lung tissue. Over time that can build into a real respiratory problem.

Don't throw out your Covid face masks.  Depending on the type of mask they'll give you good to great protection against the dreaded PM2.5. 

Good luck.


Comments

  1. Northern PoVJuly 21, 2021 at 10:11 AM

    John nailed it years ago ....

    "everybody's smoking and no one's getting high"

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuuhsqA95iA

    "Nobody told me there'd be days like these"
    Strange days indeed -- strange days indeed"

    ReplyDelete

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