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Well, we've had several pretty brutal days of poisoned air now spread over a couple weeks here in Toronto . . . and we're nowhere near peak wildfire season yet. Yesterday I walked the two blocks to pick up my son from school and my eyes were running and throat was feeling pretty raw from the smoke. I ended up building an air filter from some furnace filters, duct tape, and a fan which at least cleared the house out.
I guess this is what summer will be like going forwards? I miss just being able to leave the house in the morning without worrying about what cannister I need to fit in my gas mask. :P
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Science in Action: How to Build a Corsi-Rosenthal Box (https://engineering.ucdavis.edu/news/science-action-how-build-corsi-rosenthal-box)
We built one a few weeks ago when the wildfires were affecting Pennsylvania. Wasn't sure if it was going to be worth it since it never happened before. And yet, today the outside air quality is pretty terrible again. Visible haze over relatively short distances, and PM2.5 near 200 in some areas around here.
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Science in Action: How to Build a Corsi-Rosenthal Box (https://engineering.ucdavis.edu/news/science-action-how-build-corsi-rosenthal-box)
We built one a few weeks ago when the wildfires were affecting Pennsylvania. Wasn't sure if it was going to be worth it since it never happened before. And yet, today the outside air quality is pretty terrible again. Visible haze over relatively short distances, and PM2.5 near 200 in some areas around here.
Yep. Looks just like the one I built last night. Didn't help my puppy get over missing her walks for the day. :P
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I'm guessing this is what it will indeed look like going forward. We in the global north are starting to move from climate change as something whose effects we will "start to see" in the future, to something whose effects we are now living. Happy summer.
Thanks, climate deniers.
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The smoke is pretty bad down in Cleveland too. I just got back from a vacation yesterday. Looking out the airplane window, normally I can see Lake Erie and downtown before landing. I couldn't see the ground until we were a few minutes away from landing. It was just milky white haze. Today isn't much better.
I've never seen wildfire smoke this bad before. It's usually a non-issue in this part of the world.
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(https://d.newsweek.com/en/full/2251948/earthcam-lake-erie.webp?w=790&f=1873b26e4989dd74f0b4b8f977708aa0)
Speaking of Cleveland...
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It really has an apocalyptic feel to it.
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It is very hard on your mental health to be socked in by pea soup smoke on what should be our best, brightest summer days.
It's amazing how some really, really terrible air quality can leave the general public thinking that an 8, or 9 on the scale is acceptable to be out and about exercising in.
It is also incredibly amazing how little people remember how bad it got previously, so be prepared for that in the future. Not speaking of you easterners this year, but we've been dealing with many smoke hours/year for the last 5-7 years. We've had some days in 2017/2018 where I couldn't see the houses down the block (aqi over 800), this year everyone was exclaiming again that this is the worst it's ever been - it was no where close, maybe aqi 300. It possibly hit closer to home because kids were still in school and not on summer break? We spent one summer inside isolating from smoke and covid (before we made a bunch of portable CR boxes). Now that we have clean air to breathe inside all day and night, I'm much more willing to take the kids out from some low exertion activities on moderately smoky days, and we'll wear masks and play outside for short periods up to about 200aqi. This has definitely helped our mental health and I think it is a good balance between the two risks. Praying for rain, even if it doesn't hit the forest fires, it does knock a lot of smoke out of the air.
I'm afraid the pine beetle has moved far enough north in Alberta that it is likely going to be able to expand all the way through the northern prairie provinces and down into the forests of Ontario and Quebec. The high altitude cold had kept it west of the mountains, but warmer winters meant it moved eastward. That's gonna be a lot of dead wood that fires can burn out, so yes more of this still to come.
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California checking in - yes, this is unfortunately what I've come to expect for late summer/early fall. I love being outside, and it's miserable to be trapped indoors. We went 30 days in 2020 with spare the air alerts. 30 days. In a row. It was incredibly miserable, and part of why we bought exercise equipment for our house (we normally would just run outside). In 2020, gyms were also not an option.
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Science in Action: How to Build a Corsi-Rosenthal Box (https://engineering.ucdavis.edu/news/science-action-how-build-corsi-rosenthal-box)
We built one a few weeks ago when the wildfires were affecting Pennsylvania. Wasn't sure if it was going to be worth it since it never happened before. And yet, today the outside air quality is pretty terrible again. Visible haze over relatively short distances, and PM2.5 near 200 in some areas around here.
That's super cool! Although your reason for needing to build one obviously sucks...
The increasingly prevalence of wildfires is pretty scary.
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It is kind of concerning. I am in Ohio. We normally don't have to deal with natural disasters much.
Definitely has an apocalyptic feel to it.
I've been internally debating at what aqi should I stop walking outside at. Walked outside at 200 aqi yesterday.
I will wait for it to drop below 150 before running outside again.
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I live between @GuitarStv and @Kmp2 and so far we’ve had a few days of mild smoke here and there but nothing really bad or sustained. I guess the air currents have been in our favour because we also have fires up north. Hopefully it stays that way. Summers are too short here to be stuck inside all the time.
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It is kind of concerning. I am in Ohio. We normally don't have to deal with natural disasters much.
Definitely has an apocalyptic feel to it.
I've been internally debating at what aqi should I stop walking outside at. Walked outside at 200 aqi yesterday.
I will wait for it to drop below 150 before running outside again.
I'm in Ohio too. I had to run an errand last night and driving through our little downtown, I was shocked to see tons of people sitting outdoors eating dinner! We were also over 200 yesterday and the smoke was visible and you could smell it. Ohioans remain blithely unconcerned apparently :)
I took the dog on a short walk yesterday just so he could use the bathroom and came back with a scratchy throat and itchy eyes. So I'm not planning on being outside without a mask until we get below 150 again.
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Nothing like a raw throat despite wearing an N95 while watering the garden to up the climate change anxiety.
It is better today, but yesterday mid day Toronto had the worst air quality in the world.
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California checking in - yes, this is unfortunately what I've come to expect for late summer/early fall. I love being outside, and it's miserable to be trapped indoors. We went 30 days in 2020 with spare the air alerts. 30 days. In a row. It was incredibly miserable, and part of why we bought exercise equipment for our house (we normally would just run outside). In 2020, gyms were also not an option.
Californian here too and dreading the fire season also. Plan to be gone during much of it (Mid-Aug to Oct) but it seems to last longer every year - last year being the exception. I didn't realize it was that bad in the upper Midwest (no TV or news for over a month) but wow it's bad!. Seems no where is safe anymore.
We would sometimes vacation on the Oregon coast to escape, but guess what? They've had wildfires there as well when we were vacationing. There's truly no place safe. It's wild. And, agreed that it's just getting longer & longer, last year as the exception.
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I'm further south by several states and we are seeing the smoke too. I woke up a few weeks ago and thought I smelled smoke inside the house so I walked through all the rooms and garage. Then noticed the smoke was outside and not likely from local sources thanks to the news. Very hazy for days here. Fortunately rains today cleared everything out for a bit.
I fear nothing will make the climate change deniers change their minds seeing there is a big overlap with other recent topics in politics. If they can't see the reality there, I doubt they'll ever accept the science. I guess decisions will have to be made without them to clean up the environment i.e. more transit, more BEVs, less gas guzzlers over time.
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Chicago area has had it pretty bad too, which is also really bad timing because mom is recovering from pneumonia and can't tolerate the poor air quality.
Masks help (N95). Irritated eyes I find the artificial tears eye drops (not redness reducing) can help. Gargling with salt water soothes the throat. Plenty of water to stay hydrated also helps some.
Hope everyone gets some rain. Would probably help with the fires, would help lay the smoke, and would help with the drought.
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We've had some days in 2017/2018 where I couldn't see the houses down the block (aqi over 800)
800? That's horrifying. Over 150 starts to feel irritating to my throat and lungs.
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Some of you people are being a little overdramatic. IMO
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I have lived in Nevada for 26 years and I remember that fires weren’t a big problem back then. The last 7 years have been bad. One year I didn’t leave the house for a month because of the smoke and I have asthma. I bought a pedal bike for inside but it doesn’t replace the ability to walk outside for exercise. My dogs are little so can get their exercise in the house but enjoy the social aspect of walking outside. I really feel for the people suffering.
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Some of you people are being a little overdramatic. IMO
Some people are much more sensitive to air pollution than other people. Some people don't seem to be phased much at all. I think this depends on the person, imo.
For example, I have a cousin who will have an asthma attack within 50 feet of someone smoking outside. She moved out into the country, and she still has an asthma attack if her neighbor has a bonfire 500 feet away. She is probably sitting inside right now with her hepa purifiers running on full blast.
On the flip side I have a friend who is ex-military, 220 pounds, solid muscle, served in Iraq, and I'm pretty sure he can breathe in sand when it's 120 degrees outside, for 12 hours straight, while on patrol with 50 pounds of gear on his back, while being shot at, and he would say everything is fine and he is having a good time. He would probably run straight through the forest fire, just so he could brag about running through a forest fire, lol. No amount of heat, cold, smoke, etc seems to phase him at all. And even if it did - he would not say anything. He would just choke to death quietly, while pretending he is not choking, because his greatest fear is to admit to any form of weakness.
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Some of you people are being a little overdramatic. IMO
Some of you people are too young to realize just how much things have changed in the last 50 years. IMO.
Story time. Sudbury used to have lush forests. Then it had nickel refineries and the forests died and they practised with the lunar module outside Sudbury, Then they re-greened. People who played in the lunar landscape as kids grew up thinking that was normal, and were a bit disconcerted when they saw the new trees (I've talked with them, this is what they told me). People who remembered the forests knew it was not normal, and saw the return of the forest as a return to how things should be. You are the kid playing in a lunar landscape and thinking it is normal.
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Some of you people are being a little overdramatic. IMO
I'm curious what part you think is over dramatic?
I just had a few days of poor air quality out here in Newfoundland, very brief because the fires are pretty far and we've had the rainiest spring on record, but I woke up with my eyes puffy and red and my throat in pain.
I looked and felt like I had had a rough night of excessive drinking and puking. My DH was fine, just a slight sore throat and he was more thirsty than normal.
Cool for you if the smoke doesn't affect you much, but smoke is highly inflammatory and it's around in levels where the public health advice is to not go outside because the air is literal poison.
Even if it doesn't affect you, surely you are aware of the vast number of seniors and medically more fragile folks who exist in these affected areas. Or even for medically robust folks how unpleasant it can be to not be able to get outside, especially in northern climates where summer months are brief.
I'm so grateful to be currently sitting outside on a beautiful clear day because the weather here is inhospitable 9 months of the year.
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Cool for you if the smoke doesn't affect you much, but smoke is highly inflammatory and it's around in levels where the public health advice is to not go outside because the air is literal poison.
Even if the smoke doesn't cause enough burning/irritation to bother somebody, the smoke is still effecting them - and probably in a big way. PM 2.5 particles are small enough to enter your bloodstream through your lungs . . . and have been linked to a variety of heart and lung problems further down the road. Not to mention the cancer risks.
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Cool for you if the smoke doesn't affect you much, but smoke is highly inflammatory and it's around in levels where the public health advice is to not go outside because the air is literal poison.
Even if the smoke doesn't cause enough burning/irritation to bother somebody, the smoke is still effecting them - and probably in a big way. PM 2.5 particles are small enough to enter your bloodstream through your lungs . . . and have been linked to a variety of heart and lung problems further down the road. Not to mention the cancer risks.
Lol, yes, I know, I was trying to be nice. But that's why I referred to smoke as being highly inflammatory and the air being toxic.
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Definitely has an apocalyptic feel to it.
Probably what was being referred to. Note this comment says "has a feel" - i.e. this makes me think of.
Given that we spend the vast majority of our lives not seeing anything like this at all, or this severity of massive fires smoking up the skies, for this to feel like the world is changing in a way that could end a lot of lives isn't drama, it's natural observation.
But perhaps more interesting is why someone would try to call out such things to downplay them and presumably mock such an impression?
What's the goal there... ?
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Yes, it is sad, and it feels like doom is in the air. I miss morning runs in the bright blue days of spring and summer. My eyes burn, but it's more depressing than anything else. I have an air filter now, which I expect to use multiple times this summer.
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Some of you people are being a little overdramatic. IMO
Some of you people are too young to realize just how much things have changed in the last 50 years. IMO.
Story time. Sudbury used to have lush forests. Then it had nickel refineries and the forests died and they practised with the lunar module outside Sudbury, Then they re-greened. People who played in the lunar landscape as kids grew up thinking that was normal, and were a bit disconcerted when they saw the new trees (I've talked with them, this is what they told me). People who remembered the forests knew it was not normal, and saw the return of the forest as a return to how things should be. You are the kid playing in a lunar landscape and thinking it is normal.
Yep. I remember a New England where snow stayed on the ground through March/April, and if you even had air conditioner you might use it for a handful of days in July. My neighborhood was not in a flood plain until a few years ago.
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Definitely has an apocalyptic feel to it.
Probably what was being referred to. Note this comment says "has a feel" - i.e. this makes me think of.
Given that we spend the vast majority of our lives not seeing anything like this at all, or this severity of massive fires smoking up the skies, for this to feel like the world is changing in a way that could end a lot of lives isn't drama, it's natural observation.
But perhaps more interesting is why someone would try to call out such things to downplay them and presumably mock such an impression?
What's the goal there... ?
To me, it functions as a thought-terminating cliche. The right has hammered the "these fears are false/silly/overblown" for so long that it has become a sort of automatic response by anyone of that persuasion to any discussion of the effects of climate change. The automatic response is tripped, sort of like when a fuse is blown, and that's it. No more thinking required.
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Some of you people are being a little overdramatic. IMO
I'm curious what part you think is over dramatic?
Some samples:
I am in Ohio. We normally don't have to deal with natural disasters much.
poisoned air
I guess this is what summer will be like going forwards?
It really has an apocalyptic feel to it.
It is very hard on your mental health to be socked in by pea soup smoke on what should be our best, brightest summer days.
Summers are too short here to be stuck inside all the time.
I was shocked to see tons of people sitting outdoors eating dinner!
Nothing like a raw throat despite wearing an N95 while watering the garden to up the climate change anxiety.
There's truly no place safe. It's wild.
but yesterday mid day Toronto had the worst air quality in the world.
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It's not that the people in this thread are being dramatic; it's that these are dramatic changes.
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Some of you people are being a little overdramatic. IMO
I'm curious what part you think is over dramatic?
Some samples:
I am in Ohio. We normally don't have to deal with natural disasters much.
poisoned air
I guess this is what summer will be like going forwards?
It really has an apocalyptic feel to it.
It is very hard on your mental health to be socked in by pea soup smoke on what should be our best, brightest summer days.
Summers are too short here to be stuck inside all the time.
I was shocked to see tons of people sitting outdoors eating dinner!
Nothing like a raw throat despite wearing an N95 while watering the garden to up the climate change anxiety.
There's truly no place safe. It's wild.
but yesterday mid day Toronto had the worst air quality in the world.
Are you a Christian, Republican, man, who drives a truck, perhaps?
(Please read this as a simple curiosity, not as an accusation)
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Some of you people are being a little overdramatic. IMO
I'm curious what part you think is over dramatic?
Some samples:
I am in Ohio. We normally don't have to deal with natural disasters much.
poisoned air
I guess this is what summer will be like going forwards?
It really has an apocalyptic feel to it.
It is very hard on your mental health to be socked in by pea soup smoke on what should be our best, brightest summer days.
Summers are too short here to be stuck inside all the time.
I was shocked to see tons of people sitting outdoors eating dinner!
Nothing like a raw throat despite wearing an N95 while watering the garden to up the climate change anxiety.
There's truly no place safe. It's wild.
but yesterday mid day Toronto had the worst air quality in the world.
Are you a Christian, Republican, man, who drives a truck, perhaps?
Nice one, got me good
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Some of you people are being a little overdramatic. IMO
I'm curious what part you think is over dramatic?
Some samples:
I am in Ohio. We normally don't have to deal with natural disasters much.
poisoned air
I guess this is what summer will be like going forwards?
It really has an apocalyptic feel to it.
It is very hard on your mental health to be socked in by pea soup smoke on what should be our best, brightest summer days.
Summers are too short here to be stuck inside all the time.
I was shocked to see tons of people sitting outdoors eating dinner!
Nothing like a raw throat despite wearing an N95 while watering the garden to up the climate change anxiety.
There's truly no place safe. It's wild.
but yesterday mid day Toronto had the worst air quality in the world.
Are you a Christian, Republican, man, who drives a truck, perhaps?
Nice one, got me good
Oh, awesome. I was just curious.
Nothing wrong with that. :)
ETA: I am a political independent, agnostic, man, who drives a car.
And yes I am overly dramatic. :D
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Some of you people are being a little overdramatic. IMO
I'm curious what part you think is over dramatic?
Some samples:
I am in Ohio. We normally don't have to deal with natural disasters much.
poisoned air
I guess this is what summer will be like going forwards?
It really has an apocalyptic feel to it.
It is very hard on your mental health to be socked in by pea soup smoke on what should be our best, brightest summer days.
Summers are too short here to be stuck inside all the time.
I was shocked to see tons of people sitting outdoors eating dinner!
Nothing like a raw throat despite wearing an N95 while watering the garden to up the climate change anxiety.
There's truly no place safe. It's wild.
but yesterday mid day Toronto had the worst air quality in the world.
Are you a Christian, Republican, man, who drives a truck, perhaps?
Nice one, got me good
Oh, awesome. I was just curious.
Nothing wrong with that. :)
ETA: I am a political independent, agnostic, man, who drives a car.
And yes I am overly dramatic. :D
I'm only about half of those things, mostly offended that you think I'm a republican
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Some of you people are being a little overdramatic. IMO
I'm curious what part you think is over dramatic?
Some samples:
poisoned air
The air is literally poisoned . . . that's what we're dealing with here - https://www.epa.gov/wildfire-smoke-course/why-wildfire-smoke-health-concern (https://www.epa.gov/wildfire-smoke-course/why-wildfire-smoke-health-concern)
I guess this is what summer will be like going forwards?
The general consensus seems to be that wildfires will significantly increase going forward due to climate change:
https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/number-of-wildfires-forecast-rise-50-2100 (https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/number-of-wildfires-forecast-rise-50-2100)
https://www.preventionweb.net/publication/climate-change-and-wildfires-projecting-future-wildfire-potential (https://www.preventionweb.net/publication/climate-change-and-wildfires-projecting-future-wildfire-potential)
https://www.washington.edu/news/2021/07/27/possible-future-for-western-wildfires-decade-long-burst-followed-by-gradual-decline/ (https://www.washington.edu/news/2021/07/27/possible-future-for-western-wildfires-decade-long-burst-followed-by-gradual-decline/)
It is very hard on your mental health to be socked in by pea soup smoke on what should be our best, brightest summer days.
Research confirms this to be true:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-as-an-outlier/202306/the-effects-of-wildfires-on-mental-health#:~:text=Unsurprisingly%2C%20all%20of%20the%20studies,et%20al.%2C%202023). (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-as-an-outlier/202306/the-effects-of-wildfires-on-mental-health#:~:text=Unsurprisingly%2C%20all%20of%20the%20studies,et%20al.%2C%202023).)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34562964/ (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34562964/)
https://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/home/topics/general-psychiatry/impact-of-wild-fires-mental-health/ (https://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/home/topics/general-psychiatry/impact-of-wild-fires-mental-health/)
https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/assets/info/amh/if-amh-mhpip-disaster-wildfire-smoke-mental-health-public.pdf (https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/assets/info/amh/if-amh-mhpip-disaster-wildfire-smoke-mental-health-public.pdf)
There's truly no place safe. It's wild.
Seems about right - https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/europe-experiences-significant-transport-smoke-canada-wildfires (https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/europe-experiences-significant-transport-smoke-canada-wildfires)
but yesterday mid day Toronto had the worst air quality in the world.
Yes, this did happen - https://www.blogto.com/city/2023/06/toronto-moves-top-spot-worst-air-quality-world/ (https://www.blogto.com/city/2023/06/toronto-moves-top-spot-worst-air-quality-world/). Typically, Toronto has pretty good air quality so this is certainly concerning to many of us who live here.
You can argue about some of the language used maybe, but most of the things listed as 'overly dramatic' are scientifically verifiable and completely true.
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Some of you people are being a little overdramatic. IMO
I'm curious what part you think is over dramatic?
Some samples:
I am in Ohio. We normally don't have to deal with natural disasters much.
poisoned air
I guess this is what summer will be like going forwards?
It really has an apocalyptic feel to it.
It is very hard on your mental health to be socked in by pea soup smoke on what should be our best, brightest summer days.
Summers are too short here to be stuck inside all the time.
I was shocked to see tons of people sitting outdoors eating dinner!
Nothing like a raw throat despite wearing an N95 while watering the garden to up the climate change anxiety.
There's truly no place safe. It's wild.
but yesterday mid day Toronto had the worst air quality in the world.
But... many of these are just stating facts.
"I am in Ohio. We normally don't have to deal with natural disasters much."
This is just a statement of fact. People from certain regions are less accustomed to major natural events. How is this an extreme statement?
"poisoned air"
Smokey air is poisonous. This isn't an opinion, it's a medical fact. Some jurisdictions are looking at banning gas ranges because of the safety to people exposed to them, so an air full of very noticeable particulate for long periods of time is inarguably poisonous. This isn't rhetoric for dramatic effect, it's simple fact.
"I guess this is what summer will be like going forwards?"
This isn't dramatic at all, it's just restating what literally every expert is publicly saying, repeatedly, and asking governments to better prepare because their current approach is insufficient. Again, just someone observing that they are going to have to accept a fact.
"It really has an apocalyptic feel to it."
I mean, it does. Even just esthetically. When I looked outside at the orange sun and the smoke so thick that I couldn't see the ocean in front of my house, it was fucking freaky looking. Behind my house was totally clear and this thick, stinky cloud was moving in at us. It was literally exactly like the scene from "The Mist," but with the crazy looking orange sun.
When the world around you suddenly looks dramatically different and you know it's because a nearby fire has been deemed "out of control", it's pretty reasonable to say it has an apocalyptic feel. Especially in regions where people have never experienced it before.
"It is very hard on your mental health to be socked in by pea soup smoke on what should be our best, brightest summer days."
Again, do you live in a northern climate? These are fires in Canada.
Do you know what it's like for nice summer weather to be a precious thing? In my region, the moment there's a bit of sun, people are outside BBQing in t-shirts even if it's still literally freezing and the ground is still covered in snow. We wait half the year to be able to just leave the house without having to plan protective gear. Losing that is emotionally hard, especially when you are being told to accept that it will likely happen more often.
Also, "pea soup smoke" sounds incredibly accurate to me. The air is yellow and thick and gross. Throw in heat waves where the air already feels like "soup" and it makes perfect sense. In my home city, the worst of the smoke coincided with temps of over 40C/104F.
"Summers are too short here to be stuck inside all the time."
This might have been my quote?? If it is, then I'm currently at my summer home in Newfoundland where it was snowing 8 days ago. I'm not being dramatic about the weather here, the weather here is dramatic. May and half of June here were winter weather. Half the year there are hurricane winds here and it's hard to go outside. When the heavy smoke came in, it was during our first hospitable weather of the year and we were told to stay inside. It was unpleasant outside, and people were extremely upset that our first days of sun, in late June, we couldn't comfortably spend time outside. Everyone here is grateful that our weather turned back to being fucking cold and rainy because it made the smoke go away.
You try living in northern Newfoundland, lol, I guarantee you too will get a little dramatic about the weather.
"I was shocked to see tons of people sitting outdoors eating dinner!"
I don't know where this was or how bad the smoke was there, but in some places with how heavy it has been, that would be surprising to see.
"Nothing like a raw throat despite wearing an N95 while watering the garden to up the climate change anxiety."
I mean, again, this is just stating a fact. If someone is having throat pain despite wearing an N95 mask, that would be reasonably distressing, especially if the smoke hangs around for a long time
"There's truly no place safe. It's wild."
When I'm not in Newfoundland, I live in an inland city where growing up I had never seen a single extreme weather event except for many epic winter storms. In the past few years we've had major tornadoes, 2 "hundred year floods," and now weeks on end of uncontrollable wildfires.
It was a place that less than 10 years ago I would have assumed would never really deal with any of these things, so it's not unreasonable for people to find it "wild" that there really don't seem to be any places left where you don't have to worry about major natural events.
If you know of an area that doesn't experience these events, feel free to share.
"but yesterday mid day Toronto had the worst air quality in the world."
Again, this is just a fact. How is it overly dramatic to state a fact? My inland city often gets colder than Mars. That's just a fact. It's not over dramatizing the cold to state a fact. If a place is colder than Mars, it is just factually colder than Mars. If the air quality in Toronto is the worst in the world, then it is the worst in the world.
I can't imagine what that's like. Our few days of heavy smoke waaaaay out here on this remote island were pretty unpleasant, but nowhere near as bad as it was back home (my other home is not far from Toronto). With how badly swollen my eyes were out here, I'm incredibly grateful that I'm here and not at my other home dealing far worse air quality for weeks on end.
So again, if you have a body that doesn't react much to literally poisonous air, or you don't live in a region that is heavily affected by smoke, then that's great for you.
But I'm truly surprised by you categorizing statements of fact as overly dramatic.
I hate to say this because it sets people off, but that is literally the definition of gaslighting.
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Some of you people are being a little overdramatic. IMO
I'm curious what part you think is over dramatic?
Some samples:
poisoned air
The air is literally poisoned . . . that's what we're dealing with here - https://www.epa.gov/wildfire-smoke-course/why-wildfire-smoke-health-concern (https://www.epa.gov/wildfire-smoke-course/why-wildfire-smoke-health-concern)
Ctrl + F, no use of an over dramatic word like poison. Please don't tell my wife that we are poisoning our children on our next camping trip, or the rest of history where people sat around fires ever day that they are poisoning themselves. Over Dramatic.
I guess this is what summer will be like going forwards?
The general consensus seems to be that wildfires will significantly increase going forward due to climate change:
https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/number-of-wildfires-forecast-rise-50-2100 (https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/number-of-wildfires-forecast-rise-50-2100)
https://www.preventionweb.net/publication/climate-change-and-wildfires-projecting-future-wildfire-potential (https://www.preventionweb.net/publication/climate-change-and-wildfires-projecting-future-wildfire-potential)
https://www.washington.edu/news/2021/07/27/possible-future-for-western-wildfires-decade-long-burst-followed-by-gradual-decline/ (https://www.washington.edu/news/2021/07/27/possible-future-for-western-wildfires-decade-long-burst-followed-by-gradual-decline/)
Mutliple people have mentioned "first" and "never before" in this thread... so one time now logically means it will be this way forever? Over dramatic.
It is very hard on your mental health to be socked in by pea soup smoke on what should be our best, brightest summer days.
Research confirms this to be true:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-as-an-outlier/202306/the-effects-of-wildfires-on-mental-health#:~:text=Unsurprisingly%2C%20all%20of%20the%20studies,et%20al.%2C%202023). (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-as-an-outlier/202306/the-effects-of-wildfires-on-mental-health#:~:text=Unsurprisingly%2C%20all%20of%20the%20studies,et%20al.%2C%202023).)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34562964/ (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34562964/)
https://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/home/topics/general-psychiatry/impact-of-wild-fires-mental-health/ (https://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/home/topics/general-psychiatry/impact-of-wild-fires-mental-health/)
https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/assets/info/amh/if-amh-mhpip-disaster-wildfire-smoke-mental-health-public.pdf (https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/assets/info/amh/if-amh-mhpip-disaster-wildfire-smoke-mental-health-public.pdf)
There's truly no place safe. It's wild.
Seems about right - https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/europe-experiences-significant-transport-smoke-canada-wildfires (https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/europe-experiences-significant-transport-smoke-canada-wildfires)
Straight up over dramatic after the pandemic where half the population thought staying indoors was the best solution.
but yesterday mid day Toronto had the worst air quality in the world.
Yes, this did happen - https://www.blogto.com/city/2023/06/toronto-moves-top-spot-worst-air-quality-world/ (https://www.blogto.com/city/2023/06/toronto-moves-top-spot-worst-air-quality-world/). Typically, Toronto has pretty good air quality so this is certainly concerning to many of us who live here.
Yes, it did. But it also means pretty much nothing, it's a over dramatic thing to point out.
You can argue about some of the language used maybe, but most of the things listed as 'overly dramatic' are scientifically verifiable and completely true.
Using certain, overly dramatic, language is mostly my problem
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But I'm truly surprised by you categorizing statements of fact as overly dramatic.
I hate to say this because it sets people off, but that is literally the definition of gaslighting.
That was my thought exactly. I haven't had to block anyone in a while (mostly because I try to refrain from posting and following a lot of threads 😅), but I don't think anyone needs gaslighting in their life if it can be avoided.
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But I'm truly surprised by you categorizing statements of fact as overly dramatic.
I hate to say this because it sets people off, but that is literally the definition of gaslighting.
That was my thought exactly. I haven't had to block anyone in a while (mostly because I try to refrain from posting and following a lot of threads 😅), but I don't think anyone needs gaslighting in their life if it can be avoided.
Truth. And also, he is gaslighting himself. See "thought-terminating cliche" above.
Republican politicians don't even really have to do this anymore. Because their base is now doing the work for them.
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Some of you people are being a little overdramatic. IMO
I'm curious what part you think is over dramatic?
Some samples:
I am in Ohio. We normally don't have to deal with natural disasters much.
poisoned air
I guess this is what summer will be like going forwards?
It really has an apocalyptic feel to it.
It is very hard on your mental health to be socked in by pea soup smoke on what should be our best, brightest summer days.
Summers are too short here to be stuck inside all the time.
I was shocked to see tons of people sitting outdoors eating dinner!
Nothing like a raw throat despite wearing an N95 while watering the garden to up the climate change anxiety.
There's truly no place safe. It's wild.
but yesterday mid day Toronto had the worst air quality in the world.
But... many of these are just stating facts.
"I am in Ohio. We normally don't have to deal with natural disasters much."
This is just a statement of fact. People from certain regions are less accustomed to major natural events. How is this an extreme statement?
No it's not. Ohio is not dealing with a natural disaster, don't let people who have actually dealt with a natural disaster hear this. They are experiencing smoke from a forest fire (natural disaster) in Canada.
"poisoned air"
Smokey air is poisonous. This isn't an opinion, it's a medical fact. Some jurisdictions are looking at banning gas ranges because of the safety to people exposed to them, so an air full of very noticeable particulate for long periods of time is inarguably poisonous. This isn't rhetoric for dramatic effect, it's simple fact.
Yes, it is rhetoric for dramatic effect. Maybe that's also why there was talk of gas mask canister sticky out tongue at the end of the post, maybe I drew the wrong line about what was serious and what was silly in the post.
"I guess this is what summer will be like going forwards?"
This isn't dramatic at all, it's just restating what literally every expert is publicly saying, repeatedly, and asking governments to better prepare because their current approach is insufficient. Again, just someone observing that they are going to have to accept a fact.
See above.
"It really has an apocalyptic feel to it."
I mean, it does. Even just esthetically. When I looked outside at the orange sun and the smoke so thick that I couldn't see the ocean in front of my house, it was fucking freaky looking. Behind my house was totally clear and this thick, stinky cloud was moving in at us. It was literally exactly like the scene from "The Mist," but with the crazy looking orange sun.
When the world around you suddenly looks dramatically different and you know it's because a nearby fire has been deemed "out of control", it's pretty reasonable to say it has an apocalyptic feel. Especially in regions where people have never experienced it before.
"It is very hard on your mental health to be socked in by pea soup smoke on what should be our best, brightest summer days."
Again, do you live in a northern climate? These are fires in Canada.
Do you know what it's like for nice summer weather to be a precious thing? In my region, the moment there's a bit of sun, people are outside BBQing in t-shirts even if it's still literally freezing and the ground is still covered in snow. We wait half the year to be able to just leave the house without having to plan protective gear. Losing that is emotionally hard, especially when you are being told to accept that it will likely happen more often.
Also, "pea soup smoke" sounds incredibly accurate to me. The air is yellow and thick and gross. Throw in heat waves where the air already feels like "soup" and it makes perfect sense. In my home city, the worst of the smoke coincided with temps of over 40C/104F.
Yes, I live in Northwest WA and we have been dealing with this for years.
"Summers are too short here to be stuck inside all the time."
This might have been my quote?? If it is, then I'm in Newfoundland where it was snowing 8 days ago. I'm not being dramatic about the weather here, the weather here is dramatic. May and half of June here were winter weather. Half the year there are hurricane winds here and it's hard to go outside. When the heavy smoke came in, it was during our first hospitable weather of the year and we were told to stay inside. It was unpleasant outside, and people were extremely upset that our first days of sun, in late June, we couldn't comfortably spend time outside. Everyone here is grateful that our weather turned back to being fucking cold and rainy because it made the smoke go away.
You try living in northern Newfoundland, lol, I guarantee you too will get a little dramatic about the weather.
ALL THE TIME
"I was shocked to see tons of people sitting outdoors eating dinner!"
I don't know where this was or how bad the smoke was there, but in some places with how heavy it has been, that would be surprising to see.
JUST SO SHOCKING TO SEE SOMEONE OUTSIDE EATING BY THEIR CAMPFIRE TOO
"Nothing like a raw throat despite wearing an N95 while watering the garden to up the climate change anxiety."
I mean, again, this is just stating a fact. If someone is having throat pain despite wearing an N95 mask, that would be reasonably distressing, especially if the smoke hangs around for a long time
Maybe this is more snark... but do they work or not? I keep hearing conflicting info.
"There's truly no place safe. It's wild."
When I'm not in Newfoundland, I live in an inland city where growing up I had never seen a single extreme weather event except for many epic winter storms. In the past few years we've had major tornadoes, 2 "hundred year floods," and now weeks on end of uncontrollable wildfires.
It was a place that less than 10 years ago I would have assumed would never really deal with any of these things, so it's not unreasonable for people to find it "wild" that there really don't seem to be any places left where you don't have to worry about major natural events.
If you know of an area that doesn't experience these events, feel free to share.
"but yesterday mid day Toronto had the worst air quality in the world."
Again, this is just a fact. How is it overly dramatic to state a fact? My inland city often gets colder than Mars. That's just a fact. It's not over dramatizing the cold to state a fact. If a place is colder than Mars, it is just factually colder than Mars. If the air quality in Toronto is the worst in the world, then it is the worst in the world.
See above. What does it really mean?
I can't imagine what that's like. Our few days of heavy smoke waaaaay out here on this remote island were pretty unpleasant, but nowhere near as bad as it was back home (my other home is not far from Toronto). With how badly swollen my eyes were out here, I'm incredibly grateful that I'm here and not at my other home dealing far worse air quality for weeks on end.
So again, if you have a body that doesn't react much to literally poisonous air, or you don't live in a region that is heavily affected by smoke, then that's great for you.
But I'm truly surprised by you categorizing statements of fact as overly dramatic.
I hate to say this because it sets people off, but that is literally the definition of gaslighting.
Listen, I was told to explain why this thread is being overly dramatic and I stated my case. If you disagree, that's fine.
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Fair enough, agree to radically disagree.
But remember, you're the one who came into a thread and directly criticized and invalidated all of the people posting.
Don't be surprised when people don't take that well.
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I'm old.
I have been watching the climate change in my local area for about 60 years now (since I was old enough to actually pay attention). HPstache is young (36 is young) and lacks perspective.
Just for southwestern Quebec/eastern Ontario:
I have watched the growing season get longer.
I've watched ticks with Lyme disease go from incredibly rare to over 50% infected (plus more ticks in total).
I have watched ice storms go from extremely rare events to commonplace every winter.
I've watched average snowfall decrease. Snow is a protector/insulator, its absence has a lot of negative effects.
I've watched extreme storms get more common. I had never even heard the term derecho wind used until a few years ago.
I've seen northern Ontario/Quebec forest fires go from common in late summer but contained to common in early summer and now late spring, and uncontained.
(I also got to see contaminated air in Auckland from fires in Australia. The Tasman Sea is 2,250 km (1,400 mi) wide.)
I don't think anyone responding negatively to all this is being overly dramatic.
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"I was shocked to see tons of people sitting outdoors eating dinner!"
I don't know where this was or how bad the smoke was there, but in some places with how heavy it has been, that would be surprising to see.
JUST SO SHOCKING TO SEE SOMEONE OUTSIDE EATING BY THEIR CAMPFIRE TOO
This was me^. FWIW - When the wind starts blowing the campfire smoke in my face, I move to the other side of the campfire.
Anyways, I was shocked to see people outside because our riverwalk looked like the attached picture. And it smelled like burnt plastic. I love dining outside, but if it smells bad and has bad visibility (and also is considered hazardous), I wouldn't do it. I was shocked that it didn't bother other people at all.
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FWIW - When the wind starts blowing the campfire smoke in my face, I move to the other side of the campfire.
I have an air quality monitor, and I used it around my campfire. The PM2.5 was no worse than any other outdoor air around me unless I put the monitor in the path of the smoke. The thing about a tiny fire in the outdoors is that diffusion works quickly and efficiently to distribute particulate matter far and wide, and the ratio of "outside air" to a campfire is... really large.
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Well, we've had several pretty brutal days of poisoned air now spread over a couple weeks here in Toronto . . . and we're nowhere near peak wildfire season yet. Yesterday I walked the two blocks to pick up my son from school and my eyes were running and throat was feeling pretty raw from the smoke. I ended up building an air filter from some furnace filters, duct tape, and a fan which at least cleared the house out.
I guess this is what summer will be like going forwards? I miss just being able to leave the house in the morning without worrying about what cannister I need to fit in my gas mask. :P
Uh, how about a little sympathy for the people who are experiencing the fires first hand? As for the smoke, don't you have any N-95s on hand?
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Uh, how about a little sympathy for the people who are experiencing the fires first hand? As for the smoke, don't you have any N-95s on hand?
Hmm, I need more clarity of perspective here. I'm not sure pointing out the downsides of the situation are you in discounts the downsides of being in worse situations. We are all viewing the world from our position and our own perspective, and that's natural. Sure, it's nice to also recognize people that are not you and have things worse off but I'm not sure why you have to be reprimanded in some way if you don't do so.
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"It really has an apocalyptic feel to it."
I mean, it does. Even just esthetically. When I looked outside at the orange sun and the smoke so thick that I couldn't see the ocean in front of my house, it was fucking freaky looking. Behind my house was totally clear and this thick, stinky cloud was moving in at us. It was literally exactly like the scene from "The Mist," but with the crazy looking orange sun.
When the world around you suddenly looks dramatically different and you know it's because a nearby fire has been deemed "out of control", it's pretty reasonable to say it has an apocalyptic feel. Especially in regions where people have never experienced it before.
Reminds me of the scenes in Blade Runner 2049 in Vegas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osaiN-RcxqM
Anyone having trouble with their home's smoke alarms being triggered by the Canadian smoke? Not mine but I've wondered about it in places further north.
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Some of you people are being a little overdramatic. IMO
I'm curious what part you think is over dramatic?
Some samples:
I am in Ohio. We normally don't have to deal with natural disasters much.
poisoned air
I guess this is what summer will be like going forwards?
It really has an apocalyptic feel to it.
It is very hard on your mental health to be socked in by pea soup smoke on what should be our best, brightest summer days.
Summers are too short here to be stuck inside all the time.
I was shocked to see tons of people sitting outdoors eating dinner!
Nothing like a raw throat despite wearing an N95 while watering the garden to up the climate change anxiety.
There's truly no place safe. It's wild.
but yesterday mid day Toronto had the worst air quality in the world.
Are you a Christian, Republican, man, who drives a truck, perhaps?
Nice one, got me good
Oh, awesome. I was just curious.
Nothing wrong with that. :)
ETA: I am a political independent, agnostic, man, who drives a car.
And yes I am overly dramatic. :D
I'm only about half of those things, mostly offended that you think I'm a republican
Ah - gotcha. I don't think being a Republican is offensive, personally. People identify with certain political parties for all sorts of different reasons, and I have helped vote some Republicans into office. I have several Republican friends I get along with just as well as my Democrat friends.
I thought maybe you did not believe in climate change and saw the forest fires as a threat to your belief system and was downplaying everyone's thoughts and feelings for this reason.
If you go in to a group of people and invalidate and criticize everyone's thoughts and feelings, at the same time, you should expect people to get offended though. I mean, that's just common sense.
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Some of you people are being a little overdramatic. IMO
I'm curious what part you think is over dramatic?
Some samples:
poisoned air
The air is literally poisoned . . . that's what we're dealing with here - https://www.epa.gov/wildfire-smoke-course/why-wildfire-smoke-health-concern (https://www.epa.gov/wildfire-smoke-course/why-wildfire-smoke-health-concern)
Ctrl + F, no use of an over dramatic word like poison. Please don't tell my wife that we are poisoning our children on our next camping trip, or the rest of history where people sat around fires ever day that they are poisoning themselves. Over Dramatic.
If ability to comprehend is limited to use of keyboard shortcuts, then certainly I can understand the confusion. Perhaps this will help?
poi·son - a substance, natural or synthetic, that causes damage to living tissues and has an injurious or fatal effect on the body, whether it is ingested, inhaled, or absorbed or injected through the skin
If you are forcing your children to sit directly in the smoke from your campfire for hours and days at a time on your camping trips, you are indeed poisoning them. That probably qualifies as child abuse to be honest. It's not quite as bad as wildfire smoke though . . . which appears to become significantly more toxic as it spends time in the atmosphere - https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/four-times-more-toxic-how-wildfire-smoke-ages-over-time (https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/four-times-more-toxic-how-wildfire-smoke-ages-over-time).
Well, we've had several pretty brutal days of poisoned air now spread over a couple weeks here in Toronto . . . and we're nowhere near peak wildfire season yet. Yesterday I walked the two blocks to pick up my son from school and my eyes were running and throat was feeling pretty raw from the smoke. I ended up building an air filter from some furnace filters, duct tape, and a fan which at least cleared the house out.
I guess this is what summer will be like going forwards? I miss just being able to leave the house in the morning without worrying about what cannister I need to fit in my gas mask. :P
Uh, how about a little sympathy for the people who are experiencing the fires first hand? As for the smoke, don't you have any N-95s on hand?
My dad's farm is just outside of Ottawa, and he has had a couple weeks this years already where it wasn't safe to leave the house because of the smoke. Certainly much worse than what we've had. It wasn't my intent to dismiss the suffering of others.
The fact that it's impacting so many people from all over is an aspect of this that I find very depressing.
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Ok, next time you are sitting around a campfire, try to convince those around you that you are not being overly dramatic when you tell them that even though it's fun you are all technically poisoning yourselves.
Now that I read your post again I think you were being funny or even overly dramatic with that word, and now you are just trying to defend it.
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FWIW - When the wind starts blowing the campfire smoke in my face, I move to the other side of the campfire.
I have an air quality monitor, and I used it around my campfire. The PM2.5 was no worse than any other outdoor air around me unless I put the monitor in the path of the smoke. The thing about a tiny fire in the outdoors is that diffusion works quickly and efficiently to distribute particulate matter far and wide, and the ratio of "outside air" to a campfire is... really large.
Fortunately, science can help us! We can test PM2.5, PM10, TVOC, HCOH, etc. in various conditions.
Among the problems with wild fires, beyond being on such a huge scale that it fills all of the outdoor air with a higher concentration of poison and contaminants than is healthy to endure for short and long periods of time, is that it also burns carcinogens and other man-made objects, releasing even worse items than the "pure" smoke. But yeah, that scale is pretty important.
The difference in air quality being near a small fire in the open outdoors, and a saturated atmosphere is actually measurable and significant. Of course, if the smoke blows into your face and you breathe it in, you're poisoning yourself, and should choose to not do so.
Lies I Tell Myself
(https://i.giphy.com/media/3ohhwem03zCi5jXiuY/giphy.webp)
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Ok, next time you are sitting around a campfire, try to convince those around you that you are not being overly dramatic when you tell them that even though it's fun you are all technically poisoning yourselves.
Now that I read your post again I think you were being funny or even overly dramatic with that word, and now you are just trying to defend it.
Whether or not you can convince people of a thing is independent of whether it is actually happening.
We have a whole lot of examples of this, throughout history. And quite a few examples from the present day.
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Can someone refresh my member on how to block someone on these forums? I did attempt to search, and dig around a bit, but came up empty.
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Ok, next time you are sitting around a campfire, try to convince those around you that you are not being overly dramatic when you tell them that even though it's fun you are all technically poisoning yourselves.
Now that I read your post again I think you were being funny or even overly dramatic with that word, and now you are just trying to defend it.
Whether or not you can convince people of a thing is independent of whether it is actually happening.
We have a whole lot of examples of this, throughout history. And quite a few examples from the present day.
If someone can't tell the difference between a campfire and 3,000 fires burning 20 million acres of forest, an area the size of south carolina, then they are probably not worth spending time trying to convince them of anything.
https://www.axios.com/2023/06/30/canada-wildfire-crisis-active-acres-record
I applaud many of you, you are being very nice and patient with someone who is making very silly comparisons/arguments.
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Off topic, but it does blow my mind that there seem to be a subset on here who will argue the toss on just about anything.
Like... how the fuck is this controversial? These fires are devastating. Comparing it to a campfire? Enough emissions for Canada for a whole year, I read that somewhere, right?!
Our house is literally burning and... well, it's (https://i.imgflip.com/26q71o.jpg) isn't it. Business as usual. No need to do anything, change behaviours.
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Again, though. A literal decades-long campaign by the people who stand to lose a bit of their ginormous pile of cash if the public as a whole demands actual change to mitigate climate change. So, it was inevitable that the enormous amounts of money spent on that propaganda machine would pay off, and some people would be convinced by it.
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We got this out in the oceans:
"To summarize this section, the recent discovery of the marine Prochlorococcus has identified an enormous new source of oxygen on planet Earth. The implications are not yet fully understood but must be substantial."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8960603/
This organism seems to like subtropical latitudes which are expanding northwards and southwards.
If it takes advantage of the greater light exposure and increasing CO2, atmospheric oxygen levels will increase.
Currently, oxygen levels are at 21%, but above 23% wildfires become uncontrollable.
There was a time, the carboniferous, when oxygen levels and CO2 were high and wildfires were basically everywhere, all the time.
So here we have another potential positive feedback loop, and I am very unhappy about it involving a microorganism prone to exponential proliferation, and an ongoing increase in atmospheric CO2 that acts as a fertilizer for wildfire fuel (forests and other biomass).
Yes, the campfire comparison is kind of uninformed given that being terminally choked out by smoke isn´t a completely unrealistic scenario.
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Gosh, some people are over dramatic in their contrarianism. I guess we'll never know if they actually mean it, are being provocative for funsies, are are really just ignorant and callous.
My eyes were burning a bit this morning and my chest felt ever so slightly tight. (DC area) I made a box fan filter, though I only used 2 filters (in a triangle with the box fan, with cardboard on the top and bottom. Bought the filters with the highest MERV rating I could find--12. IDK if it's helping, but I can's see how it would be hurting. I have it in the main space, and will drag it upstairs to the bedroom.
We've avoided walking the dogs, especially because our nightly walk always leaves one of the breathing really hard, especially in the heat. Tonight our air quality is down from Unhealthy to Moderately Unhealthy, so we will probably walk, but I may mask. I wonder how silly I'd look in googles? Lol My eyes really feel it.
If it's "overly dramatic" to listen to my body's cues, so be it.
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Can someone refresh my member on how to block someone on these forums? I did attempt to search, and dig around a bit, but came up empty.
Profile -> Buddies/Ignore List -> Edit Ignore List. Then under the Add To Ignore List section enter the username in the Member field and click Add.
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Can someone refresh my member on how to block someone on these forums? I did attempt to search, and dig around a bit, but came up empty.
Profile -> Buddies/Ignore List -> Edit Ignore List. Then under the Add To Ignore List section enter the username in the Member field and click Add.
For some reason I'm having trouble adding this particular user. Maybe it's because they used to go by v8rx7guy?
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"It really has an apocalyptic feel to it."
I mean, it does. Even just esthetically. When I looked outside at the orange sun and the smoke so thick that I couldn't see the ocean in front of my house, it was fucking freaky looking. Behind my house was totally clear and this thick, stinky cloud was moving in at us. It was literally exactly like the scene from "The Mist," but with the crazy looking orange sun.
When the world around you suddenly looks dramatically different and you know it's because a nearby fire has been deemed "out of control", it's pretty reasonable to say it has an apocalyptic feel. Especially in regions where people have never experienced it before.
Reminds me of the scenes in Blade Runner 2049 in Vegas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osaiN-RcxqM
Anyone having trouble with their home's smoke alarms being triggered by the Canadian smoke? Not mine but I've wondered about it in places further north.
A couple of years ago, my next door neighbors’ house burned down. There were flames shooting through the roof, many firefighters with axes, and lots and lots of smoke.
Did my smoke detectors go off? Nope. Did they go off the next morning when I used the toaster? Yes.
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Can someone refresh my member on how to block someone on these forums? I did attempt to search, and dig around a bit, but came up empty.
Profile -> Buddies/Ignore List -> Edit Ignore List. Then under the Add To Ignore List section enter the username in the Member field and click Add.
For some reason I'm having trouble adding this particular user. Maybe it's because they used to go by v8rx7guy?
Lmao.
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Can someone refresh my member on how to block someone on these forums? I did attempt to search, and dig around a bit, but came up empty.
Profile -> Buddies/Ignore List -> Edit Ignore List. Then under the Add To Ignore List section enter the username in the Member field and click Add.
For some reason I'm having trouble adding this particular user. Maybe it's because they used to go by v8rx7guy?
Lmao.
Was getting a little tired of, "well you're a guy, so..." as demonstrated by this thread at least once. If everyone likes my old username better I'll go back
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Can someone refresh my member on how to block someone on these forums? I did attempt to search, and dig around a bit, but came up empty.
Profile -> Buddies/Ignore List -> Edit Ignore List. Then under the Add To Ignore List section enter the username in the Member field and click Add.
For some reason I'm having trouble adding this particular user. Maybe it's because they used to go by v8rx7guy?
Lmao.
Was getting a little tired of, "well you're a guy, so..." as demonstrated by this thread at least once. If everyone likes my old username better I'll go back
I mean, you say that, but it is obvious you are a guy. So….
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I keep a few half face respirators on hand, which have certainly come in handy recently. I wore one while mowing the grass a couple days ago. I'll post a link below to the particular mask and filters I use, if anyone wants to pick some up for themselves.
https://www.amazon.com/3M-Cartridge-60926-Respiratory-Protection/dp/B07ZKWF9Y4/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2IIZRVT5QSXXJ&keywords=3M%2BMulti%2BGas%2BVapor%2BCartridge%2FFilter%2BP100&qid=1688196416&sprefix=3m%2Bmulti%2Bgas%2Bvapor%2Bcartridge%2Ffilter%2Bp100%2Caps%2C123&sr=8-5&th=1
I'll be ordering a CM-08 CBRN mask from MIRA Safety once they come back in stock. Probably a full CBRN suit as well. Everyone will make fun of me for it until there's something worse than smoke in the air, then suddenly they'll be asking if I have any spares.
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The news about the smoke from the Canadian fires is making me recall the dreadful months before covid19, when we were inundated by smoke from the Australian fires. It felt like I spent almost three months inside - every time I was outside I was coughing. As people have already said, particulates are bad when they measure more than 200. Usually we have very clean air where I live (I think I’ve read that it’s one of the cleanest cities in the world), but there was at least one reading within the city where I live during that time of over 7,000. We were running our air filters all day, every day. Even then, sometimes the smoke detectors inside would go off.
We had fires before, but none that I can recall had caused so much pollution for so long. And it’s happening again, on the other side of the world, in similar circumstances - a very bad drought, devastating fires where and when there shouldn’t be, indicating that it will be a very long, very tough fire season that stretches everyone involved to breaking point.
I hope all of you, my friends on the other side of the world, only have these problems for a short time, and that moistening rain comes soon, douses the flames and stops the smoke.
At least the pacific dipole has changed, and while we will begin to have drought conditions, North America should get lots of rain.
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Can someone refresh my member on how to block someone on these forums? I did attempt to search, and dig around a bit, but came up empty.
Profile -> Buddies/Ignore List -> Edit Ignore List. Then under the Add To Ignore List section enter the username in the Member field and click Add.
For some reason I'm having trouble adding this particular user. Maybe it's because they used to go by v8rx7guy?
Lmao.
Was getting a little tired of, "well you're a guy, so..." as demonstrated by this thread at least once. If everyone likes my old username better I'll go back
I mean, you say that, but it is obvious you are a guy. So….
@HPstache
I'm not going to apologize for calling you out as a man, because you are obviously a man. I will offer you some tips though, on how not to be identified as a man in the future, since you have indicated this is frustrating to you.
I used to go by curious_george here. People assumed I was a man, which got frustrating after a while, so I changed my username to treeleaf.
Some people still assumed I was a man. Eventually I looked up what gaslighting means, and stopped doing that, and people magically stopped assuming I'm a man.
You might also want to look up what mansplaining means, and question the general idea that you are superior to anyone else as well and replace this with a general sense of equality with everyone.
Also - there are more women on this forum than men.
I realized I interact with women and men extremely differently in real life. For example, in real life I tend to think of a woman's feelings first, and a man's ego first, as the things I should not hurt. On this forum I assumed most of the users here were men at first - this assumption also made it pretty obvious I am a man.
These tips should help you to not get identified as a man in the future.
I'm not trying to hurt your ego - I'm trying to help make your experience on this forum less frustrating.
Matthew 22:39, using your terminology.
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More on the health consequences of wildfire smoke:
Climate change keeps making wildfires and smoke worse. Scientists call it the 'new abnormal'
As smoky as the summer has been so far, scientists say it will likely be worse in future years because of climate change
By Seth Borenstein
Melina Walling
7 hours ago
For people exposed to nasty air from wildfire smoke, increasing threats to health are part of the new reality.
Wildfires expose about 44 million people per year worldwide to unhealthy air, causing about 677,000 deaths annually with almost 39% of them children, according to a 2021 study out of the United Kingdom.
One study that looked at a dozen years of wildfire smoke exposure in Washington state showed a 1% all-ages increase in the odds of non-traumatic death the same day as the smoke hit the area and 2% for the day after. Risk of respiratory deaths jumped 14% and even more, 35%, for adults ages 45 to 64.
Based on peer-reviewed studies, the Health Effects Institute estimated that smoke’s chief pollutant caused 4 million deaths worldwide and nearly 48,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2019.
The tiny particles making up a main pollutant of wildfire smoke, called PM2.5, are just the right size to embed deep in the lungs and absorb into the blood. But while their size has garnered attention, their composition also matters, said Kris Ebi, a University of Washington climate and health scientist.
“There is emerging evidence that the toxicity of wildfire smoke PM2.5 is more toxic than what comes out of tailpipes,” Ebi said.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/canada-ap-san-francisco-united-states-scientists-b2367669.html
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We just returned from the Pisgah National Forest in western North Carolina. Pretty far south. We drove a handful of miles on the Blue Ridge Parkway and I was shocked at how poor the visibility was. At first I thought maybe it was a hazy day but these were otherwise fantastic weather days. Mostly sunny, highs in the mid-70s. Having been out west during wildfires it didn't take but a minute to realize it was smoke. At some moments we could barely see the next mountain ridge. Wasn't enough to smell it in the air though.
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We just arrived in Vermont where we have been fortunate to spend much of our time since retiring. The air quality this morning (155 on airnow.gov) led us to cancel kayaking plans and do a quick trip to the farmer's market with KN-95 masks. Now we are staying inside with our air purifiers. 25 minutes outdoors, even with our masks on, gave us both headaches and uncomfortable eyes. Fortunately, I brought air purifiers with me. For anyone who is interested in air purifiers, I have tried Honeywell (expensive, not effective at all), Coway (loud and not very effective), Blue Air (bought 2, they emitted a weird chemical smell even after 2 months, although a friend had one that never smelled), and Levoit. Levoit is the only brand I have now. Love them. I have a 400s (for living/dining large area) and a 300s (for bedroom). For the 300s I am able to get filters with more charcoal to also help with VOCs.
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I have a Levoit Core 300 and it's not bad, though my Corsi-Rosenthal was cheaper and cleans a much larger volume of air with only slightly more noise 😁
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Ok, next time you are sitting around a campfire, try to convince those around you that you are not being overly dramatic when you tell them that even though it's fun you are all technically poisoning yourselves.
Now that I read your post again I think you were being funny or even overly dramatic with that word, and now you are just trying to defend it.
Whether or not you can convince people of a thing is independent of whether it is actually happening.
We have a whole lot of examples of this, throughout history. And quite a few examples from the present day.
If someone can't tell the difference between a campfire and 3,000 fires burning 20 million acres of forest, an area the size of south carolina, then they are probably not worth spending time trying to convince them of anything.
https://www.axios.com/2023/06/30/canada-wildfire-crisis-active-acres-record
I applaud many of you, you are being very nice and patient with someone who is making very silly comparisons/arguments.
It's also a really bold roll to do that on a forum that is supposed to be about both financial freedom & giving at least a passing sh*t about the environment.
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Yeah it's awful. I spent the past two days in some of the red air quality (don't go outside for extended time) areas and now my throat is irritated. It is bad. Thank you for starting this thread.
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I have a Levoit Core 300 and it's not bad, though my Corsi-Rosenthal was cheaper and cleans a much larger volume of air with only slightly more noise 😁
I'm really impressed with the one that we built. I've noticed a real difference in the house since running ours.
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More on the health consequences of wildfire smoke:
Climate change keeps making wildfires and smoke worse. Scientists call it the 'new abnormal'
As smoky as the summer has been so far, scientists say it will likely be worse in future years because of climate change
By Seth Borenstein
Melina Walling
7 hours ago
For people exposed to nasty air from wildfire smoke, increasing threats to health are part of the new reality.
Wildfires expose about 44 million people per year worldwide to unhealthy air, causing about 677,000 deaths annually with almost 39% of them children, according to a 2021 study out of the United Kingdom.
One study that looked at a dozen years of wildfire smoke exposure in Washington state showed a 1% all-ages increase in the odds of non-traumatic death the same day as the smoke hit the area and 2% for the day after. Risk of respiratory deaths jumped 14% and even more, 35%, for adults ages 45 to 64.
Based on peer-reviewed studies, the Health Effects Institute estimated that smoke’s chief pollutant caused 4 million deaths worldwide and nearly 48,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2019.
The tiny particles making up a main pollutant of wildfire smoke, called PM2.5, are just the right size to embed deep in the lungs and absorb into the blood. But while their size has garnered attention, their composition also matters, said Kris Ebi, a University of Washington climate and health scientist.
“There is emerging evidence that the toxicity of wildfire smoke PM2.5 is more toxic than what comes out of tailpipes,” Ebi said.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/canada-ap-san-francisco-united-states-scientists-b2367669.html
Wow that's a lot of death from campfire smoke!
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"It really has an apocalyptic feel to it."
I mean, it does. Even just esthetically. When I looked outside at the orange sun and the smoke so thick that I couldn't see the ocean in front of my house, it was fucking freaky looking. Behind my house was totally clear and this thick, stinky cloud was moving in at us. It was literally exactly like the scene from "The Mist," but with the crazy looking orange sun.
When the world around you suddenly looks dramatically different and you know it's because a nearby fire has been deemed "out of control", it's pretty reasonable to say it has an apocalyptic feel. Especially in regions where people have never experienced it before.
Reminds me of the scenes in Blade Runner 2049 in Vegas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osaiN-RcxqM
Anyone having trouble with their home's smoke alarms being triggered by the Canadian smoke? Not mine but I've wondered about it in places further north.
A couple of years ago, my next door neighbors’ house burned down. There were flames shooting through the roof, many firefighters with axes, and lots and lots of smoke.
Did my smoke detectors go off? Nope. Did they go off the next morning when I used the toaster? Yes.
Well that is disappointing to hear...
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Wow that's a lot of death from campfire smoke!
Seems wise to never go camping again. ;)
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I have a Levoit and 2 Coway air purifers in our 1000 sq ft apartment. Thinking about getting this in addition:
https://austinair.com/shop/healthmate/
We also have cigarette smoke from the neighbors coming in through the heating pipes, and the above set-up has not been effective in removing it, even with the special filter with extra charcoal in the Levoit. That Austin Healthmate has 15lbs of activated charcoal to remove VOCs.
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Anyone have thoughts as to how greenhouse gas production from wildfires compares with greenhouse gases produced by society?
I have to wonder how strong the positive feedback cycle is... And maybe we should make fighting wildfires a higher priority
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Mariposa if you get the Austinair please let us know how it is. I’ve considered getting one, but its weight would be an issue for me in moving it from one room to another.
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Anyone have thoughts as to how greenhouse gas production from wildfires compares with greenhouse gases produced by society?
I have to wonder how strong the positive feedback cycle is... And maybe we should make fighting wildfires a higher priority
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fires-doubled-australias-carbon-emissions-ecosystems-may-never-soak-it-back-up/
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Anyone have thoughts as to how greenhouse gas production from wildfires compares with greenhouse gases produced by society?
I have to wonder how strong the positive feedback cycle is... And maybe we should make fighting wildfires a higher priority
The short answer is probably quite a lot.
Given the warmer winters, we are going to see western pine beetles move across northern Canada and kill a lot of boreal forest. Dead trees, especially conifers, burn easiy. Forestry people have been predicting this for years. So we can expect to see more fires in the coming years. The only good news (sort of) is that young trees (the ones growing after a fire) fix more carbon than mature trees. These are forests that are adapted to fire, so the questions from a forestry viewpoint are will there be enough moisture for new forest to grow, and how often will the fires come. A young tree getting burned has not yet made seeds for the soil seed bank.
These are also forests that have only been around for a few thousand years - before that the area was glaciated. That also means the soil is shallow (the glaciers bulldozed what was originally there down to the US) and so it is easily eroded. These are fragile ecosystems, not as fragile as tundra, but fragile. It's hard to grow new forest on bare rock.
The long answer is that they are two different categories of atmospheric carbon. Forest fire carbon is carbon that has been circulating in the air recently (it was CO2 until a tree incorporated it into tissue) and is part of the normal carbon cycle. The problem with burning all the fossil fuels is that their carbon has not been part of the carbon cycle for a long long time. The Carboniferous period, which is when a lot of this carbon was sequestered as coal, was from the end of the Devonian Period 358.9 million years ago to the beginning of the Permian Period, 298.9 million years ago. Oil is more variable, but again it takes a long time for organic material in silt to become oil in shale. Any geologists? I know this is a gross oversimplification of fossil carbon deposition.
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But as far as greenhouse gases go, CO2 is fungible -- it doesn't matter whether a ton comes from forest fires or from fossil fuels it has the same 'insulating' effect.
I don't see why the distinction is important?
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But as far as greenhouse gases go, CO2 is fungible -- it doesn't matter whether a ton comes from forest fires or from fossil fuels it has the same 'insulating' effect.
I don't see why the distinction is important?
In the short term they are going to act the same. So they will have an effect. What /how much of an effect I don't know - ask a climatologist? There will also be effects from all the particulate matter in the higher atmosphere. There will be effects from all the toxins from the smoke - it isn't just our lungs that are going to be affected. Also, changes in climate (and possible soil loss from erosion) means the trees holding that carbon out of circulation may not be replaced, so that carbon is now in the atmosphere for a lot longer. The article Deborah posted is very sobering, because we are also getting hotter, and in many places dryer. And it may well be that Canadian forest fires are adding as much CO2 to the air as Canadian human production of CO2. We've been having big fires for a good while now - think of the fires in BC and Alberta over the last 20 years. I haven't seen numbers, but someone must have them.
The distinction is that the carbon in trees/grass/etc. is part of the active circulating carbon cycle. It gets tied up for a while (up to a few thousand years in very old trees and humic acids in soil and sediments in lakes) and then goes back to the atmosphere. Some of the atmospheric carbon will be lost to sediment which will eventually turn into rock, but carbon from weathering and volcanoes will replace it. In the short term (without us) CO2 is fairly stable, in the long run, when we get massive volcanic activity the CO2 levels do change. Long run means geological time, not human time.
The thing about fossil fuels is that the carbon in them hasn't been in circulation for a long long time - many many millions of years. So it gets added into the regular carbon cycle as new carbon. It's as if we had thousands of volcanoes all spewing out CO2 at once. Or think about currency - if banks keep the same amount in circulation things are pretty steady. If they start printing a lot of new currency so the supply grows the end result is runaway inflation (I think? I am not an economist). So we have added CO2 from fossil fuels as background increase and then the fires add an extra amount of CO2 that would be part of natural fluctuations if we weren't adding the extra from fossil fuels. (Sorry for the run-on sentence).
So yes, the added CO2 from forest fires is a big immediate concern. This is not new - climate scientists and ecologists have been worrying about it since the major burning in the Amazon started. And that was human activity. Maybe we are noticing it more because these are fires that we didn't start on purpose? But from an atmospheric viewpoint it doesn't matter whether the forest is burning because people are clearing land for agriculture, or because there are out of control wildfires, it is all organic carbon being converted to atmospheric carbon.
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I've been noticing the wildfires since they started impacting me directly in 2017 - we usually vacation in Alberta or BC.
I think Deborah's reference is important... If global warming is freeing up more carbon from trees etc that sounds like positive feedback when we want to see negative feedback.
Those pine beetles are a disaster as well. I was hoping they would stay in BC
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I've been noticing the wildfires since they started impacting me directly in 2017 - we usually vacation in Alberta or BC.
I think Deborah's reference is important... If global warming is freeing up more carbon from trees etc that sounds like positive feedback when we want to see negative feedback.
Those pine beetles are a disaster as well. I was hoping they would stay in BC
I saw something somewhere that the 1980s (1970s?) were the turning point.
The pine beetles would have stayed in BC if winters had stayed cold. Cold is our defence against pests - I mean, termites in Toronto? https://bugsrus.ca/toronto-termite-map/ (https://bugsrus.ca/toronto-termite-map/) Termites were not there when I was a kid. Turkey vultures weren't in Quebec when I was a kid, now they are all over southeastern Ontario and southwestern Quebec. Not that turkey vultures are pests, they are useful scavengers, but they are relatively new.
The other scary positive feedback system is the methane stored in tundra - as the permafrost warms it releases methane, and methane is a much more effective green house gas than CO2 is. It does eventually break down to CO2 so it hits both ways, as CH4 and CO2.
At this point all we (we = society in general) can do is try to minimise the damage and not make it worse. But so many social pressures work against that.
But yes, unless someone is professionally involved directly or indirectly (that's me) in climate studies, we don't really notice things until they start being local. That is just how peoples' brains work, I think.
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The pine beetles would have stayed in BC if winters had stayed cold. Cold is our defence against pests - I mean, termites in Toronto? https://bugsrus.ca/toronto-termite-map/ (https://bugsrus.ca/toronto-termite-map/) Termites were not there when I was a kid. Turkey vultures weren't in Quebec when I was a kid, now they are all over southeastern Ontario and southwestern Quebec. Not that turkey vultures are pests, they are useful scavengers, but they are relatively new.
Not to mention ticks. Ticks are everywhere in the woods now, when just ten years ago they were pretty rare. I can't walk my puppy on the same paths and trails in the woods that I used to walk my last dog . . . because the puppy comes back crawling with the little bastards. I didn't even have my last dog on tick medication most of the year because there was no need.
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The pine beetles would have stayed in BC if winters had stayed cold. Cold is our defence against pests - I mean, termites in Toronto? https://bugsrus.ca/toronto-termite-map/ (https://bugsrus.ca/toronto-termite-map/) Termites were not there when I was a kid. Turkey vultures weren't in Quebec when I was a kid, now they are all over southeastern Ontario and southwestern Quebec. Not that turkey vultures are pests, they are useful scavengers, but they are relatively new.
Not to mention ticks. Ticks are everywhere in the woods now, when just ten years ago they were pretty rare. I can't walk my puppy on the same paths and trails in the woods that I used to walk my last dog . . . because the puppy comes back crawling with the little bastards. I didn't even have my last dog on tick medication most of the year because there was no need.
You had to remind us, didn't you? ;-( I went to a seminar and half the ticks on Carp Trail have Lyme. And yes there are way more ticks.
I know someone who many years ago took her Shelties to a dog show in Lyme, Connecticut. Yes, that Lyme. She was taking multiple ticks off her dogs and herself. Can you imagine having a shower and finding multiple ticks on you? And wondering if you missed any? Ugh.
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Ahk! Taking the kids out to Ontario this summer - daily tick checks for the win!
Any advice on taking them out when I find them?
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Ahk! Taking the kids out to Ontario this summer - daily tick checks for the win!
Any advice on taking them out when I find them?
Just grab and pull them straight out. If you get them out within 24 hours the chance of getting tickborne disease is lower. Probably best to use bug spray with DEET though (deep woods off is good), then you don't get bitten to begin with.
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Can you imagine having a shower and finding multiple ticks on you? And wondering if you missed any? Ugh.
Welcome to my part of the world... You get used to the problem. I haven't had a tick yet all year but then I haven't wandered through the wood much this summer.
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The pine beetles would have stayed in BC if winters had stayed cold. Cold is our defence against pests - I mean, termites in Toronto? https://bugsrus.ca/toronto-termite-map/ (https://bugsrus.ca/toronto-termite-map/) Termites were not there when I was a kid. Turkey vultures weren't in Quebec when I was a kid, now they are all over southeastern Ontario and southwestern Quebec. Not that turkey vultures are pests, they are useful scavengers, but they are relatively new.
Not to mention ticks. Ticks are everywhere in the woods now, when just ten years ago they were pretty rare. I can't walk my puppy on the same paths and trails in the woods that I used to walk my last dog . . . because the puppy comes back crawling with the little bastards. I didn't even have my last dog on tick medication most of the year because there was no need.
You had to remind us, didn't you? ;-( I went to a seminar and half the ticks on Carp Trail have Lyme. And yes there are way more ticks.
I know someone who many years ago took her Shelties to a dog show in Lyme, Connecticut. Yes, that Lyme. She was taking multiple ticks off her dogs and herself. Can you imagine having a shower and finding multiple ticks on you? And wondering if you missed any? Ugh.
I was sleeping out in a tent about 5 years ago and when i woke up there were about 20 tiny bugs on my pillow. I pulled 8 of the little bastards off of my leg and got prophylactic antibiotics the next day. I'm thinking a mature tick must have laid her eggs ( or however ticks hatch new ticks) on my tent site.
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Can you imagine having a shower and finding multiple ticks on you? And wondering if you missed any? Ugh.
Welcome to my part of the world... You get used to the problem. I haven't had a tick yet all year but then I haven't wandered through the wood much this summer.
i also scrub the bite with rubbing alcohol. Don't know that it helps but it doesn't hurt.
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Shudder. If I had to choose between ticks and hard winters I would choose hard winters every time. No ticks, no freezing rain, just lovely snow and cold.
I spent a lot of time in the woods when I was between about 6 and 12. DD did the same when she was the same ages. I can't imagine doing that now without being drenched in repellent.
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Shudder. If I had to choose between ticks and hard winters I would choose hard winters every time. No ticks, no freezing rain, just lovely snow and cold.
I spent a lot of time in the woods when I was between about 6 and 12. DD did the same when she was the same ages. I can't imagine doing that now without being drenched in repellent.
That's the nice thing about living where there are no deer, we have very few ticks here.
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Shudder. If I had to choose between ticks and hard winters I would choose hard winters every time. No ticks, no freezing rain, just lovely snow and cold.
I spent a lot of time in the woods when I was between about 6 and 12. DD did the same when she was the same ages. I can't imagine doing that now without being drenched in repellent.
That's the nice thing about living where there are no deer, we have very few ticks here.
Moose?
Deer are very vulnerable to bad winters. I wonder if our deer population is also increasing as winters get milder.
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Deer population is high here. And ticks are frequent. DD has a work issued tick kit. We have designated tick clothes this year. Light coloured long sleeves and pants with socks. We spray deep woods on boots and hats. It is what it is.
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Shudder. If I had to choose between ticks and hard winters I would choose hard winters every time. No ticks, no freezing rain, just lovely snow and cold.
I spent a lot of time in the woods when I was between about 6 and 12. DD did the same when she was the same ages. I can't imagine doing that now without being drenched in repellent.
That's the nice thing about living where there are no deer, we have very few ticks here.
Moose?
Deer are very vulnerable to bad winters. I wonder if our deer population is also increasing as winters get milder.
No moose on our island, very few animals period. I saw one little weasel and that's the only wild mammal I've seen our here in two summers even though I'm surrounded by nature.
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Shudder. If I had to choose between ticks and hard winters I would choose hard winters every time. No ticks, no freezing rain, just lovely snow and cold.
I spent a lot of time in the woods when I was between about 6 and 12. DD did the same when she was the same ages. I can't imagine doing that now without being drenched in repellent.
That's the nice thing about living where there are no deer, we have very few ticks here.
Moose?
Deer are very vulnerable to bad winters. I wonder if our deer population is also increasing as winters get milder.
No moose on our island, very few animals period. I saw one little weasel and that's the only wild mammal I've seen our here in two summers even though I'm surrounded by nature.
Am I remembering correctly that there is an occasional polar bear? Like, once every few years or so?
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Shudder. If I had to choose between ticks and hard winters I would choose hard winters every time. No ticks, no freezing rain, just lovely snow and cold.
I spent a lot of time in the woods when I was between about 6 and 12. DD did the same when she was the same ages. I can't imagine doing that now without being drenched in repellent.
That's the nice thing about living where there are no deer, we have very few ticks here.
Moose?
Deer are very vulnerable to bad winters. I wonder if our deer population is also increasing as winters get milder.
No moose on our island, very few animals period. I saw one little weasel and that's the only wild mammal I've seen our here in two summers even though I'm surrounded by nature.
Am I remembering correctly that there is an occasional polar bear? Like, once every few years or so?
Yeah, they float over now and then. There was one on the neighbouring island last year, but it's not like they live here, they just occasionally arrive.
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Yeah, they float over now and then. There was one on the neighbouring island last year, but it's not like they live here, they just occasionally arrive.
Moose are good swimmers. And they do wander.
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Can you imagine having a shower and finding multiple ticks on you? And wondering if you missed any? Ugh.
Welcome to my part of the world... You get used to the problem. I haven't had a tick yet all year but then I haven't wandered through the wood much this summer.
i also scrub the bite with rubbing alcohol. Don't know that it helps but it doesn't hurt.
Just spent a few days in northern WI for the first time in about 15 years. Within one hour of feet on the ground and just a short stint into the woods, I had a tick and heard loons. That is some northern WI vibes right there.
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Yeah, they float over now and then. There was one on the neighbouring island last year, but it's not like they live here, they just occasionally arrive.
Moose are good swimmers. And they do wander.
If moose were going to exist on mcat island, they would. One of the interesting facts that I was told in Newfoundland was that they introduced moose for hunting (the island didn’t have any) and they bread really well, so now the centre of Newfoundland has the highest density of moose anywhere. However, Newfoundland is very difficult to get around easily because it’s like a hand with many fingers off it, and very jagged. Most of it, including mcat island, was originally part of Europe, and this bit of continental Europe was wrenched away when the continents broke apart. There’s a place in western Newfoundland where the layer underneath the crust is exposed, and nothing grows, where the division between North America and the piece it stole from the European continent is. Mcat island is right on the end of one of the fingers, in an area that doesn’t have any moose, and all the little islands aren’t really big enough, or the right ecology to support a moose.
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Yeah, they float over now and then. There was one on the neighbouring island last year, but it's not like they live here, they just occasionally arrive.
Moose are good swimmers. And they do wander.
If moose were going to exist on mcat island, they would. One of the interesting facts that I was told in Newfoundland was that they introduced moose for hunting (the island didn’t have any) and they bread really well, so now the centre of Newfoundland has the highest density of moose anywhere. However, Newfoundland is very difficult to get around easily because it’s like a hand with many fingers off it, and very jagged. Most of it, including mcat island, was originally part of Europe, and this bit of continental Europe was wrenched away when the continents broke apart. There’s a place in western Newfoundland where the layer underneath the crust is exposed, and nothing grows, where the division between North America and the piece it stole from the European continent is. Mcat island is right on the end of one of the fingers, in an area that doesn’t have any moose, and all the little islands aren’t really big enough, or the right ecology to support a moose.
Bingo, if they wanted to be here, they would be here. But we don't really have many animals here, period, it's too harsh. We don't even have rats, and rats are everywhere.
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Yeah, they float over now and then. There was one on the neighbouring island last year, but it's not like they live here, they just occasionally arrive.
Moose are good swimmers. And they do wander.
If moose were going to exist on mcat island, they would. One of the interesting facts that I was told in Newfoundland was that they introduced moose for hunting (the island didn’t have any) and they bread really well, so now the centre of Newfoundland has the highest density of moose anywhere. However, Newfoundland is very difficult to get around easily because it’s like a hand with many fingers off it, and very jagged. Most of it, including mcat island, was originally part of Europe, and this bit of continental Europe was wrenched away when the continents broke apart. There’s a place in western Newfoundland where the layer underneath the crust is exposed, and nothing grows, where the division between North America and the piece it stole from the European continent is. Mcat island is right on the end of one of the fingers, in an area that doesn’t have any moose, and all the little islands aren’t really big enough, or the right ecology to support a moose.
A good chunk of the east coast also used to be part of Europe. Continental plates come together and pull apart all the time, geologically speaking. Africa is a good example of pulling apart right now. This article mentions that spot in Newfoundland.
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/geological-regions (https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/geological-regions)
Moose wander so any place could see them*, but as you said, they need a lot of vegetation to thrive so won't stay long if things are not suitable. And if they have suitable food they can have population explosions. Isle Royale is a fascinating example. No moose, then moose, then a lot of moose and then a lot of unhealthy moose and stripped vegetation. Then one winter the ice froze more than usual and some wolves came over. Problem solved.
*For a wandering example, moose live in Alfred Bog, but I've seen them in Rigaud, say 50 km east of the bog, and I've also seen them crossing a main highway just outside Ottawa, which would be at least 50 km west of the bog.
Moose are impressive, no-one argues with a moose.
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Yeah, they float over now and then. There was one on the neighbouring island last year, but it's not like they live here, they just occasionally arrive.
Moose are good swimmers. And they do wander.
If moose were going to exist on mcat island, they would. One of the interesting facts that I was told in Newfoundland was that they introduced moose for hunting (the island didn’t have any) and they bread really well, so now the centre of Newfoundland has the highest density of moose anywhere. However, Newfoundland is very difficult to get around easily because it’s like a hand with many fingers off it, and very jagged. Most of it, including mcat island, was originally part of Europe, and this bit of continental Europe was wrenched away when the continents broke apart. There’s a place in western Newfoundland where the layer underneath the crust is exposed, and nothing grows, where the division between North America and the piece it stole from the European continent is. Mcat island is right on the end of one of the fingers, in an area that doesn’t have any moose, and all the little islands aren’t really big enough, or the right ecology to support a moose.
Bingo, if they wanted to be here, they would be here. But we don't really have many animals here, period, it's too harsh. We don't even have rats, and rats are everywhere.
Not surprising, since you have shallow soil and harsh winters, so little vegetation to support herbivores. No herbivores means no carnivores.
How is the bird population? Birds have the advantage that they can nest and have babies in summer one place (if there is lots of summer food) and then be good Canadians and go south for the winter. ;-) Like snow geese in the Arctic.
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Yeah, they float over now and then. There was one on the neighbouring island last year, but it's not like they live here, they just occasionally arrive.
Moose are good swimmers. And they do wander.
If moose were going to exist on mcat island, they would. One of the interesting facts that I was told in Newfoundland was that they introduced moose for hunting (the island didn’t have any) and they bread really well, so now the centre of Newfoundland has the highest density of moose anywhere. However, Newfoundland is very difficult to get around easily because it’s like a hand with many fingers off it, and very jagged. Most of it, including mcat island, was originally part of Europe, and this bit of continental Europe was wrenched away when the continents broke apart. There’s a place in western Newfoundland where the layer underneath the crust is exposed, and nothing grows, where the division between North America and the piece it stole from the European continent is. Mcat island is right on the end of one of the fingers, in an area that doesn’t have any moose, and all the little islands aren’t really big enough, or the right ecology to support a moose.
Bingo, if they wanted to be here, they would be here. But we don't really have many animals here, period, it's too harsh. We don't even have rats, and rats are everywhere.
Not surprising, since you have shallow soil and harsh winters, so little vegetation to support herbivores. No herbivores means no carnivores.
How is the bird population? Birds have the advantage that they can nest and have babies in summer one place (if there is lots of summer food) and then be good Canadians and go south for the winter. ;-) Like snow geese in the Arctic.
Newfies frickin' love bird feeders, everyone has them, but we don't have a ton of birds. I see a few species flying around, but nowhere near what you would see in Ottawa around the average city birdhouse, much less in more rural areas.
Just a ton of crows and seagulls.
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Moose are impressive, no-one argues with a moose.
Except squirrels. Saw it on TV when I was a kid... ;)
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"The UN secretary general has said that “climate change is out of control”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/07/un-climate-change-hottest-week-world
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"The UN secretary general has said that “climate change is out of control”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/07/un-climate-change-hottest-week-world
(https://media.tenor.com/DN-zxVMDBy4AAAAd/why-are-you-being-like-a-so-dramatic-anna-delvey.gif)
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"The UN secretary general has said that “climate change is out of control”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/07/un-climate-change-hottest-week-world
(https://media.tenor.com/DN-zxVMDBy4AAAAd/why-are-you-being-like-a-so-dramatic-anna-delvey.gif)
Is this someone we are supposed to recognize or just some random meme?
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"The UN secretary general has said that “climate change is out of control”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/07/un-climate-change-hottest-week-world
(https://media.tenor.com/DN-zxVMDBy4AAAAd/why-are-you-being-like-a-so-dramatic-anna-delvey.gif)
We have come full circle.
I can no longer tell the difference between the people who think all the other people are being too dramatic, and the people who are making fun of the people who think everyone else is being too dramatic.
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... whistling past the graveyard.
Seriously, people have to cope in one way or another with what's happening; and telling oneself that there is really nothing to see should be seen as another self-help effort.
Good luck with that strategy though.
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Is this someone we are supposed to recognize or just some random meme?
That's Julia Garner playing Anna Delvey, a famous con woman known for her epic gaslighting
It's a very funny joke. I legit laughed.
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Is this someone we are supposed to recognize or just some random meme?
That's Julia Garner playing Anna Delvey, a famous con woman known for her epic gaslighting
It's a very funny joke. I legit laughed.
Oh, I have read about Anna "Delvey" Sorokin - that is indeed very funny.
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Is this someone we are supposed to recognize or just some random meme?
That's Julia Garner playing Anna Delvey, a famous con woman known for her epic gaslighting
It's a very funny joke. I legit laughed.
Ohh - thanks for the info.
I don't recognize either name but the additional context does make this funny. 🤣
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Is this someone we are supposed to recognize or just some random meme?
That's Julia Garner playing Anna Delvey, a famous con woman known for her epic gaslighting
It's a very funny joke. I legit laughed.
Oh, I have read about Anna "Delvey" Sorokin - that is indeed very funny.
Julia Garner is also the shit and portrays her so frickin' well. I could hear her while reading the meme, which is a huge part of what makes it funny.
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... whistling past the graveyard.
Seriously, people have to cope in one way or another with what's happening; and telling oneself that there is really nothing to see should be seen as another self-help effort.
Good luck with that strategy though.
Just don't plan on spending the rest of your early retired life on the coast of Louisiana.
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We have come full circle.
I can no longer tell the difference between the people who think all the other people are being too dramatic, and the people who are making fun of the people who think everyone else is being too dramatic.
I'm sorry! It was worth the joke for those that got it, but I shouldn't expect everyone to have consumed all the masses of pop culture available 😅
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We have come full circle.
I can no longer tell the difference between the people who think all the other people are being too dramatic, and the people who are making fun of the people who think everyone else is being too dramatic.
I'm sorry! It was worth the joke for those that got it, but I shouldn't expect everyone to have consumed all the masses of pop culture available 😅
Lol - no worries. @Metalcat explained it well then I got it. 😃
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We have come full circle.
I can no longer tell the difference between the people who think all the other people are being too dramatic, and the people who are making fun of the people who think everyone else is being too dramatic.
I'm sorry! It was worth the joke for those that got it, but I shouldn't expect everyone to have consumed all the masses of pop culture available 😅
It was a very good joke, IMO.
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We have come full circle.
I can no longer tell the difference between the people who think all the other people are being too dramatic, and the people who are making fun of the people who think everyone else is being too dramatic.
I'm sorry! It was worth the joke for those that got it, but I shouldn't expect everyone to have consumed all the masses of pop culture available 😅
It was a very good joke, IMO.
Agreed.
This is more of a me problem since I rarely watch TV shows or movies or play video games, so I often don't understand pop culture references.
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We have come full circle.
I can no longer tell the difference between the people who think all the other people are being too dramatic, and the people who are making fun of the people who think everyone else is being too dramatic.
I'm sorry! It was worth the joke for those that got it, but I shouldn't expect everyone to have consumed all the masses of pop culture available 😅
I got it, and I’ve never seen the show. It was a good joke!
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We got this out in the oceans:
"To summarize this section, the recent discovery of the marine Prochlorococcus has identified an enormous new source of oxygen on planet Earth. The implications are not yet fully understood but must be substantial."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8960603/
This organism seems to like subtropical latitudes which are expanding northwards and southwards.
If it takes advantage of the greater light exposure and increasing CO2, atmospheric oxygen levels will increase.
Currently, oxygen levels are at 21%, but above 23% wildfires become uncontrollable.
There was a time, the carboniferous, when oxygen levels and CO2 were high and wildfires were basically everywhere, all the time.
So here we have another potential positive feedback loop, and I am very unhappy about it involving a microorganism prone to exponential proliferation, and an ongoing increase in atmospheric CO2 that acts as a fertilizer for wildfire fuel (forests and other biomass).
Yes, the campfire comparison is kind of uninformed given that being terminally choked out by smoke isn´t a completely unrealistic scenario.
Looks like there is new evidence for increasing abundance of phytoplankton in the oceans in the tropical/subtropical belt.
Briefly, during the Carboniferous period atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide were very high and there were vast tropical rain forests/swamps covering extensive tropical lowlands.
These forests were continually burning due to the elevated atmospheric O2 and the abundance of fuel biomass (the abundance of fuel might have been boosted by the absence of wood (lignin) digesting organisms).
But not all wood was burned - a lot got buried in oxygen free swamps and got converted to coal.
The ongoing sequestration of organic carbon left oxygen behind, and thus maintained elevated atmospheric oxygen level in a sort of steady state until the rainforests collapsed in a cooling event at the transition from the Carboniferous to the Permian period.
A good part of the current rise in CO2 is due to the burning of the coal from the Carboniferous.
The CO2 levels in the Carboniferous were much higher than today, but there is one scenario in which CO2 levels could rise quickly and dramatically due to the release of methane from methane clathrate, mainly from ocean sediments and melting permafrost, as a consequence of ocean warming.
This methane is a potent greenhouse gas in its own right but is unstable and is oxidized to CO2 and water.
Today, there are no tropical lowlands anywhere near the extent of carboniferous coal swamps, and there are wood digesting organisms everywhere.
So even if the atmospheric CO2 levels go up dramatically, sequestration of organic carbon as wood would not have anywhere near the impact the mechanism had during the Carboniferous, as most wood would be oxidized by fire or biologic mechanisms, cycling the fixed carbon back into the atmosphere as CO2.
And here comes prochlorococcus, which is superabundant and is increasing its geographic range towards higher latitudes due to ocean warming.
Interestingly, prochlorococcus productivity is not constrained by limited availability of phosphate, as plants and phytoplanktons are, as it utilizes sulfolipids instead of phospholipids in its cell membranes.
I can't see a better candidate for large scale organic carbon sequestration than prochlorococcus proliferation driven organic carbon deposition in the increasingly anoxic ocean depths.
It is clear that the mechanisms outlined here act synergistically in part:
1. increasing CO2
2. ocean warming and spreading anoxia
3. prochlorococcus proliferation
4. methane release (? massive or not)
5. further increase in CO2 causing higher productivity in plants
6. further ocean warming and anoxia
7. sequestration of organic carbon from dead phytoplankton in the anoxic ocean depths with consequently rising atmospheric O2
8. possibly a new steady state with elevated O2, CO2 and terrestrial biomass and continual wildfires
This steady state could last for millions of years and would be eerily reminiscent of conditions in the Carboniferous minus the coal swamps.
Humans probably wouldn't do well in such a world.
Cheers!
World’s oceans changing colour due to climate breakdown, study suggests
The sea is becoming greener due to changes in plankton populations, analysis of Nasa images finds
Earth’s oceans are changing colour and climate breakdown is probably to blame, according to research.
The deep blue sea is actually becoming steadily greener over time, according to the study, with areas in the low latitudes near the equator especially affected.
“The reason we care about this is not because we care about the colour, but because the colour is a reflection of the changes in the state of the ecosystem,” said BB Cael, a scientist at the National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton and author of the study published in Nature.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/12/worlds-oceans-changing-colour-due-to-climate-breakdown-study-suggests
The paper the article is referring to:
Global climate-change trends detected in indicators of ocean ecology
B. B. Cael, Kelsey Bisson, Emmanuel Boss, Stephanie Dutkiewicz & Stephanie Henson
Published: 12 July 2023, nature
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06321-z
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Cheers yourself!
If oxygen and carbon dioxide levels are elevated, does this mean an increase in atmospheric volume? Maybe not the right term... I mean the total amount of atmosphere, ie is some other component (N2?) being lowered somehow, or is there just going to be more atmosphere?
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Cheers yourself!
If oxygen and carbon dioxide levels are elevated, does this mean an increase in atmospheric volume? Maybe not the right term... I mean the total amount of atmosphere, ie is some other component (N2?) being lowered somehow, or is there just going to be more atmosphere?
Well, N2 is pretty inert and with no mechanism to strip it away that I know of, atmospheric volume would increase proportionally with increases in O2 and CO2, with adjustment for increased atmospheric pressure (which is related to volume but definitely a conceptually more convenient way to look at the atmosphere than volume) - but I don't know beyond this somewhat educated guess.
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Now we've got over 300 wildfires in northern BC. https://globalnews.ca/news/9827820/bc-wildfire-latest-news-update-burning-july-12/ (https://globalnews.ca/news/9827820/bc-wildfire-latest-news-update-burning-july-12/)
The only good news is that we came back from our vacation out west on Sunday after 10 days of excellent weather (except for one major thunder storm on Friday).
Oh yeah, there was a tornado in Ottawa today for good measure.
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And now Maui is on fire. Who's next?
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And now Maui is on fire. Who's next?
Yellowknife, NWT. The whole city of 20K people is being evacuated. Fun times.
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And now Maui is on fire. Who's next?
Yellowknife, NWT. The whole city of 20K people is being evacuated. Fun times.
CBC put together a fun map so you can visualize what's going on regarding the fires - https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/features/2023/climate-dashboard/ (https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/features/2023/climate-dashboard/). Really eye opening.
(They were also doing an overlay that showed where the smoke was heaviest and where it was travelling, but unfortunately that seems to be broken now.)
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And now Maui is on fire. Who's next?
Yellowknife, NWT. The whole city of 20K people is being evacuated. Fun times.
CBC put together a fun map so you can visualize what's going on regarding the fires - https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/features/2023/climate-dashboard/ (https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/features/2023/climate-dashboard/). Really eye opening.
(They were also doing an overlay that showed where the smoke was heaviest and where it was travelling, but unfortunately that seems to be broken now.)
Canada is lit AF!
Seriously, the visualization gives scope of the spread. Ridiculously crazy, the number of fires.
(thanks @GuitarStv for the URL)
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We are entering an age of increased climate volatility and likely more frequent and severe wildfires. Plan accordingly. Avoid living in dangerous forested areas. If you choose not to, at least get a 300 foot firebreak going around your house. Be ready to evacuate. Have adequate fire insurance coverage. Have a plan B. Avoid electric utility company stocks.
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Avoid living in dangerous forested areas.
Which are dangerous forested areas? Most of BC wasn't considered particularly dangerous . . . until this year. Is it just any area where there are trees now?
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And now Maui is on fire. Who's next?
Yellowknife, NWT. The whole city of 20K people is being evacuated. Fun times.
CBC put together a fun map so you can visualize what's going on regarding the fires - https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/features/2023/climate-dashboard/ (https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/features/2023/climate-dashboard/). Really eye opening.
(They were also doing an overlay that showed where the smoke was heaviest and where it was travelling, but unfortunately that seems to be broken now.)
Canada is lit AF!
Seriously, the visualization gives scope of the spread. Ridiculously crazy, the number of fires.
(thanks @GuitarStv for the URL)
Kelowna, a major urban center in BC of like 150K people has a very real chance of being burned to the ground right now. Parts of the city are starting to be evacuated, the fire jumped over the lake during the night and embers are now starting fires all over the city, and high winds and more lightning is expected over the weekend. So both Yellowknife and kelowna, major urban areas for their provinces, are being heavily impacted at the same time.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/what-you-need-to-know-about-bc-wildfires-aug-18-2023-1.6940311
(https://i.cbc.ca/1.6940417.1692368914!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_780/kelowna-wildfires.jpg)
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We are entering an age of increased climate volatility and likely more frequent and severe wildfires. Plan accordingly. Avoid living in dangerous forested areas. If you choose not to, at least get a 300 foot firebreak going around your house. Be ready to evacuate. Have adequate fire insurance coverage. Have a plan B. Avoid electric utility company stocks.
???
I'm on a rock in the ocean where it would be very hard for fire to spread anywhere near my house and we were still facing a massive potential crisis due to wildfires many hours away because they were threatening to block highway access and our entire supply chain, with no resources on the larger island to control the fires.
You can only plan accordingly to a certain degree.
My DH worked in exactly this kind of emergency planning for the federal government, their models are batshit insane in terms of complexity and what they account for. The average person is pretty fucked when trying to account for the robustness of a region against natural disasters.
No one thought Ottawa was particularly susceptible to massive flooding, fires, and tornadoes and suddenly "100 year floods," fires, and tornadoes became a kind of ordinary event pretty much overnight.
I grew up hearing about extreme weather events and feeling like where I lived was thankfully remarkably boring in terms of weather. Now it feels like violent weather chaos has become the norm.
This summer alone has involved fires, tornadoes, haul the size of baseballs, and completely washed out inner city roads from massive flooding, and that's just in the 2.5 months since I left.
I'm in an area known for its unbelievably extreme weather and it's felt like a calm oasis comparably.
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Avoid living in dangerous forested areas.
Which are dangerous forested areas? Most of BC wasn't considered particularly dangerous . . . until this year. Is it just any area where there are trees now?
Agreed. Sounds a little... dramatic :P
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There is also this site.
https://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/current/ (https://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/current/)
You can have fores fires anywhere there are trees. I lived in a forested area many years ago and we had a forest fire because the idiot near us started an outdoor fire when it was dry and windy. We had water bombers putting it out because the whole area was sparsely populated and everyone was on wells, so no nice handy fire hydrants.
And it doesn't have to be conifers either, although they burn really nicely. Our fire was in beech-maple forest.
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Avoid living in dangerous forested areas.
Which are dangerous forested areas? Most of BC wasn't considered particularly dangerous . . . until this year. Is it just any area where there are trees now?
When the fires came to Canberra (the capital of Australia) in 2003, and fire tornadoes were documented for the first time, and about 500 homes were destroyed in one afternoon, we weren’t in a forested area. The fire that I could see from my house for three weeks in 2020 wasn’t started in a forested area - a fire fighting helicopter started it with its lights in grassland, and it destroyed millions of acres.
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Avoid living in dangerous forested areas.
Which are dangerous forested areas? Most of BC wasn't considered particularly dangerous . . . until this year. Is it just any area where there are trees now?
When the fires came to Canberra (the capital of Australia) in 2003, and fire tornadoes were documented for the first time, and about 500 homes were destroyed in one afternoon, we weren’t in a forested area. The fire that I could see from my house for three weeks in 2020 wasn’t started in a forested area - a fire fighting helicopter started it with its lights in grassland, and it destroyed millions of acres.
Crap. How ironic is that?
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And now Tenerife, Spain has a major wildfire, with 26,000 being evacuated. I think everyone is going to be happy to see winter this year.
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Avoid living in dangerous forested areas.
Which are dangerous forested areas? Most of BC wasn't considered particularly dangerous . . . until this year. Is it just any area where there are trees now?
I thought everyone was aware if they were in or near an area of high risk. Here is a map to get you started...
(https://hazards.fema.gov/nri/Content/Images/StaticPageImages/map-wildfire_risk.png)
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There is a hurricane bearing down on California, the seas around here are overheating with drastic effects on the coral reefs, and there are fires where none should be - certainly interesting times we are living through:
A changing climate, growing human populations and widespread fires contributed to the last major extinction event − can we prevent another?
Published: August 17, 2023 3.42pm EDT
Over the past decade, deadly wildfires have become increasingly common because of both human-caused climate change and disruptive land management practices. Southern California, where the three of us live and work, has been hit especially hard.
Southern California also experienced a wave of wildfires 13,000 years ago. These fires permanently transformed the region’s vegetation and contributed to Earth’s largest extinction in more than 60 million years.
As paleontologists, we have a unique perspective on the long-term causes and consequences of environmental changes, both those linked to natural climate fluctuations and those wrought by humans.
https://theconversation.com/a-changing-climate-growing-human-populations-and-widespread-fires-contributed-to-the-last-major-extinction-event-can-we-prevent-another-211712
Pre–Younger Dryas megafaunal extirpation at Rancho La Brea linked to fire-driven state shift
18 Aug 2023
Vol 381, Issue 6659
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo3594
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Avoid living in dangerous forested areas.
Which are dangerous forested areas? Most of BC wasn't considered particularly dangerous . . . until this year. Is it just any area where there are trees now?
I thought everyone was aware if they were in or near an area of high risk. Here is a map to get you started...
(https://hazards.fema.gov/nri/Content/Images/StaticPageImages/map-wildfire_risk.png)
So much of that map is red or yellow that it's almost pointless. And yes, at least some people could leave those areas and move to... Tornado Alley, I guess. Is that actually better? Or extreme blizzard land, the flood plains of the mighty Mississippi, and places likely to be hit by hurricanes. Problem solved!
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What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!
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What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!
I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.
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What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!
I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.
Precisely, I don't think Canada has seen such high numbers of internally displaced persons due to environmental disaster ever before.
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Avoid living in dangerous forested areas.
Which are dangerous forested areas? Most of BC wasn't considered particularly dangerous . . . until this year. Is it just any area where there are trees now?
I thought everyone was aware if they were in or near an area of high risk. Here is a map to get you started...
(https://hazards.fema.gov/nri/Content/Images/StaticPageImages/map-wildfire_risk.png)
Funny how the very fires this thread was about were in areas designated as "low risk" by the 2021 fire risk maps...
So folks who act very chose where to live in 2021 based on where they thought the risk was low may have put themselves right in the path of an absolutely massive fire.
As I already said, for many, many years the Ottawa area of Ontario has been a very weather benign place to live except for some ultra mega snowstorms, but we have the infrastructure to generally handle that.
Otherwise, crazy weather events and major fires just didn't really happen. Now they are happening constantly, multiple in a single season.
Everyone can follow your advice and live according to that map, but what happens when things are rapidly changing and last year's map doesn't predict next year's disaster risk?
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Avoid living in dangerous forested areas.
Which are dangerous forested areas? Most of BC wasn't considered particularly dangerous . . . until this year. Is it just any area where there are trees now?
I thought everyone was aware if they were in or near an area of high risk. Here is a map to get you started...
(https://hazards.fema.gov/nri/Content/Images/StaticPageImages/map-wildfire_risk.png)
Funny how the very fires this thread was about were in areas designated as "low risk" by the 2021 fire risk maps...
So folks who act very chose where to live in 2021 based on where they thought the risk was low may have put themselves right in the path of an absolutely massive fire.
As I already said, for many, many years the Ottawa area of Ontario has been a very weather benign place to live except for some ultra mega snowstorms, but we have the infrastructure to generally handle that.
Otherwise, crazy weather events and major fires just didn't really happen. Now they are happening constantly, multiple in a single season.
Everyone can follow your advice and live according to that map, but what happens when things are rapidly changing and last year's map doesn't predict next year's disaster risk?
Low risk is a relative designation, not a guarantee there will never be a fire. Does Canada have fire risk maps?
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Canada I expect an apology soon.
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Canada I expect an apology soon.
We're sorry America's fixation on the automobile and free-market capitalism has created a scenario where our forests are burning down. :P
Low risk is a relative designation, not a guarantee there will never be a fire. Does Canada have fire risk maps?
Yep:
https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/maps/fw (https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/maps/fw)
(https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/data/maps/fwi_fbp/2023/sf/fdr20230820.png)
You may note that most of the areas in BC and the Yukon currently on fire aren't designated 'Very High' or 'Extreme'. BC has had unusual heat and dryness this year. You might also notice that most of the areas burning in Ontario and Quebec are 'Low Risk' for fire.
It seems that past predictions for avoiding dangerous fires aren't too useful in the new climate that we live.
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Canada I expect an apology soon.
We're sorry America's fixation on the automobile and free-market capitalism has created a scenario where our forests are burning down. :P
Low risk is a relative designation, not a guarantee there will never be a fire. Does Canada have fire risk maps?
Yep:
https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/maps/fw (https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/maps/fw)
(https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/data/maps/fwi_fbp/2023/sf/fdr20230820.png)
You may note that most of the areas in BC and the Yukon currently on fire aren't designated 'Very High' or 'Extreme'. BC has had unusual heat and dryness this year. You might also notice that most of the areas burning in Ontario and Quebec are 'Low Risk' for fire.
It seems that past predictions for avoiding dangerous fires aren't too useful in the new climate that we live.
Why is the risk changes abruptly from one province to another? BC is high on the border with Yukon which is suddenly low. Same with Ontario and Manitoba. Not sure who is making those "maps"....
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Canada I expect an apology soon.
We're sorry America's fixation on the automobile and free-market capitalism has created a scenario where our forests are burning down. :P
Low risk is a relative designation, not a guarantee there will never be a fire. Does Canada have fire risk maps?
Yep:
https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/maps/fw (https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/maps/fw)
(https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/data/maps/fwi_fbp/2023/sf/fdr20230820.png)
You may note that most of the areas in BC and the Yukon currently on fire aren't designated 'Very High' or 'Extreme'. BC has had unusual heat and dryness this year. You might also notice that most of the areas burning in Ontario and Quebec are 'Low Risk' for fire.
It seems that past predictions for avoiding dangerous fires aren't too useful in the new climate that we live.
Why is the risk changes abruptly from one province to another? BC is high on the border with Yukon which is suddenly low. Same with Ontario and Manitoba. Not sure who is making those "maps"....
As indicated in the links, the maps are made by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. They're collated from data collected from each province, and the provinces may use slightly different methods for calculating fire risk (probably why you sometimes see a jump when crossing borders).
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BC, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut all seem to be on the same page, with same-color areas connecting pretty seamlessly across borders. Then you get to Manitoba and Yukon where they're all like "nope, low risk all the way across."
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BC, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut all seem to be on the same page, with same-color areas connecting pretty seamlessly across borders. Then you get to Manitoba and Yukon where they're all like "nope, low risk all the way across."
Heh . . . Quebec looks a little suspiciously safe too. :P
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BC, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut all seem to be on the same page, with same-color areas connecting pretty seamlessly across borders. Then you get to Manitoba and Yukon where they're all like "nope, low risk all the way across."
Heh . . . Quebec looks a little suspiciously safe too. :P
Given New Brunswick is mostly forest, and Nova Scotia has had some really bad fires lately, their blue index also seems a bit, um, optimistic?
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What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!
I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.
The original comment was to "avoid living in dangerous forested areas". That's essentially impossible, and also just send people to areas prone to other disasters, so it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It would accomplish nothing as far as making people safer, preventing damage to homes, or otherwise mitigating climate-related refugees. We'd just be evacuating them from river flood plains or digging them out from tornado damage or hurricane havoc instead of dealing with their homes (and lives) being lost in fires. That's not a meaningful solution to anything.
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That Canadian map is the fire danger for just one day.
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Canada I expect an apology soon.
I'm sorry that the entire "first world" is focused on burning as much fossil fuel as possible to increase their "freedom" to drive or fly whenever, wherever...
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-analysis-finds-exxonmobil-internal-research-accurately-predicted-climate-change/
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(https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/388/453/c3e)
What are you going to do about it?
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What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!
I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.
The original comment was to "avoid living in dangerous forested areas". That's essentially impossible, and also just send people to areas prone to other disasters, so it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It would accomplish nothing as far as making people safer, preventing damage to homes, or otherwise mitigating climate-related refugees. We'd just be evacuating them from river flood plains or digging them out from tornado damage or hurricane havoc instead of dealing with their homes (and lives) being lost in fires. That's not a meaningful solution to anything.
So what is "a meaningful solution"?
There have always been situations where the decision is "move or die". That decision is already upon a significant number of people in the equatorial belt and some of them are already dying because it is being made too hard for them to move.
Those hard decisions are now coming to the northern hemisphere.
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What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!
I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.
The original comment was to "avoid living in dangerous forested areas". That's essentially impossible, and also just send people to areas prone to other disasters, so it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It would accomplish nothing as far as making people safer, preventing damage to homes, or otherwise mitigating climate-related refugees. We'd just be evacuating them from river flood plains or digging them out from tornado damage or hurricane havoc instead of dealing with their homes (and lives) being lost in fires. That's not a meaningful solution to anything.
So what is "a meaningful solution"?
There have always been situations where the decision is "move or die". That decision is already upon a significant number of people in the equatorial belt and some of them are already dying because it is being made too hard for them to move.
Those hard decisions are now coming to the northern hemisphere.
'Move or die' - sure. But where's safe though? You can't rely on history to tell you, so it's kinda a crapshoot.
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Friends of family are now sheltering in Alberta. They evacuated from Yellowknife with the RV loaded with all the family photos they could gather, three dogs and a hamster. My stepmom is preparing guest rooms for them to come to Ontario for some time if there is no home to go home to. Yellowknife is 4,650km away. But it feels a helluva lot closer to us.
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That Canadian map is the fire danger for just one day.
You are right. I’m not sure Canada has fire risk maps. Perhaps insurers have them.
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What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!
I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.
The original comment was to "avoid living in dangerous forested areas". That's essentially impossible, and also just send people to areas prone to other disasters, so it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It would accomplish nothing as far as making people safer, preventing damage to homes, or otherwise mitigating climate-related refugees. We'd just be evacuating them from river flood plains or digging them out from tornado damage or hurricane havoc instead of dealing with their homes (and lives) being lost in fires. That's not a meaningful solution to anything.
So what is "a meaningful solution"?
There have always been situations where the decision is "move or die". That decision is already upon a significant number of people in the equatorial belt and some of them are already dying because it is being made too hard for them to move.
Those hard decisions are now coming to the northern hemisphere.
The point is that (especially if we are limiting this to the confines of North America), "move or die" is meaningless. Move or die from a fire, maybe. But that could end up being "die in a fire or die in a hurricane" or "die in a fire or die in a tornado" or "die in a fire or die from heat exposure". There's no place that's safe, which is my entire point. There are places that are relatively safe from large-scale fires, but I'm not sure what that accomplishes when you might just be trading the fire for the frying pan, with the frying pan being some other natural (ish) disaster, amped to 11 thanks to human-driven climate change.
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What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!
I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.
The original comment was to "avoid living in dangerous forested areas". That's essentially impossible, and also just send people to areas prone to other disasters, so it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It would accomplish nothing as far as making people safer, preventing damage to homes, or otherwise mitigating climate-related refugees. We'd just be evacuating them from river flood plains or digging them out from tornado damage or hurricane havoc instead of dealing with their homes (and lives) being lost in fires. That's not a meaningful solution to anything.
So what is "a meaningful solution"?
There have always been situations where the decision is "move or die". That decision is already upon a significant number of people in the equatorial belt and some of them are already dying because it is being made too hard for them to move.
Those hard decisions are now coming to the northern hemisphere.
The point is that (especially if we are limiting this to the confines of North America), "move or die" is meaningless. Move or die from a fire, maybe. But that could end up being "die in a fire or die in a hurricane" or "die in a fire or die in a tornado" or "die in a fire or die from heat exposure". There's no place that's safe, which is my entire point. There are places that are relatively safe from large-scale fires, but I'm not sure what that accomplishes when you might just be trading the fire for the frying pan, with the frying pan being some other natural (ish) disaster, amped to 11 thanks to human-driven climate change.
Colorado and New Mexico are popular alternatives with very low natural disasters. In the coming decades, this may even push up real estate in those states.
https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/safest-places-in-america-where-the-chance-of-natural-disasters-striking-is-the-lowest/ (https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/safest-places-in-america-where-the-chance-of-natural-disasters-striking-is-the-lowest/)
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What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!
I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.
The original comment was to "avoid living in dangerous forested areas". That's essentially impossible, and also just send people to areas prone to other disasters, so it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It would accomplish nothing as far as making people safer, preventing damage to homes, or otherwise mitigating climate-related refugees. We'd just be evacuating them from river flood plains or digging them out from tornado damage or hurricane havoc instead of dealing with their homes (and lives) being lost in fires. That's not a meaningful solution to anything.
So what is "a meaningful solution"?
There have always been situations where the decision is "move or die". That decision is already upon a significant number of people in the equatorial belt and some of them are already dying because it is being made too hard for them to move.
Those hard decisions are now coming to the northern hemisphere.
The point is that (especially if we are limiting this to the confines of North America), "move or die" is meaningless. Move or die from a fire, maybe. But that could end up being "die in a fire or die in a hurricane" or "die in a fire or die in a tornado" or "die in a fire or die from heat exposure". There's no place that's safe, which is my entire point. There are places that are relatively safe from large-scale fires, but I'm not sure what that accomplishes when you might just be trading the fire for the frying pan, with the frying pan being some other natural (ish) disaster, amped to 11 thanks to human-driven climate change.
Colorado and New Mexico are popular alternatives with very low natural disasters. In the coming decades, this may even push up real estate in those states.
https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/safest-places-in-america-where-the-chance-of-natural-disasters-striking-is-the-lowest/ (https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/safest-places-in-america-where-the-chance-of-natural-disasters-striking-is-the-lowest/)
Not sure those suggestions are particularly rock solid:
"Coloradans are familiar with the threats and impacts of natural disasters, including droughts, wildfires, floods, and tornadoes." - https://cwcb.colorado.gov/focus-areas/hazards (https://cwcb.colorado.gov/focus-areas/hazards)
"Colorado has routinely been impacted by floods, wildfires, severe weather events, and other disasters over the past century. Due to the impacts of climate change, including increasing drought, higher temperatures, and more erratic weather patterns, Colorado will continue to experience major disasters over the coming years. This is why incorporating resilience principles into community and statewide planning practices is so important—it will help ensure that Coloradans are prepared for these future events and able to withstand them and build back better.
Flooding, wildfire, and drought are the primary hazard events that Coloradans are most likely to experience, though many other natural and man-made hazards threaten communities across Colorado. You can learn more about some of the major natural disasters that Colorado has faced over the past decades in the map below." - https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e9c57aa1c8ed4317868982a43ddfdcbc (https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e9c57aa1c8ed4317868982a43ddfdcbc)
"A new study ranked Colorado in the top five states most at risk of a natural disaster"
"In Colorado there's an average of $464 million in damage statewide each year -- which works out to $220 in property damage per household. One major hail storm in 2017 was responsible for billions of dollars in damage.
Colorado's costliest year was 2017, mostly due to the largest hailstorm in state history. On May 8, baseball-sized hail in the West Denver area during the evening commute resulted in $2.3 billion in home and automobile damage" - https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/colorado-ranked-states-risk-natural-disaster/ (https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/colorado-ranked-states-risk-natural-disaster/)
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What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!
I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.
The original comment was to "avoid living in dangerous forested areas". That's essentially impossible, and also just send people to areas prone to other disasters, so it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It would accomplish nothing as far as making people safer, preventing damage to homes, or otherwise mitigating climate-related refugees. We'd just be evacuating them from river flood plains or digging them out from tornado damage or hurricane havoc instead of dealing with their homes (and lives) being lost in fires. That's not a meaningful solution to anything.
So what is "a meaningful solution"?
There have always been situations where the decision is "move or die". That decision is already upon a significant number of people in the equatorial belt and some of them are already dying because it is being made too hard for them to move.
Those hard decisions are now coming to the northern hemisphere.
The point is that (especially if we are limiting this to the confines of North America), "move or die" is meaningless. Move or die from a fire, maybe. But that could end up being "die in a fire or die in a hurricane" or "die in a fire or die in a tornado" or "die in a fire or die from heat exposure". There's no place that's safe, which is my entire point. There are places that are relatively safe from large-scale fires, but I'm not sure what that accomplishes when you might just be trading the fire for the frying pan, with the frying pan being some other natural (ish) disaster, amped to 11 thanks to human-driven climate change.
While no place would be totally safe, I've read that the "Best case" for 2050 in North America is north 42 latitude, with the 45th parallel being the sweet spot, and 105-80W - so basically the Great Lakes to the Dakotas and northward, with the major risks being heat and floods, but not nearly as bad as for the rest of the country.
As someone who grew up in tornado alley, tornadoes are about the easiest natural disaster to prepare for (in terms of saving lives).
I currently live just south of the 42 on Lake Erie (or 10 miles from the Lake), and our weather is really remaining quite temperate compared to other places I've lived. Our rain patterns have gotten a bit funky, but we installed a back up sump pump last year and upgraded our basement waterproofing.
Our town is upgrading their sewer systems currently and starting to talk about burying power lines.
In the grand scheme of not safe, it seems like tornados and floods from rain are definitely easier to mitigate through infrastructure than fires, hurricanes, and tidal floods?
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What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!
I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.
The original comment was to "avoid living in dangerous forested areas". That's essentially impossible, and also just send people to areas prone to other disasters, so it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It would accomplish nothing as far as making people safer, preventing damage to homes, or otherwise mitigating climate-related refugees. We'd just be evacuating them from river flood plains or digging them out from tornado damage or hurricane havoc instead of dealing with their homes (and lives) being lost in fires. That's not a meaningful solution to anything.
So what is "a meaningful solution"?
There have always been situations where the decision is "move or die". That decision is already upon a significant number of people in the equatorial belt and some of them are already dying because it is being made too hard for them to move.
Those hard decisions are now coming to the northern hemisphere.
The point is that (especially if we are limiting this to the confines of North America), "move or die" is meaningless. Move or die from a fire, maybe. But that could end up being "die in a fire or die in a hurricane" or "die in a fire or die in a tornado" or "die in a fire or die from heat exposure". There's no place that's safe, which is my entire point. There are places that are relatively safe from large-scale fires, but I'm not sure what that accomplishes when you might just be trading the fire for the frying pan, with the frying pan being some other natural (ish) disaster, amped to 11 thanks to human-driven climate change.
While no place would be totally safe, I've read that the "Best case" for 2050 in North America is north 42 latitude, with the 45th parallel being the sweet spot, and 105-80W - so basically the Great Lakes to the Dakotas and northward, with the major risks being heat and floods, but not nearly as bad as for the rest of the country.
As someone who grew up in tornado alley, tornadoes are about the easiest natural disaster to prepare for (in terms of saving lives).
I currently live just south of the 42 on Lake Erie (or 10 miles from the Lake), and our weather is really remaining quite temperate compared to other places I've lived. Our rain patterns have gotten a bit funky, but we installed a back up sump pump last year and upgraded our basement waterproofing.
Our town is upgrading their sewer systems currently and starting to talk about burying power lines.
In the grand scheme of not safe, it seems like tornados and floods are definitely easier to mitigate through infrastructure than fires, hurricanes, and tidal floods?
I agree - I would take a tornado over a fire or flood any day.
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What Villanelle said. Are we supposed to just abandon the entire western half of the US? Should be easy!
I don't think anyone said it would be easy, it's a lot of environmental refugees to manage.
The original comment was to "avoid living in dangerous forested areas". That's essentially impossible, and also just send people to areas prone to other disasters, so it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It would accomplish nothing as far as making people safer, preventing damage to homes, or otherwise mitigating climate-related refugees. We'd just be evacuating them from river flood plains or digging them out from tornado damage or hurricane havoc instead of dealing with their homes (and lives) being lost in fires. That's not a meaningful solution to anything.
So what is "a meaningful solution"?
There have always been situations where the decision is "move or die". That decision is already upon a significant number of people in the equatorial belt and some of them are already dying because it is being made too hard for them to move.
Those hard decisions are now coming to the northern hemisphere.
The point is that (especially if we are limiting this to the confines of North America), "move or die" is meaningless. Move or die from a fire, maybe. But that could end up being "die in a fire or die in a hurricane" or "die in a fire or die in a tornado" or "die in a fire or die from heat exposure". There's no place that's safe, which is my entire point. There are places that are relatively safe from large-scale fires, but I'm not sure what that accomplishes when you might just be trading the fire for the frying pan, with the frying pan being some other natural (ish) disaster, amped to 11 thanks to human-driven climate change.
While no place would be totally safe, I've read that the "Best case" for 2050 in North America is north 42 latitude, with the 45th parallel being the sweet spot, and 105-80W - so basically the Great Lakes to the Dakotas and northward, with the major risks being heat and floods, but not nearly as bad as for the rest of the country.
This is quite interesting, as this is where we live. DH and I have talked about it a lot recently, and had basically determined we are not moving from this spot because it felt like a sweet spot. Huh.
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While no place would be totally safe, I've read that the "Best case" for 2050 in North America is north 42 latitude, with the 45th parallel being the sweet spot, and 105-80W - so basically the Great Lakes to the Dakotas and northward, with the major risks being heat and floods, but not nearly as bad as for the rest of the country.
This is quite interesting, as this is where we live. DH and I have talked about it a lot recently, and had basically determined we are not moving from this spot because it felt like a sweet spot. Huh.
We have had other, better, job opportunities open up for my husband in the last few years and have decided to stay put.
At one point we were comparing Northern Ohio to Texas and Southern California, and then to the Santa Barbara area. Some family thought we were crazy to put environmental concerns on our pro/con list, but we have young children so we were thinking longer term than 20 years.
We don't always love it here, but we feel fairly secure that we are making the best choice for our kids and for long term employment for my husband (ie. what good is tenure if your college burns down? Which almost happened to one of the places that he was considering).
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These fires have left me thinking about ways to protect our house from a wildfire. We have trees, I could cut the treeline back even further. Different roofing, different siding, ways to wet the house down with water and foam....
What I'd really like the most would be lasting, real action on the part of governments and corporations to help the environment, not just cutting down our trees to move the tree line back.
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While no place would be totally safe, I've read that the "Best case" for 2050 in North America is north 42 latitude, with the 45th parallel being the sweet spot, and 105-80W - so basically the Great Lakes to the Dakotas and northward, with the major risks being heat and floods, but not nearly as bad as for the rest of the country.
This is quite interesting, as this is where we live. DH and I have talked about it a lot recently, and had basically determined we are not moving from this spot because it felt like a sweet spot. Huh.
We have had other, better, job opportunities open up for my husband in the last few years and have decided to stay put.
At one point we were comparing Northern Ohio to Texas and Southern California, and then to the Santa Barbara area. Some family thought we were crazy to put environmental concerns on our pro/con list, but we have young children so we were thinking longer term than 20 years.
We don't always love it here, but we feel fairly secure that we are making the best choice for our kids and for long term employment for my husband (ie. what good is tenure if your college burns down? Which almost happened to one of the places that he was considering).
Ha -- yeah, I ended up sorta dodging a bullet in that respect, as it turns out. One of the places I was considering a tenure-track position is now somewhere I would never want to live because of increasing hurricane activity and likelihood of the area soon being underwater. If I had taken that position, I would currently be trying hard as hell to get out of there.
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Ugh, noticing that the Okanogan has seen Aqi levels as high as 1200! Eeek, the highest I've seen was 800. At the moment there are lots of 300-600's.
from: https://www.iqair.com/air-quality-map
This is what I meant when I said 'pea soup smog' earlier in the thread. It was a reference to an old british saying about london smog's when they had an inversion and all the coal smoke settled near ground level. My great grandfather and grandfather used to tell stories about it.
So far the wind is mostly keeping the smoke in BC and south, but I'm expecting the prairies will see it soon as that is what the prevailing winds usually do. We might have ended last school year smoked in, and start this one smoked in too...
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While no place would be totally safe, I've read that the "Best case" for 2050 in North America is north 42 latitude, with the 45th parallel being the sweet spot, and 105-80W - so basically the Great Lakes to the Dakotas and northward, with the major risks being heat and floods, but not nearly as bad as for the rest of the country.
This is quite interesting, as this is where we live. DH and I have talked about it a lot recently, and had basically determined we are not moving from this spot because it felt like a sweet spot. Huh.
Yup, me too.
I’m just north of the 49th parallel, and as much as I curse our winters, our biggest threat is tornadoes and they seem to be moving more eastward lately. Although I’m technically in a flood plain, there is no river anywhere near my small city. There has been some overland flooding from torrential rains combined with snowmelt, but it’s uncommon. Grass fires could be an issue, as summers have been getting hotter and dryer, but in my immediate area, not common either. I think it’s pretty safe compared to lots of other places.