How Unprepared Are We? This Past Summer Tells the Story

 Here in Canada, the past summer was marked by wildfires, unprecedented in size and intensity.  Smoke from those fires blanketed (ironically) Canada's oil capital Calgary with days of thick smog.  It even reached as far as the East Coast of North America.  In case anyone wants to toss this off, note that established research shows this kind of air pollution increases neurological disorders not to mention other serious health effects.  The solution seems to be to wear masks but perhaps best, spending more of our summers inside.  Wonderful.

Articles are appearing highlighting how unprepared we are to deal with these conditions.  This story, and many others, highlight American unpreparedness, but it's no better here in Canada.  And people are moving because of it, one of the things this article points out.

How a Summer of Disasters Shows the US Isn’t Prepared for Climate Migration

Nationally, our government is mostly tiptoeing around the whole issue, mainly, in my opinion, because politics is a short-term game and currently the Liberals are down in the polls, fighting rearguard actions against the Conservatives who don't believe there actually IS a climate crisis.  And it's the Federal government that is building the Keystone expansion which guarantees another few decades of business as usual.

Provincially, we're continuing LNG development.  Maybe better than coal, but a fossil fuel nonetheless.  I've been unable to identify much in Provincial actions that are addressing either the root causes of the climate crisis OR how we prepare, not for what's coming, but what's already here.

Locally, our regional government is trying to roll out a Climate Action Plan, something that is being loudly opposed by a group of nitwits who apparently believe that ANYTHING the government does is an intrusion into our personal space and who also claim that this whole climate thing is a hoax, that climate is always changing, that CO2 is plant food, and other similar nonsense.  The same people, possibly, who claimed, with disastrous results, that COVID was also a hoax.

So, if this past summer didn't focus more minds on the crisis we're facing, one wonders what will.  Another summer like this one?  Two more summers?