Forest fires over the past few weeks, especially in the past week, have made air quality rather grim around here. This is a screenshot of the air quality in south-central-eastern BC and northern Washington and Idaho.
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| Air quality on August 9th, 2026 at around 8 am |
It's interesting to see the climate chance deniers rush to claim that 1) humans aren't the cause, 2) CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas, 3) it's been hotter in the Earth's past, 4) China is to blame, 5) fires are all caused by arsonists, 6) poor forest management practices are to blame, 7) the Earth isn't warming up, 8) CO2 is plant food..... you get the picture.
To be clear, climate change, natural or human caused, didn't start these fires. It's just made everything much worse. A recent fire just outside Summerland, BC, that forced the evacuation of the whole community of 12,000, has been described as exploding like a bomb.
Meanwhile, we're wearing masks when we have to go outside, we have air filters running inside and I'm working on sprinkler systems that might help to protect the house in the event of a fire.
This is partly why I've started disliking summer.
