More needed to prevent deaths from climate-change driven heat waves, fires: report

“After a record summer of heat and a dramatic season for wildfires, many Canadians have been forced to think about the future. Will unbearable heat and fires become a summertime theme in Canada, and if so, what does this mean for our health?”

“A new report into the rising health toll of longer and more intense wildfire seasons warns Canadian governments to take preparations seriously.”

“Experts say smoke from the fires can have widespread and devastating implications for human health”

“Broken temperature records and deaths from heat and wildfires. This past week, the climate emergency got real, and it doesn’t feel very good. The world seems unstable. What do we do first?”

The Globe and Mail explores some key questions as Canadians endure weather that one climatologist described as ‘almost biblical’

Ashley Wohlgemuth remembers smoke, haze and chaos during the 2003 forest fires in her hometown of Barriere in British Columbia.

“During the fire here, it was like driving through a war zone. Everything was hazy. And all you could see was army vehicles and fire trucks everywhere,” said the fire chief.

En tant que médecins œuvrant à l’intersection de la santé humaine et de la planète, nous avons été ravies de voir le National Health Service (NHS) du Royaume-Uni s’engager à atteindre la carboneutralité d’ici 2040, avec l’ambition de réduire de 80 % son empreinte environnementale avant 2028-2032.

Discussions and plans of action around climate change are too rarely informed by the devastating health impacts of a rapidly warming planet. But if we truly seek to build a society that is resilient and prepared for public health challenges, we must apply hard-won lessons from one health emergency to our management of the next.

“Environmental racism is when unwanted hazards are imposed on Indigenous and Black communities. Industrial projects have made COVID-19 the latest pollutant—in places where people and the land are already under stress”

“From toxic waste to tailings ponds, Canada’s environmental hazards are often imposed on Indigenous and Black communities. Industrial projects have made COVID-19 the latest pollutant — in places where people and the land are already under stress”

“‘It’s a moment of crisis, but it’s also a moment of opportunity,’ one doctor says”

“Melaine Simba will never forget the months she spent inside her home on Ka’a’gee Tu First Nation, south of Yellowknife, with her windows tightly shut to prevent wildfire smoke from seeping in. It was the summer of 2014 and she was following public health orders to stay inside during the Northwest Territories’ worst wildfire season on record.”

“Concrete example of the impact of a warming planet on health and health systems, says Yellowknife ER doctor”

“We are at a moment of overlapping planetary health emergencies: COVID-19 and climate change. Both have their origins at the intersection of humanity and the rest of the natural world, both exacerbate pre-existing health inequities and both have the ability to bring health systems and economies to their knees.”