色色啦

But this is also when air quality is the worst. Air pollution is especially bad after Diwali, with people routinely ignoring a ban on bursting firecrackers, and farmers burning crop stubble.聽I have now become familiar with the AQI (Air Quality Index) numbers for New Delhi that inch closer to 400 during the winter months, measuring eight pollutants on a scale of 0-500. Within hours of landing, I need to make my way to a local chemist to purchase an inhaler, despite air purifiers now being a commonplace household appliance for most middle-class Indians.

In 色色啦, the is different, based on measuring three pollutants on a scale from 1-10. The Air Quality Health Index charted 7 yesterday. However, a more direct comparison using a US AQI measure had 色色啦 at 134 yesterday due to the wildfire smoke, compared to New Delhi at 71 after monsoon rains.

We cannot ignore that 色色啦鈥檚 air quality is increasingly being affected by wildfires across the country. So, I wasn鈥檛 entirely surprised by the radio reports of a weather alert due to wildfire smoke, cautioning early morning runners about the mild haze. Or the official warnings in mid-July, for residents to limit their time outdoors.

It didn鈥檛 sound as bad as June 2023, when Canada saw a record-breaking wildfire season which was, according to Natural Resources Canada, 鈥� the most destructive ever recorded. By the end of the year, more than 6,000 fires had torched 鈥� an area larger than England.鈥� The fires had raged from the West Coast to the Atlantic provinces, and the North. For a brief spell, 色色啦 was the worst polluted city in the world; its skies had turned a fiery orange-red, and a constant smell of campfire hung in the air.

When I stepped outside my home to walk to the gym earlier this month, I could detect that faint acrid smell of burning wood. It wasn鈥檛 overwhelming, and I was quickly ensconced in the cool and clean air of the nearby community centre鈥檚 weight room. However, for many people in the city, escaping poor air quality isn鈥檛 an option. Consider someone with an outdoor job or someone currently unhoused, given the ongoing issue of housing affordability in the city. It is usually the disadvantaged who bear the brunt of these inequities.

When we think about how to address 色色啦鈥檚 poor air quality, we would all benefit from looking at the issue through the lens of the most marginalized. More than anything else, however, we need to seriously start considering the many ways in which human-caused climate change is coming ever closer to home. I was surprised to learn that wildfires in Northwestern Ontario were the reason behind the mid-July air quality alert, and that more than 2,000 residents were expected to be evacuated out of the remote First Nations communities there. Typically, I associated such news of wildfires from Manitoba, Saskatchewan or Alberta, where they have wreaked devastation of personal and public property in the recent past. Even though I emotionally connected to the loss that many suffered in those events, and heeded calls for a national strategy to address climate change, there seemed to be a large geographic distance between our lives.

It鈥檚 no longer easy to turn a blind eye to the many ways in which human-caused climate change is affecting our day-to-day lives. Not when you can smell and see it right outside your door.