The Nova Scotia Wildfires

Have you experienced or heard of low air quality? From your friends or your family? Or even yourself?

Well, this is a phenomenon that has impacted many people in the northeastern region of the United States and in and around the province of Nova Scotia, in a place nobody usually expects a wildfire would happen in, much less how much smoke they would be enduring these past couple of days.

But why did this happen? Why is it suddenly such low air quality, making places like New York City get to the top 5 of the cities with currently the lowest air quality in the world?

It's because of many reasons, one of those factors being climate change.

A heat wave had recently hit Nova Scotia, and many are saying that humans might be the main cause of this accidentally. Global warming creates a warmer climate, which increases the chance of a wildfire, although unusual at this time of year.

The wildfire itself had destroyed multiple buildings, closing schools, making people evacuate out of their houses, and driving many firefighters from the U.S. and other places to work fast in this emergency. But it's not just the direct effects of the fire: it's the smoke that comes from it. This was one of the worst on Canada's record so far, and the smoke has traveled far and wide, reaching places like New York City and even New Jersey, at one point reaching dangerous and hazardous levels in some areas. At a point in time, it almost looked like the atmosphere was tinted orange due to the strong pollution.

People even started to wear masks to protect themselves from this pollution, reminding us all of the Covid - 19 crisis.

To conclude, this has definitely been a phenomenon in Canada and the northeastern part of the U.S. This is a direct, obvious reminder more than ever to try to reduce our carbon footprint and to help clean our air.

Let's be activists for a better Earth and future and try to prevent this phenomenon or any version of it to repeat itself.

We learn about the past in order to learn from the mistakes made in the past, and to not repeat them.

Works Cited:

Image from New York Air Quality Was the Worst in the World on Tuesday – Rolling Stone

Research:

Where are the Canada wildfires and are they under control? | Reuters

Canadian wildfire smoke impacting air quality in US Northeast for second day | CNN

Nova Scotia: fears extreme heat and strong winds could worsen wildfires | Canada | The Guardian