June 12: This Week in Climate News

Climate Now is taking a break this week - but will be back on June 20 with one more solution we can include in our portfolio of opportunities to tackle climate change. Read more below, and stay tuned.

In the meantime, take a listen to our 'This Week in Climate News' segment, and catch up on some past episodes about how we can all do more to address climate change - from the policy level to grass roots movements, there is always something we can do.

This Week in Climate News: One of the greatest difficulties in addressing climate change has been how invisible the crisis was. You cannot see the 40 billion metric tons of CO2 being added to the atmosphere each year, or necessarily feel that average global temperatures have risen more than 1 degree C since the late 1800's.

But this week, for many parts of North America, the urgency of the climate crisis could be seen and felt – in people's eyes, noses and lungs. Record breaking forest fires have consumed more than 9 million acres in Canada in the last month, and impacted air quality as far south as North Carolina.

The fires are tragic, but not a surprise, as the correlation between increasing global temperatures and forest fires could not be more direct. One clear illustration of this comes from a 2004 study of – ironically – Canadian forests.

The study showed that for every degree C departure from the 20th century temperature average, about 10 thousand square kilometers (2.5 million acres) more forest burned than a typical season. The hotter, drier and longer the summers, the more fuel available for the flames.

For reference, in May of 2023, Canada experienced temperatures that were 10 degrees C higher than average. Such a relationship illustrates why it is so critical to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels, rather than the 2.7 degree rise that we are on track to reach with current global policies. Canada, and other high-latitude countries will likely experience temperature increases as much as four times higher than the global average, which means most summers would feel temperatures similar to this year's May weather. It also means that unless we act fast, the orange smoky haze blanketing the eastern seaboard this past week may not just be a moment to "see and feel" climate change. It might be the new color of summer.

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