No dog walk today. The upside: The more degraded our lives get today the more seriously we’ll take the problem. We should stop pretending that the climate emergencey is a far off future problem. It’s here today.
First, the record Canadian wildfire season exposed residents of the biggest cities in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic to hazardous air quality. Now low-level smoke is taking aim at the Midwest and Ohio Valley.
Canada wildfires break records and darken skies in the Midwest
@Denny As a Canadian, this is a tough pill to swallow. Bad enough I feel responsible due to the widespread effect this country is having. But even worse is, I feel terrified to live here.
@Archimage Thanks, I’m trying my best to. Barely been outside today, it’s just having to run the A/C that worries me. We don’t have central air, and the portable unit we use has a vent in the window with an intake and outflow hose. Needless to say, the choice between being hot in my house versus potentially drawing in smoke particles, does not inspire my confidence.
@pimoore Yeah, I can't imagine being closer to the source of the smoke or in areas with higher levels of it in the air. In mid-southern Missouri we just had the outer edge of it. Have you considered making one of the boxfan air filters folks have been posting about? Essentially a standard box fan with a decent filter attached on the outflow side. People report good results and far less costly than more expensive purifiers.
Also, to be clear, this isn't Canada's fault. The US has led the way in the wrong direction for decades. Not only that, we've made great efforts to block progress in dealing with climate change for decades. The US has been the leader in carbon emissions per capita for a long time. The climate situation in 2023 is on US.
@Archimage For sure I’ll be wearing one when I go to Toronto next week, if need be. Yesterday it “won” first place for worst air quality in the world.
@Denny Interesting idea about the box fan. I’ve also considered if I can snag some kind of filter to place on the intake hose of our AC unit, which would help block particles from entering. Problem is it would have to be a fine enough filter that it would likely impede with the airflow to the unit. We may just bite the bullet and look for a combo purifier and dehumidifier (if they exist), as our humidity indoors isn’t great either.
I realize this is human caused climate change that’s triggering these wildfires, but it feels like Canada isn’t getting on top of them quickly enough. We need to be throwing everything we have at these fires, and we also need to recognize this country is woefully unprepared for climate crises — and act like it. I still can’t help feel like as a country, we’re not proactive enough at the moment.
@jasonekratz Thanks Jason, I don’t have allergies but my wife does sometimes. We probably should’ve invested in one long ago, so I’ll take a look at Wirecutter — thanks for the suggestion!
@jasonekratz If only it were that simple here. My condo has no duct work for central air nor filtering, but it’s small enough that I’m hoping a central placement in the hallway would suffice. That keeps it close enough to the bedrooms and living room that it should be able to manage, I would think.
