At a press conference on Wednesday morning, New York City Mayor Eric Adams assured reporters that the city’s current air quality emergency is not the last one that residents of New York would encounter as a result of climate change.
Due to smoke coming in from one of Canada’s most ferocious beginnings to a wildfire season on record, New York and most of the Northeastern US are experiencing poor air quality levels.
Eric Adams Warns of Future Air Quality Emergencies Amid Wildfire Smoke
According to Bill Blair, Canada’s minister of emergency preparedness, there are currently 414 fires blazing across the country, consuming a total of 9.4 million acres, or about twice the size of New Jersey.
The New York Times reported that a recent storm system moving in from the Atlantic Coast transported smoke from the famous fires southeast into the United States, landing over some of the nation’s most populous metro regions and having an impact on cities as far south as Washington, D.C.
For instance, New Yorkers learned on Wednesday that their air quality was among the worst in the world, according to IQAir.
As of Wednesday evening, Detroit, Michigan, one of the cities with the poorest air quality, was located around 200 miles southwest of Toronto, Canada.
The wildfire season in Canada normally lasts from May to October, although large-scale fires this early in the season are unusual.
Yet in May, regions of Canada saw record heat and drought, much like the rest of North America, creating the ideal environment for widespread wildfires.
Canada’s Wildfire Season Ignites Climate Change Concerns
Although large-scale fires thus early in the season are uncommon, Canada’s wildfire season normally lasts from May to October.
Yet, much like the rest of North America, regions of Canada endured extreme heat and drought in May, creating the ideal environment for widespread wildfires.
According to the United States, climate change does not generally cause wildfires.
The National Park Service, either purposefully or unintentionally, people are responsible for almost 85% of all fires.
Yet, global warming has created conditions that increase the intensity of wildfires. According to Natural Resources Canada, the number of acres burned each year might treble by the end of the century as a result of climate change.
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