Cindy Mac

pembina.orgStrong majority of Albertans support climate actionAlbertans are overwhelmingly in favour of strong climate action, recent polling shows. Commissioned by the Pembina Institute, and conducted by Calgary-based Janet Brown Opinion Research in December 20...

21 June

It was an honour to speak to Laura Lynch on CBC's What on Earth about the 5-year anniversary of the BC #HeatDome & my manuscript — but most of all of what I have learned from those who have shared their experiences with me. #ExtremeHeat www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...

Cindy Mac reposted

Calgary Climate Hub

@calgaryclimatehub.ca

Not to sound like a broken record but do you know what's VASTLY more popular than #Separatism in #Alberta? Like a legitimate, solid, reliable MAJORITY? CLIMATE ACTION How about a #Referendum on that? www.pembina.org/blog/strong-... #abpoli #cdnpoli #ClimateChange

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Kelly

@broadwaybabyto.bsky.social

Pay attention to the ableism being thrown around with respect to Christina Applegate finding out she doesn’t have MS. People acting like it’s a relief or a blessing. Like she’s “better off now”. She’s still sick. She’s just sick without answers. I guarantee it’s not a “relief” for her.

I’ve been visiting in the community of #Lytton this long weekend, learning from the survivors of the fire that happened here during the #2021HeatDome. I’m grateful for the opportunity to meet these incredible folks and see their beautiful community. A few quick snaps of the recovering beauty here…

Canadian Climate Institute

I’ll write more when I have time to reflect, but the community and Nations here have so much to teach us about how to survive or even thrive in a hotter world. Will we listen?

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@climateinstitute.bsky.social

NEW: Our latest early estimate of Canada’s national emissions shows higher gas use drove up emissions in 2025. But clean electrification can help steer Canada back toward net zero. https://440megatonnes.ca/insight/early-estimate-canadas-emissions-increased-in-2025/

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nytimes.comOpinion | The Science That Has Oil Companies Running ScaredHowever the U.S. Supreme Court rules, the work of holding oil companies accountable for climate change has a bright future.

A bright spot on the accountability front by the mighty @jeffgoodell.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/10/06/o...

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Tracey Saxby

@traceysaxby.bsky.social

Fun facts: 🔥Since 2007, BC’s climate pollution has decreased by 2.3 million tonnes. 🔥Approved LNG export projects will increase BC’s climate pollution by 21.2 million tonnes by 2035. 🔥This is ten times more pollution than we’ve managed to cut in nearly 20 years.

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Jeff Goodell

@jeffgoodell.bsky.social

6 Sept

Terrific interactive graphics in big Labor Day weekend @nytopinion.nytimes.com piece on how extreme heat is changing many American's view of summer from a season of relaxation and adventure to a season of sweat and danger. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

nytimes.comOpinion | Summer Has Gotten Much Hotter. See How Bad It Is Where You Live. (Gift Article)The notion of enduring the summer rather than embracing it has spread far beyond the Sun Belt.

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Jeff Goodell

@jeffgoodell.bsky.social

31 Aug

“Between 2018 and 2025, we estimate that some 9,000 deaths each year in the [U.S.] are impacted by heat — a factor of five higher than the official average over that same period. Some years, heat-related deaths can top 10,000.” Even this, I'd argue, is an underestimate. Great work by @npr.org

NPR@npr.org

An NPR investigation found that people in the U.S. are dying from heat much more often than official counts show. We explore the reasons why — and how lives can be saved. n.pr/3UmkeZP

n.prNPR spent 2 years tracking deaths from heat. We found a staggering hidden tollAn NPR investigation found that people in the U.S. are dying from heat much more often than official counts show. We explore the reasons why — and how lives can be saved.

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Robert Reich

@rbreich.bsky.social

28 Aug

The cyclospora outbreak has reached 17,180 cases across 48 states. The FDA has recalled 1.6 million eggs due to salmonella contamination. Screwworm cases continue to rise. And we’ve just surpassed 2,700 measles cases (including 2 recent deaths) — a 35 year high. “Make America Healthy Again.”

21 June

27 Aug

A brief correction: one of Tracey McKinlay’s sisters has reminded me that both sisters had been travelling when the heat dome began, but they had both returned to the Lower Mainland in the days immediately preceding Tracey’s passing. I made an error in my interview around that timeline.

bbc.comDolly Parton, legendary US country singer, dies aged 80In a statement confirming her death, the singer's team says she will be remembered as an "inspiration" and for her "wit, warmth, and kindness".

25 Aug

Oh no. Oh, Dolly. 😢 It can reasonably be argued this woman saved millions of our lives through her finding of COVID vaccine research. Fly high, Dolly. Well done. www.bbc.com/news/live/c0...

25 Aug

Hey @kehyslop.bsky.social did you know Student Aid BC changed its policy re: its disability grants without telling the students affected? Now BC students studying elsewhere in Canada can't access that funding. studentaidbc.ca/explore/gran... studentaidbc.ca/explore/gran...

cnn.com‘There’s no going back’: Journalist Jeff Goodell on the new climate status quo | CNNPaula Newton speaks with the author of “The Heat Will Kill You First” about a climate fast becoming hotter and more intense.

25 Aug

Students who previously had the grants have to apply for an exception and there's no guarantee it will be granted. I can tell you it came as a shock to my disabled kid in her third year studying outside BC.

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Jeff Goodell

@jeffgoodell.bsky.social

11 Aug

I talked to @amanpourcopbs.bsky.social about this summer's heat and fire, the divide between the cooled and the damned, and why reducing fossil fuel consumption is the most important task of our time. www.cnn.com/2026/08/11/t...

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ubcic.bc.caOPEN LETTER: Wildfires and Floods are Devastating Communities; Canada and Alberta Must Stop Expanding the Fossil Fuel Industry and Respect First Nations RightsWorking towards the recognition, implementation and exercise of our inherent Indigenous Title, Rights and Treaty Rights

11 Aug

Replying to @keatonpeters.bsky.social

Memo to capitalists (and @mark-carney.bsky.social): Climate risk makes things un-insurable. No insurance makes things un-mortgageable. No mortgages crashes the property markets. Crashed property markets trash the economy. - US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), 2024

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UBCIC

@ubcic.bsky.social

9 Aug

"This day recognizes the rights, cultures, knowledge, and enduring contributions of Indigenous Peoples around the world, but it must also be a day of accountability." www.ubcic.bc.ca/ol_wildfires...

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bbc.comBBC Audio | The Climate Question | Is this a new era of wildfires?Is climate change increasing the size and intensity of wildfires? And what can we do?

9 Aug

This was a really fruitful - and sobering - conversation about how the nature of #wildfire is changing in real time. www.bbc.com/audio/play/w... #BBC

While most of the Nortthern Hemisphere is up in smoke a month after tens of thousands of pple quietly DIED from heat, can we talk about “rainnesia”? The photojournalist & author Jesse Winter introduced me to this term to describe how the fall arrives and we lose momentum re: climate change.

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And the thing is, your disastrous fall flood is often directly attributable to the same climate change and certainly that summer’s fires and droughts, which destabilize hill faces and river banks.

So I challenge you: hold onto your feelings right now. NURSE THEM. Let them ferment into “radical hope”, as Inuk climate advocate Siila Watt-Cloutier calls it, hope that makes you act. Don’t give into the numbing relief of the fall rain.

BC Wildfire Weekly - Wildfires + More

I work in climate communications for my day job and this pattern understandably drives me loopy there, but even more so in my work writing about the 2021 heat dome. Our collective attention span can’t seem to hold onto the danger.

Cindy Mac reposted

@bcwildfirewkly.bsky.social

cbc.caB.C. premier declares provincewide state of emergency as wildfires force thousands out of homes | CBC

LIVE UPDATES: “B.C. premier declares provincewide state of emergency as wildfires force thousands out of homes” www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... - CBC News BC #BaldRangeWildfire #BCPoli #BCWildfire #Okanagan #Summerland cc: #Peachland #Penticton #Wildfires

“Climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you're the one filming it.” - @zackbornstein.bsky.social

Quinn Leone@quinnleone.bsky.social

Couple drive through fire to escape. High winds shifted quickly, they had 30 mins to get out. Okanagan, BC

The fires, well, everywhere, are horrific and should scare you, but I must point out the most deadly form of climate change disaster has no dramatic photos and videos. Dying from extreme heat is quiet and undramatic. And heat kills order of magnitude more people than wildfire.

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Tyler Olsen

@tyolsen.bsky.social

@mikeflannigan.bsky.social

Highway 97 near Summerland at 12:45 last night and again at 2:15 am. Camera now offline.

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Mike Flannigan

Another active fire day in BC but what scares me is the lightning forecast. Expect lightning in BC for the next 9 days. It is bone dry in parts of BC so if we see the lightning, we could see many new fire starts. ECMWF lightning density maps for Monday and Tuesday.

time.comWhat Happens When the World is on Fire"From America to Algeria, dangerous blazes are occurring around the world, giving us a glimpse into an age ablaze," writes John Valliant.

Read this. Vaillant’s book on the Fort Mac fire is also required reading if you want to understand why we now have a fire season instead of summer. His encouragement to me at a public event was the spark, if you will, that started my work on a book on another climate disaster, the #2021HeatDome.

John Vaillant@johnvaillant.bsky.social

My latest on the #wildfires burning across the Northern Hemisphere: time.com/article/2026... via TIME

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@mark-carney.bsky.social @evansolomon.bsky.social @juliedabrusin.bsky.social #Summerland #wildfire #cdnpoli

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Hot Cities World

@hotcitiesworld.xyz

2 Aug

Mexicali, Mexico takes the top spot at 46 °C — right now the hottest reading across the 1,030 cities we track. #Mexicali #Mexico #ExtremeHeat

So the #ClimateDisaster happens. (Pick one. You have so many choices.) Some people die. Many people are hurt or made sick but survive. Other seem unharmed. Life goes on. What happens next? Hi. I'm Cindy, and I'm what happens next. I'm a climate casualty suffering from long-term morbidity.

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Now tell me the value of fossil fuels to shareholders outweighs the costs of all of this, even to those same shareholders. Do the math. I'll wait. I think I can, anyway. My neighbourhood isn't roasting or on fire... this week. My heart condition *is* acting up though, so...

For me, my morbidity from a climate disaster means my life span will probably be shorter than it would have been. It is certainly more limited. And as a climate casualty, I am already not uncommon. In a year or two more, I will be legion. I may be you.

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That person then needs more care: more doctor's appointments, hospital visits, meds, tests. They may not be able to work (I am very lucky I can.) They may need to rely on what little social safety net still exists. They become more vulnerable to all sorts of harm. And then comes the next disaster.

More people are harmed and killed. This person may be one of them. And the cycle repeats. Now imagine that happening with every climate disaster this summer, to tens of thousands. Think about the human cost. The monetary cost. The societal cost. The lost productivity. All if it.

What's morbidity, you ask? It's the term health researchers use to describe the illness, disease, and unwellness that is the consequence of an event (such as a pandemic, #wildfire, or #HeatWave.) It can be measured at the individual and the population level. I'm an example of the individual level.

It goes like this: disaster happens. A person gets sick because of it (for me, that was a minor heart attack caused by the 2021 #HeatDome). They live, but with a long-term of permanent consequence (for me, a heart condition.) Life goes on, but not as it would have if the disaster had never happened.

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