“The challenges currently posed by climate change pale in significance compared with what might come.” – a warning from Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, made 10 years ago (in 2015) while he was the Governor of the Bank of England.
A Brief News Commentary by Doug Draper
Posted June 14th, 2025 on Niagara At Large
From the top of the Niagara Escarpment, looking down through the smokey haze at high-rise apartments just a few kilometres away in St. Catharines, Ontario. Toronto was virtually invisible from the Niagara side of Lake Ontario. photo by Doug Draper
If you are one of those folks who still think that climate change and all of the havoc it is wreaking on our living environment is a hoax, feel free to ignore this commentary.
Frankly, I am getting tired of trying to have a sensible discussion with people who, for whatever narrow, short sighted or crackpot reason, are still not willing to consider the possibility that using the earth’s atmosphere as a garbage dumpster for more and more fossil fuel emissions is gambling with our health and welfare, and with the lives of every other creature on this planet.
For the rest of us, mark this Tuesday, June 14th down as a possible sign of worse things to come in the months and years ahead as Environment Canada has issued extreme heat and air quality alerts at the same time – both serious enough to have experts in the medical and environmental fields urging us to keep our windows and doors shut and limit the amount of time we spend doing anything of a physical nature outdoors.
For those who believe in science, the data continues to show that the more carbon emissions we pump into the atmosphere, the more extreme heat episodes we are having like the one we have been sweating through for most the summer days that have passed this year so far.
Then there are those wildfires occurring across the country that climate scientists have been predicting for decades as the atmosphere gets warmer and longer periods of drought turn forests into tinder boxes for the first match or bolt of lightning that comes along.
So here we are today, suffering through another bought of extreme heat and humidity and receiving warnings from our federal government about smoke drifting in from wildfires ravaging regions in Manitoba and other parts of the country that is making for some of the poorest air quality numbers on the continent right here in Niagara and around the Golden Horseshoe into the Greater Toronto Area.
If you think this is a “hoax” or more “fame news,” just take a run out before nightfall and find a place along the top of the Niagara Escarpment where you can look out over Lake Ontario and see how much of the Toronto skyline you can see through the veil of brown haze.
Then ask yourself what every level of government is doing and what we should all be doing together to turn what climate scientists agree is an existential threat to the lives of our species and to that of other species we share this world with.
Just as a footnote, I recently had a discussion with some young people who told me, in so many words; “Look at the mess you older people have left us” and; “This is the reason we have decided not to have any kids of our own.”
If that isn’t enough to spur more of us to take action and to press our governments to take action, I don’t know what is.
For more related news on the Environment Canada smoke and heat warnings, click on – Air quality statement issued for Hamilton and area | CBC News
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