Headlines declared it “terrifying.” Edmonton was dubbed an “apocalyptic ghost town.” The Star declared, “It’s not the end of the world. It just looks that way.”

As it turns out, there’s little disagreement when it comes to wildfire smoke: it’s alarming.

Residents of the western provinces have been choking on smoke in recent weeks, as smoke from the more than 550 wildfires burning in B.C. drifts around the country. Special air quality alerts have been issued in Vancouver, Victoria, Prince George, Salmon Arm, Edmonton, Calgary, Regina, the Battlefords and even Manitoba — and the list goes on.

Air quality alerts are issued to warn residents about the dangers of fine particulate matter present in wildfire smoke, which can cause numerous health effects including everything from sinus irritation to heart attacks.  

But it’s not just breathing difficulties and watery eyes that impact people living in smoke-affected areas.

For many, it’s the unsettling feeling of living under a thick cloak of smoke, one that obscures the sun, wipes out the blue sky and hides the landscape in a disconcerting brown-grey veil.

Smoke-pocolypse 2018. Over 600 forest fires are raging throughout BC. Hug your local firefighter. . . . #smoke #bcforestfires #forestfire #smokey #mountains #britishcolumbia

A post shared by Charlie Schrodt (@fullspeedahead) on Aug 21, 2018 at 2:22pm PDT

Little research has been done to quantify the psychological effects of widespread and persistent wildfire smoke, though researchers have found ties to feelings of hopelessness, irritability, depression, fear, isolation, change of sleep patterns and lethargy. The research is scarce, in part because prolonged and widespread smoke is “a relatively new phenomenon in North America,” according to Dr. Sarah Henderson, senior environmental health scientist at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.

Increasingly though, experts are concerned about the mental health effects of our new reality: weeks of seemingly unending smoke wafting across the western provinces each summer.

“It’s very oppressive to live under smoky conditions,” Henderson said. “A couple of days of it is more tolerable than a couple of weeks of it.”

‘The Lost Summer’

One of the few studies examining the mental health effects of prolonged periods of wildfire smoke was published last year in the Canadian Journal of Public Health. It looked at the impact of wildfire smoke in the Yellowknife area during the 2014 fire season, which saw significant smoke. The study found “a direct connection between the wildfires and smoke and a decrease in [people’s] mental and emotional health.”

When widespread smoke moves into a community, residents are often advised to stay indoors and close their windows, or to spend more time indoors with air conditioning. The study found that this leads to significantly less time spent outside, or socializing.

When smoke persists, closing your windows is no longer enough for many people. If a person doesn’t have an air filtration system, indoor air quality can eventually mirror the dangerous air quality outside.

“There’s a sense of not being able to get away,” said Dr. Warren Dodd, assistant professor at the School of Public Health and Health Systems at the University of Waterloo, and the lead researcher on the study. “Where do you go? There’s smoke everywhere.”

Being outside in the Pacific Northwest right now feels like smoking 7 cigarettes but this guy’s #stillgotit. More power to him. #bcforestfires #forestfires #forestfiresmoke

A post shared by Jon Feinstein (@jonfeinstein) on Aug 21, 2018 at 7:26am PDT

“One of the strongest emotions that people felt was isolation,” Dodd said. “This extended period of smoke meant that they weren’t able to leave their houses for the summer. People felt like they were isolated from the neighbours and from their community.”

First Nations participants reported an inability to take part in traditional activities, from hunting and fishing to berry harvesting. Other residents noted they were unable to work in their gardens, ride their bikes or take their kids outside to play.

Dr. Courtney Howard, board president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, was also a researcher on the Yellowknife study. She recalls the dangers of isolation and inactivity due to wildfire smoke.

“Physicians are increasingly giving prescriptions of exercise to people — whether it’s heart disease or anxiety or depression.” Howard said. “So not only do people have the smoke impacting their health, they’re losing the activity that was the treatment of their disease.”

“People don’t realize the health benefits they’re getting even from just walking to work, until they can’t do that anymore.”

This feeling of isolation and inactivity has resonated for many people this summer, too. Smoke has already forced people to re-evaluate their summer plans, from community events to outdoor activities.

In Edmonton, events at the annual marathon were postponed due to poor air quality. Flights were halted from parts of B.C.’s interior. Kamloops cancelled an annual celebration that typically draws 10,000 people, triathlons were cancelled in Penticton and Kelowna, and in Calgary, the annual Ride to Conquer Cancer was cancelled halfway through, with 1,900 cyclists picked up just a few hours into the event.

As one participant from Yellowknife told researchers for the summer of smoke study: “It was the lost summer… it takes a deep, emotional toll, if not a spiritual toll.”

‘Homesick when you’re still at home’

There’s something larger at play for many people when they wake up to dim, smoky skies.

Dodd points to the concept of solastalgia to explain the gloom people feel when the smoke rolls in — and sticks around for weeks or months.

“It’s basically the feeling of being homesick when you’re still at home,” he explained of the feeling people get when their community is shrouded in smoke. “It’s really this concept of stress and anxiety about environmental change that’s happening in a place that is very familiar or at home.”

For many people, Dodd said, wildfire smoke is particularly frightening because it feels emblematic of larger environmental issues. “It’s connected to things that might happen in the future.”

Howard echoes the theory. “Increasingly, people are having anxiety about what’s to come, sadness about what’s to come, and even depression around the climate-related state of the world,” she said. These feelings have come to be known as “ecological grief.”

Dr. Ashlee Cunsolo, director of the Labrador Institute of Memorial University, wrote about ecological grief in an article published in the journal Nature earlier this year. She and her coauthor defined the concept of ecological grief as “the grief felt in relation to experienced or anticipated ecological losses, including the loss of species, ecosystems, and meaningful landscapes due to acute or chronic environmental change.”

“Once we published [the article] we were inundated with people from all over the world saying  ‘this is exactly how I feel but I never had a word for it,’ ” she told The Narwhal.

Worse than yesterday #bcforestfires #bcwildfires #sky #ocean #smoke #smokey #redsun

A post shared by Daniel (@dantronzero) on Aug 20, 2018 at 7:57pm PDT

For many people, Cunsolo said, there is a close connection between people, place and identity. When the landscape changes — even if the change is temporary, like with wildfire smoke — people may begin to feel a sense of alienation.

“Land connection is so much a part of who people are, that when it’s disrupted through things like climate-induced wildfires, or loss of sea ice or severe storms that are increasing then people’s sense of identity shifts with that sense of place,” she said.

“People love the landscape and it’s a place of solace, so when that landscape changes, their sense of identity and connection also shifts.”

For many people, widespread wildfire smoke is off-putting to say the least. For others, there’s a sense of foreboding.

“People called it a smoke apocalypse and it felt like that,” said Howard of the particularly smoky summer in Yellowknife, where she works as an emergency physician. “It becomes a real marker of ‘whoa, nature is powerful and it can change and we are small and this is big.’”

“It reorders our sense of place in the world.”

Grief as a ‘motivating force’

Howard says part of the problem for many people is “the feeling that this might be the new norm.”

When the streetlights come on in the middle of the day, ash rains down from the sky and the smoke blocks out the midnight sun, people begin to wonder if this might become more common. Cunsolo calls this “anticipatory grief.”

Wow this shit crazy! #bcforestfires #smoke #onthewater

A post shared by OHAD16 (@ohad_16) on Aug 20, 2018 at 7:32pm PDT

“People are starting to think this is a permanent shift,” said Cunsolo. “With that permanent shift comes the potential for a permanent loss of things that are important to them.”

As wildfire smoke continues to blanket much of the West, Cunsolo is adamant that the feeling of ecological grief can also be a force for good.

“People use grief to come together, to support each other and to protest,” she said. “It becomes this really resistant form of mourning where you take it public and it mobilizes you.

“Grief can actually be a very motivating force.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

As I write this from my home office in Victoria, the air quality is 10+ or “very high risk” due to smoke from B.C.’s wildfires. I’m avoiding going outside at all due to asthma and am keeping all windows and doors shut.

As with many others, a sense of foreboding is settling in as I contemplate what summers will look like in 10, 20, 30 years from now.

The air quality in western Canada has been some of the worst in the world this past week. Flights and sporting events have been cancelled in the Okanagan and residents report near total darkness in the middle of the day in Prince George.

Already this summer, wildfires have killed at least 91 people in Greece, resulted in evacuations above the Arctic circle in Sweden and destroyed more than 1,000 homes in California.

None of this is a coincidence. The science is clear: heat-trapping greenhouse gases are warming the planet. More extreme heat, more severe droughts and more lightning strikes increase the frequency and intensity of wildfires.

While no single wildfire can be attributed to climate change, for years climate scientists have predicted hotter, longer wildfire seasons.

The number of wildfires sparked in Canada each year has doubled since 1970, according to Mike Flannigan, a professor in the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta.

“My colleagues and I attribute this to human-caused climate change,” he told The Narwhal. “I can’t be more clear on that. Human-caused climate change.”

While the media often fails to connect the dots between wildfires and climate change, could there be a more visceral reminder of what we’re doing to our planet than having to stay inside because the air is too dangerous to breathe?

Economic arguments shouldn’t only count when they’re promoting the expansion of fossil fuels. In 2017 alone, fighting B.C. fires cost nearly $560 million and some 65,000 people were forced to evacuate.

A healthy economic future can only exist with a healthy planet. Now — more than ever —  is the time to do everything in our power to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Earlier this year, the World Meteorological Organization released its 25th annual Statement on the State of the Global Climate, noting that the years 2015, 2016 and 2017 were warmer than any years on record prior to 2015.

The latest projections indicate the world is heading for a temperature increase of 3.2 C by 2100. Scientists estimate that 275 million people worldwide live in areas that will be flooded at 3 Celsius of global warming.

“[We] still find ourselves in a situation where we are not doing nearly enough to save hundreds of millions of people from a miserable future,” Erik Solheim, the UN environment chief, told The Guardian for this article featuring jaw-dropping maps of the flood zones.

You may not be alive in 2100, but chances are your children or grandchildren will be. What will you tell them you did in 2018, when there was still a chance of averting the worst of the climate catastrophe?

Let’s talk about what I mean when I say everything in our power. So often the argument is made that because we can’t solve the entire global climate crisis, we shouldn’t do anything. This is a race to the bottom. We couldn’t win the Second World War on our own either, but we still sent troops.

Each and everyone of us has a role to play in ensuring our own governments — local, provincial and federal — take action on climate change.

First and foremost, we can show support for governments who are sticking their necks out on climate change. At a time when many governments are backsliding on carbon taxes, this is more important than ever.

Here’s what you can do:

• If you live in Alberta, send an email to your MLA letting them know you support the implementation of a carbon tax and phase-out of coal-fired power and encourage them to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Let them know they won’t have your vote in next year’s election without action on climate change.
• If you live in B.C., contact your MLA and let them know you support increasing the carbon tax and want them to heed the warnings in the auditor general’s report on climate change.
• If you live in Ontario, start organizing now to make sure a government receptive to taking action on climate change is elected next time around.
• If you live in another province or territory, contact your local politicians and let them know you support immediate action on climate change.

Perhaps most important of all, don’t lose interest in this topic as soon as the smoke subsides.

As the climate crisis ramps up, environmental coverage in major publications is ramping down due to layoffs of reporters. The Narwhal exists solely to cover Canada’s natural world — stay informed on climate change and other pressing environmental issues by subscribing to our free weekly newsletter.

Lastly, if these wildfires have woken you up to the climate crisis, please, whatever you do, don’t stop now. Stay informed. Talk to friends and family about the wildfire-climate connection and encourage them to stay informed as well.

In 1987, the world came together to protect the ozone layer. More than 98 per cent of ozone-depleting substances have been phased out and the hole in the Antarctic ozone is shrinking.

The world has worked together to solve big problems before. And we can do it again.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Smokey haze, intense heat, encampments of evacuated residents next to the highway: these were the conditions that greeted Renee Lertzman when she recently drove through Oregon. It’s no wonder why the environmental psychology researcher and professor resorts to the term “apocalyptic” to describe the scene.

“It was a surreal experience,” says Lertzman, who teaches at Victoria’s Royal Roads University. “We’re all driving along and it’s so smoky and it’s terrifying. Yet we’re all doing our summer vacation thing. I couldn’t help but wonder: what is going on, how are people feeling and talking about this?”

It’s really the question of the hour. Catastrophic wildfires and droughts have engulfed much of the continent, with thousands displaced from their homes; air quality alerts confine many of the lucky remainder behind locked doors (with exercise minimized and fresh-air intakes closed).

Firefighters have been summoned from around the world to battle the unprecedented fires, which are undoubtedly exacerbated by climate change. Yet the seemingly reasonable assumption that witnessing such horrific natural disasters may increase support for action on climate change is vastly overestimated, Lertzman tells DeSmog Canada.

“I think it’s a fantasy that the worse things get and the more intense the effects are … that will magically translate into a public and political recognition and engagement and getting on board,” she says. “There’s an abundance of evidence that’s not the case and that humans have enormous capacity to avoid and deny reality and what’s staring us right in the face.”

34 ‘Dragons of Inaction’ Impede Climate Action

Humans’ tendency toward denial and avoidance is incredibly complex and entrenched.

Robert Gifford, professor of psychology and environmental studies at University of Victoria, has charted 34 (previously 29) ‘dragons of inaction,’ which prevent people from responding to evidence of climate change, ranging from a naive belief in “technosalvation,” to lack of attachment to geographic place, to straight-up denial.

While often tangled and deeply rooted, Gifford optimistically concluded a 2011 paper for American Psychologist with the statement: “The dragons of inaction can be beaten back, if not slain.”

In an interview with DeSmog Canada, Gifford says he experienced an epiphanic moment about climate change while gazing out at Victoria’s inner harbour and noticing a brown pelican, a bird uncommon in the region. Recent events, such as limbs dropping from Garry oak trees due to drought conditions, may serve as “the brown pelican moment for a lot of people in Victoria,” he says.

But it’s a very delicate situation. If large environmental organizations resort to overkill in responding to such conditions (as they have in the past, Gifford says), such efforts may alienate supporters instead of confronting the aforementioned dragons.

“Going back to the old anti-smoking literature, fear messages can go too far,” he says. “Not that they’re always wrong but if you show pictures of people who are on their death bed, people just block it out. You have to get people concerned, but can’t go too far. And you especially can’t give wrong information: not only does it not work, but it gives fodder to the bad guys.”

Moving Beyond Paralysis

It’s an issue many environmental psychologists are concerned about. Lertzman contends that plenty of people care deeply about climate change but are often paralyzed by the sheer enormity of the issue.

Visual representations of Alberta’s oilsands are frequently juxtaposed with images of devastating fires and floods, a combination that fails to acknowledge the “lived experienced or texture in our lives related to carbon and fossil fuels and coal” and creates a “huge vacuum where people can get mired and really stuck.”

Much of the issue returns to perceptions about the potential for individual and communal impact to help adapt and mitigate climate change (a concept broadly known as the ‘internal locus of control’).

Gifford stresses that empowerment messages are far more successful than calls for sacrifice. Lertzman echoes that sentiment, pointing to three ‘As’ that anchor responses to situations like the summer of 2015 — anxiety, ambivalence and aspiration — and that many environmental efforts can miss the mark if they fail to recognize the emotional significance of each.

She suggests it’s very important “to lead with that really human response: I’m really scared or I’m feeling really sad or confused or overwhelmed. The more we name and acknowledge that, the more it really does help us leverage the burning platform — an awful phrase given the situation — to leverage the crises that are merging and are only going to continue.”

It’ll also take a lot of compassion, she says, beginning with compassion for ourselves: most North Americans live very carbon-intensive lives. This fact is further convoluted by the “dragons” — Gifford points to two in particular as plaguing energy-producing provinces like Alberta: sunk costs (if you work or hold investments in the oilsands, you’re more likely to rationalize it) and system justification (if things are working, don’t rock the boat). Yet both are optimistic that encounters with wildfires and droughts — whether in person or via the media — can help move the needle on climate change action, if communicated correctly.

“There’s real opportunity there because it can force us to really think creatively and critically about how we live and how we want to live and what kind of future we want to have,” Lertzman concludes.

Photo: Lizard Lake wildfire by B.C. Wildfire Service.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.