Climate change is here, and the world is burning

This opinion piece focuses on how climate change is causing significant harm to our planet.

Here are some places that have experienced unprecedented wildfires in the last half-decade or so: Western Canada including, currently, the Okanagan. Ontario, Quebec and, almost continuously, the Western United States. Chile, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, China and Russia.

European countries that have been hit include Portugal, France, Italy and, right now, Greece, where dozens have died and heat levels have been high enough to melt cars. Particularly worrying at the moment are wildfires in Sweden, which has been dealing with temperatures of more than 30 C above the Arctic Circle.

These are the places that Lori Daniels, a professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia, listed off the top of her head. She’s one of three Canadian forest fire experts I got in touch with this week, to discuss whether my sense that the whole world was on fire was paranoia or reality.