When it comes to climate change, many of us fear what the future will bring. And we should fear that. But this is what we are already seeing!

Western Canada and United States already experienced the incredible this summer. The heat wave and the fires it caused were astounding. As the Guardian said,

“Heat and fires it caused killed hundreds of people, and are estimated to have killed a billion sea creatures. Daily temperature records were smashed by more than 5C in some places. In Lytton British Columbia the heat reached 49.6C. The wildfires that consumed the town produced their own thunderstorms.”

The west coast of Canada, an area famous for mild temperature experienced Canada’s highest temperature ever as a result of what scientists have called a heat dome. That happened when a ridge of high pressure acted like the lid of a hot pot with boiling water that prevented hot air to escape. Such events have been extremely rare in the past.  But as the Guardian claimed, “an initial study shows human activity made this heat dome…150 times more likely.” This is where we are—here and now. This is not our dire future. We are in our dire future.

The World Weather Attribution Group of scientists use computer models to assess global trends of climate change and heating temperatures and extreme weather events.  They warned that temperature increases of 5ºC like B.C. experienced this year “exceeded their worst-case scenarios.”

As the Guardian said, “Scientists did not hide their alarm that a usually cool part of the Pacific northwest had been turned into a furnace.”

A climatologist Nick Bond said, “it blows my mind.” Mine too.

Welcome to apocalypse now.