(Chandra Bhushan is president and CEO of the International Forum for Environment, Sustainability and Technology (iForest). This article was published in The Wire on July 14, 2021)
- Who’d have guessed that a 49.6º C temperature would be recorded somewhere in a normally frigid Canada? But that is exactly what has occurred. On three consecutive days, the tiny town of Lytton experienced the hottest temperature ever recorded in Canada. Now wildfires, caused by the extreme heat, have reduced much of Lytton to ash. To put things in perspective, the maximum temperature ever recorded in Delhi is 48º C. For decades, scientists have warned that the climate crisis will increase the frequency and intensity of heatwaves. However, Canada is not one of the countries predicted to be severely impacted by it. Instead, lethal heatwaves are projected to bring death and destruction across the Middle East, South Asia, and portions of Africa and China. The blistering heatwave in Canada, therefore, is a harbinger of things to come, for us…
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