Canadian wildfires continue to take a toll on New York air quality and sensitive groups are still advised to limit their outdoor activities. Experts are now warning this could become the new normal.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Toni and Paul Gilchriest try to get outside as much as they can, but when the air quality gets bad, their active lifestyle poses some risks.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did notice, like, scratchy throat a little bit and just, runny nose,\u201d Toni Gilchriest said.<\/p>\n They say it’s because of the wildfire smoke from Northwestern Ontario that\u2019s been crossing the border into several states, including New York.<\/p>\n \u201cI looked at my truck. I have a black truck, and I saw soot all over the truck,\u201d Paul Gilchriest explained. \u201cAnd I said to my wife, I said, ‘well, that\u2019s why our throats are probably a little scratchy, because we\u2019ve been breathing all of that in.’\u201d<\/p>\n Richard Ross Shaker, an assistant professor in the Department of Sustainable Resource Management at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, said because of climate change, New Yorkers may have to prepare for this to be the new normal.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we warm the planet, we make things dry, we make the fuel, the trees, the vegetation, the soil all becoming a little bit drier,\u201d Ross Shaker explained. \u201cSo now, we have a drier fuel and then we have a higher likelihood to have these fires.\u201d<\/p>\n Tom Clark, the consul general of Canada in New York, said that\u2019s what\u2019s happening to Canada\u2019s massive, largely untouched Boreal Forest.<\/p>\n \u201cDraw a line from Texas up to Minnesota, and that is the band of drought that we\u2019re experiencing in the Boreal forest,\u201d Clark said. \u201cTemperatures, on average, (are) 10 degrees higher than normal, and on the days of real stress in the forest, 27 degrees higher.\u201d<\/p>\n While Canada alone can\u2019t change the conditions that lead to these fires, the country is investing in ways to deal with them.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we cannot mitigate the change in climate, then we have to throw money at how do we best adapt to climate change,\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n Over the last five years, Canada has invested more than $12 billion into mitigation efforts, including training more firefighters, buying more water bombers and helicopters, and looking into high-tech solutions.<\/p>\n Clark says they\u2019re working on a new satellite system that can pinpoint the start of a fire even in remote locations. That should be ready for release in 2029.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re looking down from outer space and we can see that there\u2019s a flame, and we can dispatch a water bomb to take care of it,\u201d Clark said. \u201cIt\u2019s not a cure-all, it\u2019s not going to stop forest fires, but it is going to help us fight this continuing, growing problem we\u2019ve got throughout North America.\u201d<\/p>\n Clark says to really find a solution, neighbors will have to help neighbors.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have shared forests and shared air and shared problems, and we can only manage this if we work together and figure it out the best we can,\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n As these smoky conditions continue, folks are advised to check for air-quality alerts, watch weather patterns and to plan for outdoor time accordingly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canadian wildfires continue to take a toll on New York air quality and sensitive groups are still advised…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":950586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,17549,746,210,320397,405,403,17050,50,5226,5225,5228,5227,132708,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5284],"class_list":["post-950585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-central-ny","tag-environment","tag-health","tag-natalie-mooney","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-state","tag-news","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-on-air-ticker-article","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-vod"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n