During summer, the village of Lytton, British Columbia, hit 121°F, breaking Canada’s all-time high-temperature record. Lytton was destroyed by a wildfire the next day.
The tragedy in Lytton serves as a stark reminder that climate change has arrived. It demonstrates how critical it is to reduce carbon emissions now, as failure to do so will result in more frequent and severe calamities worldwide.
It also demonstrates that reducing emissions is a woefully inadequate solution to climate change. Carbon pollution can last for decades in the atmosphere. We are condemning current and forthcoming generations those residing in a zero-emission society–to the terrible repercussions of climate change unless we start to clean up residual carbon emissions from the past industrial activities.