by Joanne Scanlon
As I look out the window of my home and see the haze and smell the smoke from fires burning in Canada, it is clear that the Rochester area, along with the rest of Western New York, is not immune to the impact of climate change.
Even now, we are told to expect another plume to cover our region in the next week.
For so long, we have been insulated from the worst effects of climate change, giving us a false sense of security from the crisis at our doors. This false sense of security had led us to drag our feet on making changes locally to prepare and mitigate the damage to our way of life by eliminating our dependence on fossil fuels.
Years of higher temperatures in the North Country have dried out the Canadian boreal forest.
The “chickens are coming home to roost” as the number of fires and amount of land burned measures in thousands of square miles increases from year to year.
