My doomer phase is largely over by now.

I used to doomscroll endlessly on r/collapse.

I was enamoured by arctic-news.blogspot.com, a site which has baselessly claimed for over a decade that within four years, global temperatures will rise up to 18°C.

I cried at the Arctic death spiral.

I refreshed the NSIDC's charts daily, fearing that descending line would plummet below the 2012 threshold.

I watched carbon clocks in terror.

I checked Climate Reanalyzer and was agog at global hot zones.

I devoured Peter Wadhams' A Farewell to Ice, Extinction Rebellion's This is Not a Drill, Nathaniel Rich's Losing Earth, and David Wallace-Wells' The Uninhabitable Earth.

I scared my therapist with my talk of climate catastrophe.

That's not to say that I'm entirely past that phase of my life. I still regularly check the NSIDC and Climate Reanalyzer. I read IPCC reports. But I'm a little better informed now on the realities of climate collapse. I know shit is currently hitting the fan. But I also know that, no matter what happens, I lived, and I was here. I know it isn't my fault. I know that my efforts to save some fragment of the planet might be in vain, but it can still make me feel better. I do litter clean-up on the side of the roads near me. They still fill with trash after, but for a brief moment in time they look beautiful.

And while I can push to the side of my brain those qualms about sea ice and desertification and microplastics, I can never get the smoke out of my head, out of my nose, out of my lungs.

Living in southern Alberta, I've been used to rapid changes in the weather my whole life. Our proximity to the Rocky Mountains means chinook winds are frequent in the winter, raising the temperature from the low -30s up to the +20s at times. The dry air means hot summer days can quickly cool off. This semi-arid air comes with a caveat though. It's perfect for wildfires. And we have swathes of forests (many of which are awash with trees killed by mountain pine beetles). The same is true of Eastern British Columbia.

Every summer there are at minimum a few days where smoke fills the air. It can be downright cozy at times, when the skies remain clear and blue but you get that whiff of seared wood. It's as if someone is brewing a delicious cup of lapsang souchong (coincidentally my favourite tea). But it isn't uncommon for the smoke to linger for around a week, to make the skies overcast, to reduce visibility so that you cannot see downtown from the outskirts of the city.

With increasing frequency, the smoke has gotten worse. And it has stayed for longer.

In 2015, wildfires in Washington state and western Canada drove air quality in Alberta to be the worst on the planet, shooting to an AQHI of over 28. On a ten point scale.

In 2016, Fort McMurray was partially destroyed by wildfires. It was the most expensive disaster in Canadian history. Fort McMurray is very far from where I live yet the skies were nonetheless a miasma of smoke.

In 2017, 100 Mile House, British Columbia was the site of what would become the largest single fire ever in British Columbia history.

In 2018, the AQHI soared past 10 again. I remember the deep red sun, turning darker as it set. I remember it being the first wildfire season where I had an N95 mask. I had to wear that mask indoors. It was the year I got my cat, and I was horrified at what the air quality would do to her tiny, new lungs. I remember the non-stop headache. And even after the smoke dissipated, the smell remained.

In 2019, the AQHI reached 18 in May. You could see maybe a kilometre into the distance.

In 2020, despite COVID restrictions on activities as distanced as camping, smoke rolled in again. This time it was much less of a danger than previous years (we never broke an 8 on the AQHI).

In 2021, we got the heat dome. A somewhat novel meteorological phenomenon, temperatures in my city reached 36.3°C, only 0.2°C away from the highest ever recorded here. Lytton, British Columbia rose to 49.6°C. And despite the crushing heat, there was almost no smoke. It made it seem almost tame. People were dropping like flies of heat stroke. It felt like being in the fires of hell. But at least there was no smoke. Air quality still became dreadful, but at least there was no smoke.

In 2022, the AQHI only rose past 10 briefly in August. There was some smoke in September. The other day I smelled it on the wind again.

I know the smoke will be back. I know the smoke will be worse. I know the climate will get worse. I know everything will get worse. I know the smoke will be inescapable. I know the air quality will be worse even without the smoke. But as long as charred pine does not poison my lungs, does not burn acrid in my nose, maybe I can hold onto the fragment of hope inside me that thinks things can get better.