Climate Connections: We can all take action in smoke season
Amy Cilimburg
Welcome to smoke season. We knew our luck couldn’t hold forever.
At Climate Smart Missoula, we’ve been helping our community stay healthy during wildfire smoke season for over a decade – since our inception. Every year there’s more to do. And we are still all in because health and climate are so clearly intertwined.
Around the globe, very warm and dry conditions, in part attributable to burning fossil fuels, mean more acres burned. Our fire seasons are lengthening, and we’re breathing more pollution. According to Climate Central: per-person exposure to harmful wildfire smoke in the U.S. was four times higher during 2020-2024 (on average/year), than during 2006-2019. Oof.
For me the air itself feels sad. It’s hard to know what to do -- if I can’t take the dog for a run and breathe cool morning mountain air, where do I find the mojo for the day’s work? One way I find motivation right now is by helping others breathe safely.
Just yesterday I was at a coffee meetup with a handful of renewable energy professionals. (It’s amazing how many Missoulians work remotely on cool projects around the world but that’s a story for another day.) Because this group loves a good story told by data and graphs, and because I wanted to talk about the smoke we’re all experiencing, I interrupted the conversation and showed them my phone. I had opened my web browser and the Purple Air Map and then zoomed in to my house.
I have an air monitor whose data is visible to the public, and with one click, a graph displaying a week of my indoor air quality (AQI) pops up. I showed them how last night’s air quality was marginal yet my indoor air was good (I kept my windows closed) and at 5:40am the graph spikes to unhealthy (when I opened the windows to cool the house down) and at 8:30am the AQI begins to rapidly improve (when I closed the windows and cranked up 4(!) HEPA air cleaners).
Simple graphs and maps like these show us the amazing effectiveness of portable HEPA units!
The one person in the group that was unaware of wildfire smoke risks and how easy it was to mitigate became a convert. I told her about the $100 rebate for HEPA air purifiers available to NorthWestern Energy customers, and she was on it.
Next stop after the coffee shop was the Missoula Senior Center where, together with Missoula Public Health, we have set up this space as an official Clean Air Center. I gave them one more HEPA air cleaner to round out their collection, talked to a gentleman about how the Center’s indoor air monitor display works, and showed an old friend how to replace her HEPA filter. She was headed home to fix it, especially after I explained the link between the harmful components of smoke, PM2.5, and cognitive decline!
Like all things climate related, we bring people in one person as a time when we get out and talk to folks. No matter where you are in your clean indoor air and health journey, you can learn more and then share what you know with your family, friends and neighbors.
Check out MontanaWildfireSmoke.org where you can find info on:
- HEPA air cleaners
- How to put together a DIY fan/filter to clean your indoor air
- Maps that show today’s air quality and the smoke forecast
- Health risks and so much more.
The skies may be murky, but one thing is crystal clear – we’re all in this together. We cannot blame Oregon and Washington for the smoke.
Nor can our federal government legitimately blame Canada, which is one of the crazier proposals coming from the crazies. What is ironic about this—US threatens to tax Canada for its wildfires—is that it’s what we in the climate community have long advocated for: to make the polluters pay.The forests of Canada are not at fault, it’s the fossil fuel companies, and they are raking it in as gas prices once again rise. These companies are the ones that should pay for the damage caused by digging up, transporting, and burning fossil fuels. They should pay for their obfuscations and lies.
And we increasingly understand that climate impacts are expensive.
As reporter Robinson Meyer notes in this recent Heatmap news piece, an economics study in Nature last year found that “[t]he cost of climate-worsened wildfire smoke alone is larger than what earlier studies said every other estimated cost of climate change would be, combined.” Again, oof.
People around the world are waking up to the threats and what we need to do. I like the headline for this recent CBC article: 'Just stop burning fossil fuels.' Scientists stress that our smoky skies have only one true fix.
So, in this summer of both smoke and also blue skies (which will come—they always do!), we hope you’ll find ways to help our community and beyond transition to clean energy and be part of climate solutions in ways that fill your cup. Reach out if you need ideas!
Breathe safe and stay cool.
Amy Cilimburg is the executive director at Climate Smart Missoula.
This Climate Connections column is brought to you by Climate Smart Missoula two Fridays of every month. Learn more about our work, support our efforts, and sign up for our e-newsletter at missoulaclimate.org.