Wildfire smoke and 85,000 premature deaths connected- 2023 Canadian season "accelerated dying" Video n transcript at Heating Planet blog

First analysis of an individual fire season after "a lot of smoke in the atmosphere in 2023 made its way to Europe" produced statistical estimate of global impacts on populations' health- WATCH: 85,000+ Premature Deaths Blamed on Smoke From 2023’s historic Wildfires- The Weather Network Sep 20 Canada report transcript below:  

TRANSCRIPT: 

new study is linking smoke from the 0:02 historic 2023 Canadian wildfire season 0:05 to more than 85,000 premature deaths 0:07 around the world. Now, this isn't to say 0:09 that there were actually 85,000 deaths 0:12 recorded from the smoke. This is just a 0:14 statistical estimate, but the 0:15 researchers behind the paper believe 0:16 this number could be pretty accurate. 0:18 So, let's take a look at how these 0:19 researchers came to this conclusion and 0:21 what they hope people can take away from 0:23 their work. This is really one of the 0:25 first analyses that has been done about 0:27 a individual fire season and really 0:29 looking at the global impacts on 0:32 exposure of populations and on health 0:34 impacts. 0:35 In 2023, widespread drought and warmth 0:38 helped more than 6,000 wildfires burn 0:40 roughly 15 million hectares of land 0:42 across Canada. That's an area larger 0:45 than England. And as you can imagine, 0:46 that meant a lot of smoke in the 0:48 atmosphere that year, some of which even 0:50 made its way to Europe. So researchers 0:52 used satellite data, ground 0:53 observations, and computer modeling to 0:55 estimate that 354 million people were 0:59 exposed to dangerous levels of smoke for 1:01 at least one day in North America and 1:03 Europe. From there, they used medical 1:05 evidence about exposure to fine 1:06 particulate matter to project that smoke 1:09 would be a contributing factor in more 1:10 than 80,000 premature deaths in the long 1:12 term and more than 5,000 premature 1:15 deaths in the short term. Most of those 1:17 deaths are occurring in people that have 1:19 a pre-existing um condition. Um often 1:23 heart disease or or chronic lung 1:25 disease. And of course, everybody does 1:27 eventually die. So this is really about 1:29 accelerated dying. 1:31 So what's the takeaway? Professor Brower 1:33 says we need to learn how to better live 1:35 with smoke exposure. That might mean 1:37 public investment in programs that help 1:38 people attain masks and air cleaning 1:40 systems. Ultimately, he says he hopes 1:42 that the paper at least improves 1:44 awareness of the dangers that smoke 1:46 poses and that solutions do exist. 1:48 I do hope that if I'm talking to you 5 1:50 10 years from now when we have another 1:53 horrible smoke season like 2023, we 1:55 won't have these kinds of impacts. 1:59 [Music] 2:09 See you.