US President Joe Biden and the scientists blame climate havoc for the record-shattering heatwaves in the Western US and Canada. The heatwaves have also resulted in many deaths, buckled roads, blackouts, and wildfires.
On Tuesday, Canada saw a rise in temperature to a range of 49.6C (121.1F) in the town of Lytton, British Columbia for the first time.
Police have reported around 134 deaths in the Vancouver region says a report because of this unprecedented temperature rise. Sgt Steve Addison said, “We’ve never seen anything like this, and it breaks our heart, the vast majority of these cases are related to the heat.”
Even places like Portland and Seattle have been highly affected by this heat. Local authorities are looking into investigating the tally of people who lost their lives to it says The Guardian.
John Horgan, British Columbia premier received criticism over his comments on warning people about the heatwave.
He said, “The public was acutely aware that we had a heat problem, and we were doing our best to try to break through all of the other noise to encourage people to take steps to protect themselves, but it was apparent to everyone who walked outdoors that we were in an unprecedented heatwave, and again, there’s a level of personal responsibility.”
President Biden has announced that he is initiating the required measures to fight the wildfires that are occurring as a result of the heatwaves along the Pacific.
He blames the climate crisis for all these upheavals. In a meeting in the White House, he said “Right now we have to act and act fast, we’re late in the game here.”
Biden has suggested a big investment of a trillion-dollar infrastructure package while the initial idea was a $2 trillion proposal, the change has been accommodated from something that isn’t viewed as traditional infrastructure efforts.
Progressive Democrats have been emphasizing for more money to be invested in the climate project reported the Newsweek.
Biden added in that meeting “Climate change is driving the dangerous confluence of extreme heat and prolonged drought, we’re seeing wildfires of greater intensity that move with more speed and last well beyond traditional months, traditional months of the fire season.”
In the next fiscal year, Biden will be investing $30 billion more into wildfire management and disaster relief.
The US National Weather Service said that about 9,300 homes lost power and the local utility Avista Utilities on the first day of the heatwave. From now on planned blackouts will be needed to control this menace.
Even it was a shock for scientists who had already anticipated what is coming. Katharine Hayhoe, a Canadian climate scientist at Texas Tech University tweeted, “I’ve worked with climate projections for 25 years so we knew this was coming: yet it’s still a shocker when you see these records falling in real life in a place you’re from.”