Canada Wildfires Lowkey Cooked the Planet 💀🔥

The Deets

Okay, fam, listen up. Remember those crazy wildfires in Canada last year? They weren't just a Canada problem. A new study just dropped, and the tea is scalding hot. Turns out, the smoke from those fires traveled all the way to Europe and exposed, like, 354 million people to some seriously sus air, exceeding WHO safe limits. No cap, fam!

Here's the messed-up part: all that smoke is now linked to over 82,000 deaths worldwide. Yeah, you read that right. We're talking acute deaths (like, people dying right away) and chronic deaths (people's health getting wrecked long-term). The smoke was packed with PM2.5 pollutants, which are tiny particles that can mess with your lungs and heart. Chronic bronchitis, lung cancer, heart disease, the whole shebang.

North America and Europe got hit the hardest, but even Asia felt the effects. The US experienced the most impact from Western Canadian wildfires. Canada also got cooked, with 98% of the population breathing in that smoky air. The researchers who did the study (published in Nature, so it's legit) used satellite observations, machine learning, and all kinds of science stuff to figure out how bad the smoke was and how many people it affected.

And get this: they think the real number of deaths could be even higher! So, what's the move? According to the scientists, we need better air quality alerts and forecasting. Gotta protect the people, ya know? This ain't just a Canada thing; it's a global problem, and we need to start taking it seriously, fr fr.