The chaos on Canada's west coast is a preview of climate change woes to come

British Columbia flooding.
(Image credit: Illustrated | REUTERS, iStock)

World leaders have just returned home from COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, eager to talk about the progress they made in devising strategies to combat climate change. Right on time, events on the west coast of Canada have given us a glimpse of our perilous environmental future.

This past June, British Columbia was sitting under a highly irregular "heat dome" that drove temperatures up to astonishing heights. Fires, smoke, and life-threatening heat enveloped both sides of the U.S.-Canada border, but things were especially bad above the 49th parallel, with the town of Lytton topping out at 121 degrees Fahrenheit and ending up completely consumed by flames from a brushfire.

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.