It has been a dry summer. Nearly 150 wildfires are burning in British Columbia, the province to our north. West of us, on Vancouver Island, one of those fires has forced the evacuation of 400 homes, with over 200 additional homes under evacuation alert, meaning residents need to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Winds have been from the south, which means that at present, smoke from the fires is not blowing towards us. The smoke in the air, however, obscures closer islands that we can see from our bay and is making our sunsets bright orange.

Recent years have brought increases in wildfires to the Pacific Northwest. Some communities have seen threats year after year. The Lytton First Nation, northeast of Vancouver, has had fires that forced evacuations five years in a row. The village of Lytton was mostly destroyed in 2021, and there is currently a fire burning south of town that has forced evacuations.

It has been so intense that Provincial authorities have been developing strategies to help people deal with the anxiety that comes with the summers filled with smoke, danger, and evacuation orders. The province has agreed to give B.C. wildfire fighters earlier pensions. The stress of constantly dealing with fires that destroy homes is affecting the province's ability to recruit new firefighters. Psychologists have noted an increase in climate anxiety. People wonder what the future will hold. Will there be clean air and fresh water for their children and grandchildren? Will famine, fire, floods, and water wars be the shape of what is to come?

For some people the heightened distress in response to the climate change has become all-consuming. As temperatures rise, so does the cost of keeping cool, even in northern places where it is only recently that people have felt a need for air conditioning. We have a heat pump that provides cooling for our home, but many of our neighbors do not. We have noticed an increase in the number of window air conditioners in our neighbors’ homes. Those air conditioners contribute to increases in energy demands. Our power company regularly issues warnings about energy consumption as it struggles to meet the growing demand. Fortunately for us, we have a solar system that produces more electricity than we consume. Our solar system is most productive when we're using air conditioning, so we haven’t been feeling guilty about setting our thermostat for cooling. During a recent flex event held by our electric utility, our home was found to have the lowest energy consumption of the houses in our neighborhood.

While it is nice to be recognized for our efforts to keep our overall energy footprint small, we, too, wonder about the future for our grandchildren. Among the climate anxieties that we experience is our worry about the impact of climate refugees coming to our area, fleeing less favorable weather in other locations.

One of the realities of climate change is that it is often those who have contributed the least to the climate crisis who suffer the most. In Canada, Indigenous communities make up nearly half of all wildfire evacuations. People who do not have big homes, many of whom do not have air conditioning, and who haven’t contributed to the climate crisis by excessive airline travel, find themselves in the line of fire. At the same time, urban dwellers who have been far more consumptive of fossil fuels live in relative comfort and safety.

Increasingly, those who are working to ease the effects of climate change are recognizing the injustices of the climate crisis. Those who are suffering the deepest from the crisis are not the ones who have contributed the most to it.

For most of my life, summertime has been a season of promise. When I was in school, I looked forward to summer vacation. As a child, we spent our summers outdoors, playing in the river, fishing, hiking, and exploring. Summer provided freedom from spending most of my days indoors. Although I had a job that offered ample opportunities to go outside all year round, I looked forward to summers when I was working because our children had vacation from school, programs at church were dialed back. We had even more opportunities to spend time outdoors. I still look forward to summer each year. The promise of blooming flowers, fresh produce from the garden, and busy bees filling the comb with honey makes summer a season to which I look forward. But I notice the signs announcing mandatory water use rules in our neighborhood. Even though I am a relative newcomer to this area, I am aware that a place that rarely experiences drought has been much drier than it was in the past. Conserving water is an essential part of living responsibly with our neighbors.

We are fortunate still to have easy access to plenty of outdoor activities. The air currently is clear in our location, and we are not under threat of wildfire. I can kayak and bike with my grandchildren and build summer memories with them. We share meals outdoors on our deck and go camping together. We walk daily. Still, we do our best to be ethical consumers of energy and to develop sustainable practices. We know that part of our lifestyle is the result of having more disposable income than some of our neighbors, so we try to invest that income in practices that benefit others. We are learning to become comfortable with less stuff, less travel, less instant gratification.

We walk down to the shore and gaze out at the islands, and it's clear that climate change is real. The smoke that colors our sunsets is choking our neighbors on the island. So far, we have been free from the most intense effects of climate change, and we are not experiencing the anxiety that so many others live with daily. We try to be mindful of them and the effects of our lifestyle on them as we make choices about our lives.