Honour your father and your mother,
so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
Exodus 20:12
It's terrible that only a couple of days after Lytton British Columbia set a Canadian heat record most of the village went up in flames, the victim of a wildfire. This is what happens when climate change reaches the tipping point.
Fortunately the 1,000 residents were able to flee without loss of life, although virtually everything they owned was destroyed. Because searing temperatures and conflagrations are dramatic we hear about them through the news media. We might miss the stories about the loss of life in BC because of the unprecedented heat. Officials are saying that scores, perhaps hundreds of people have died because they live in poorly ventilated accommodation not designed for extreme temperatures.. A smaller percentage of dwellings in British Columbia have air conditioning which means that residents have suffered through these days of 40C and higher.
Many of those who died are vulnerable seniors with limited support systems. This is horrendous and also what we can expect as climate weirding intensifies across the country. We know that for all the bold claims of the current Ontario government about increased services for our elders, new long-term care facilities are being built without air-conditioning and there are no legal requirements for existing nursing homes to provide it.
BC Premier John Horgan responded to the heat-related deaths by saying that "fatalities are a fact of life", a truly heartless response that he attempted to walk back after public outcry. So much for honouring our mothers and fathers.
The climate emergency will have real consequences for all of us, but particularly for those we are told to respect and love as they age.This is a societal and Christian imperative. We have seen how we failed in this regard through the COVID-19 pandemic.Will we wake up and act in time?
Lytton BC on fire
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