June hit us all like a whipsaw. While we were eagerly awaiting Juneteenth, the National Puerto Rican Day Parade, school graduations and more, we saw NYC's skies darken with smoke, as the sun turned red from air pollution carried over from Canadian wildfires. With little to no warning from the City, NYC residents soon began experiencing respiratory and other health issues as people carried on their days without any forewarning about these risks. Asthma doctor visits in NYC spiked the following days, disproportionately among Black and Brown NYC residents. We ended June with more wildfire pollution expected - coinciding with the Supreme Court’s deeply troubling affirmative action decision and its implications for racial justice looming over us.
Despite assertions from City government that the June wildfire pollution clouds were “unprecedented", as recently as two years ago, NYC’s skies also turned hazy on July 13, 2021 - that time from California’s wildfires - with our local air pollution levels spiking to unhealthy levels of over 150 AQI. As our planet heats up and the climate continues to change, we will likely be experiencing more frequent wildfires and other harsh weather events like extreme heat waves with their impacts being felt on us here in NYC. (June also saw record-breaking heat spikes, with the 4 hottest days ever recorded globally, and various city and state "hottest day" records being broken across the country.) We expect to see more from the Adams Administration to not only address the now-present, immediate climate risks, but also the growing risks and impacts our city faces with a changing climate.
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