Ashes, Ashes

It feels pretty surreal that these wildfires well north and east of the GTA are causing such air quality issues in Toronto but then also in Chicago and Detroit.  Normally, the wind carries things further east, so it wasn't so much of a surprise when New York was impacted by the Canadian wildfires, but it is quite surprising that the wind is carrying everything due south.  I certainly hope this shifts and/or that the rain this weekend makes enough of a difference.  This is the worst year for fires in Ontario and Quebec in recorded history!  On a side note, Bjørn Lomborg is embarrassing himself yet again by saying things that are demonstrably not true and letting his libertarian friends stick their fingers in their ears and say that everything is going to be alright and that it will all work out in the end if we let markets do their thing...

Anyway, I definitely noticed the haze on Tuesday evening.  I had gone over to the swimming pool (and was extremely put out at how disorganized it was with very slow swimmers clogging up the medium lane).  For some reason they had left the back door open, and it really felt like I had ashes in my mouth while I was swimming!  Not a great feeling, and I left quite early.  I'm sure I should have asked them to close the doors at least, but I was already feeling that these guard were not on top of their game, and I didn't want to get into an argument with how poorly they were handling the overall situation.  Hopefully, next week will be more or less back to normal.

I did ride my bike yesterday (and this started to feel like a mistake once I crossed the Don on the way home -- sadly the East Side seems to be more impact by poor air quality than downtown) and this morning as well, though I am likely to leave the bike at work for a couple of days.  The problem with the really high levels of fine particulates is that it gets into your lungs -- and there really are few alternatives other than just not going outside.  Heavy exercise, like biking, is one of the worse things you can do.  I should have taken a couple of photos of the haze and the orange sun last night but didn't have my camera with me.

Anyway, apparently the Jazz Fest shut down all of its outdoor programming yesterday!  No idea if that will happen today.  it currently looks like tonight will be a bit better than yesterday, so hopefully things will be back on.  Interestingly, the air quality index gets worse on Friday, though if it rains that might help things.  I'm supposed to be off to the movies on Friday evening, so that shouldn't matter one way or the other.  Tonight, however, we are planning on going to see Tafelmusik at the Toronto Music Garden at 7 and then walk over to Budweiser Stage to see Tears for Fears.  (We decided that the opening act is quite terrible so are trying to skip them entirely.)  Tears for Fears is supposed to take the stage around 9, though we will aim to get there at 8:30 just in case there is a change of plans and they start early.  Of course, I will keep monitoring to see if the whole event has to be cancelled, though at the moment that seems unlikely.  We shall see.  It's all quite upsetting in the grand scheme of things.