Under yellow skies

“The unprecedented heat wave broke because the wildfire smoke blocked the sun” is not a sentence I wanted to write.

I didn’t want to write a newsletter at all today, and certainly not this one. (I’ve been working on one on imagination and possibility, which today seem rather outlandish.)

But if you’re in an area afflicted by yellow skies, the air we depend on to live is now an active risk to our health. In Toronto today, PM 2.5 concentrations are at 54 times the safe level. IQ Air is showing me a colour I’ve never seen alongside an illustration of a World War II–style gas mask.

Despite a “slow start” to wildfire season, there were 835 forest fires burning yesterday, 112 out of control. We’ve lost 1.9 million hectares of forest so far this year (picture 1.9 million athletic fields), and whole communities, like Collins First Nation, have lost everything.

So safe to say you might be feeling some things. And I wanted to reach out today to say, Me too.

Here’s a quote from the late, great Joanna Macy that’s on all my retreat handouts that I wanted to put in front of you today:

We’re talking about the gifts of uncertainty. The courage to feel, feel in the present moment; as you become present to your world, then you feel what you’re carrying. Usually, if you’re being rushed and hurried out of your mind, you don’t bother with pain . . . you try to pave it over, block it down, shut it down, turn away, turn it off. But try as we might, it comes up again. The grief. The outrage. The raw fear. What in God’s name are we doing to our world and to each other? . . . Don’t let people, therapists or well-meaning friends, try to explain [that pain] away in terms of your personal biography or that time of the month. It is a measure of your evolution; it is a measure of your humanity; it is a measure of your nobility that you have a heart-mind big enough to see and empathize with the outrage being inflicted on our world and our relations.

If today you’re feeling enraged, despairing, powerless, aggrieved, don’t shy away from those feelings. Figure out where you feel them in your body, observe them, breathe them through. Maybe shake it out, dance it out, scream it out. This is a power we still have.

Also: share your feelings with others. Even with people you might not think of as particularly eco-oriented. Because here’s what most people can agree on: We don’t want people to lose their homes. We don’t want to breathe toxic air. We don’t want forests filled with animals and birds to burst into flames. We don’t want to keep kids indoors, to cancel our plans, to return to sheltering in place. We don’t want “wildfire season” to get longer and more brutal (though it will).

On days like this it feels like democracy is fundamentally broken, especially when our pretend environmentalist prime minister decimated our climate commitments and is pushing for another pipeline and our premier is trying to crawl into bed with Alberta for yet another one. Cowboy hats and N-95s for everyone! Yeehaw! Our leaders have chosen to turn communities to ash, to block the sun with this destruction, to send it into our lungs. “I don’t know if I’ll bother getting an air purifier,” said my friend’s mom. “There soon won’t be any forest left to burn.”

This is also a time of opportunity, however, when apocalyptic skies have ever-so-briefly penetrated the news cycle. There is no better time to barrage our leaders with messages that continued fossil fuel exploitation is not compatible with a liveable future. And perhaps a silly little email feels like a whole lot of nothing, but my friend who worked in government assures me that it can make a difference. Form emails are perfectly fine, because while a leader probably will never see your email, they will see the report on how many people engaged with a topic. So, on that front, here are five form emails you can send in under five minutes:

• From 350.org & Sacred Earth: support for a people’s power grid.

• From Environmental Defence: oppose “Federal Economic Zones” that make pipelines possible and slash ecological protections.

• From Ecojustice: tell your MP not to gut environmental laws.

• From Canadian Physicians for a Healthy Environment: tell the government to take action on extreme heat.

• From Ontario Nature: re-empower conservation authorities.

If you want to go further and have a way with words, write a letter to the editor of your favourite publication and share your story.

You can also donate to any of the orgs above, which do great work advocating for a liveable future, and/or donate directly to wildfire evacuees:

• True North Aid has a specific fund for wildfire evacuees.

• Email transfer to donations@whitesandfirstnation.com (Add your full name to the eTransfer comment section; Whitesand First Nation will issue receipts for tax purposes.)

You can also do things like drop medical masks and water or other beverages at a local community fridge or pantry if you have one. (Wear a mask yourself if you’re doing this!) There are many who don’t have the benefit of staying indoors, their air purifier and air conditioner harmonizing.

This morning I remembered this old Simpsons episode, which suddenly felt all-too-accurate. If we continue on this path, the Mr. Burnses of the world will, in fact, take away the sun, and they won’t even need to build a large shade.

Later today, when particulate levels drop to something less likely to give me a blood clot, I’m going to put on a KN-95 and go harvest the yellow beans from our children’s demonstration garden in the local park. The beans will go to the community fridge, to feed someone who needs them. The smoke makes these actions harder to see, but they’re still happening.

Be gentle with yourselves today, be fierce with those in power.

xo

Jen

Five Minutes for Planet is written by me, Jen Knoch, and edited by Crissy Boylan. Words © Jen Knoch, 2026. Opening photo by DESIGNECOLOGIST on Unsplash. (It’s Toronto in 2021, but plus ça change . . .)