Smoke from fires in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta has made their way into cities, where residents are reporting a campfire smell and hazy quality to the atmosphere. Unfortunately this haze carries harmful pollutants that can have a negative effect on your breathing, particularly if you have a pre-existing condition like asthma. But don’t worry, we have 5 tips for how to protect yourself.
1. Stay Inside!
Starting with the most obvious. The bad air can’t get you if you don’t go out into the bad air.
2. Bust out those masks again!
If you do have to go out make like COVID is still a thing (editor’s note: COVID is absolutely still a thing) and bring back those N-95 masks. Though they won’t keep the smoke away they can filter out those harmful particles.
3. Don’t play sports or do exercise
Good news for couch potatoes! Experts say outdoor sporting or athletics can be particularly harmful because participants are more likely to breathe deeply and rapidly, increasing their exposure to air pollution.
4. Go back in time and make the world care about climate change
Whether you use a Time Machine or are Superman and have the power to go back in time by reversing the rotation of the earth isn’t important. What’s important is that you go back to the mid 90s and convince all of humanity to take the reasonable, incremental steps it would take to avert the climate dystopia we now see every time we look out our windows, instead of the dramatic, life-altering measures we must now adopt but are too cowardly to do. Maybe take proof of the current crisis with you to show you’re not crazy and start with more reasonable countries like France and build up to the worst polluters? If talking doesn’t work of course you’ll have to go full eco-terrorist. Oil rigs, industrial farms, Hummer dealerships. They all have to go. You may get caught and locked up for life but what is the alternative. You are humanity’s only hope. Save us! SAVE US!
5. Drink lots of water.
That always seems to help with everything.
