Wildfires are burning across Canada. It’s our second-worst wildfire season on record. I used to wonder why people would see newscasts or read articles about our wildfires but never talk about what we should do about them. Sure, they felt bad for the people being evacuated or if their homes or businesses burned to the ground, but…that was it. By the next day, they, and the media, had moved on. I realized the connection between wildfires and climate change was not being properly communicated to the public.
In 2023, I participated in a Simon Fraser University study that looked at how the CBC reported on climate change. We monitored its radio and TV news reports for several weeks. The results are contained in Quiet Alarm: a Review of CBC’s Climate Reporting. In it, ‘only nine percent of all climate items mentioned the burning of fossil fuels as the primary cause of climate change,’ and ‘only six percent of the climate items clearly communicated that there are things the audience could do to address the climate crisis.’
The words “climate change” sound benign. Calling it our climate crisiswould be more accurate. Canada and the rest of the world made a commitment to keep the global temperature rise below 1.5°C under the 2015 Paris Agreement. But our carbon pollution continues to grow. Scientists say we only have three years left if we want to keep our global temperature rise under 1.5°C degrees. We are currently on track for a temperature increase of 3°C or more, and the temperature increase won’t stop there unless we stop burning fossil fuels.
According to a Re.Climate public survey, 67 percent of Canadians are concerned about climate change. Canadians need to make the connection between extreme weather events and our climate crisis and make the connection between our climate crisis and the burning of fossil fuels. Yet, mainstream media, such as the Toronto Star, Globe & Mail, and CBC, rarely mention climate change or its causes. Perhaps they’re afraid to upset the companies that advertise with them: the oil and gas companies, the gas-powered car and truck companies, the travel companies, etc. Canadians need to understand that we need to stop burning fossil fuels to reduce the carbon pollution that warms our atmosphere causing more intense wildfires, droughts, heat waves, torrential downpours, and flooding.
What can you do?
- Visit the FireSmoke app for wildfires and wildfire smoke forecasts in Canada and the U.S.: firesmoke.ca/forecasts/current/
- Go to CBC’s excellent Climate Dashboard for up-to-date weather information and forecasts: newsinteractives.cbc.ca/features/2023/climate-dashboard
- You can read online news that is more climate-aware, such as the United Kingdom’s The Guardian and Canada’s National Observer.
- You can sign up with watchers.news and receive notifications about extreme weather events around the world.
- You can watch the informative, powerful videos produced by Yellow Dot Studios, in particular, What the News Isn’t Telling You about this heatwave.
- You can tell the editors-in-chief of the CBC, the Toronto Star, and the Globe & Mail to start making the connections among extreme weather events, climate change, and the burning of fossil fuels, in their news broadcasts and articles. You can also write Letters to the Editor of these news outlets.
In future articles, I’ll talk about, among other topics, the disinformation campaign being waged by fossil fuel companies, and what we need to do to create a habitable and sustainable future for our children and grandchildren.
Ray Nakano is a Sansei from Toronto, a retired Ontario Government director in information technology, and a former president of the Hamilton Buddhist Temple. He has two young grandchildren and because of them and their generation, he is a climate crisis activist.
This article was originally printed in Nikkei Voice’s September 2025 issue.