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Cindy Mac

@cindymacd.bsky.social
182 followers 366 following 266 posts

Disabled writer working in the climate space. WIP: a book on the 2021 Western Canada heat dome. Climate change kills. Believe patients.

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Reposted by Cindy Mac
Tracey Saxby @traceysaxby.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Fun facts: 🔥Since 2007, BC’s climate pollution has decreased by 2.3 million tonnes. 🔥Approved LNG export projects will increase BC’s climate pollution by 21.2 million tonnes by 2035. 🔥This is ten times more pollution than we’ve managed to cut in nearly 20 years.
Trends in BC's greenhouse gas pollution from 1990 to 2023, with two projected futures. Approved LNG projects will increase BC's emissions by 21.2 million tonnes. If we meet BC's climate targets emissions will decrease by 80%. From 2007 to 2023 BC has only reduced 2 million tonnes of climate pollution.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
More proof tge tech bros won’t save us. (As if we needed more.)
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Jeff Goodell @jeffgoodell.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Terrific interactive graphics in big Labor Day weekend @nytopinion.nytimes.com piece on how extreme heat is changing many American's view of summer from a season of relaxation and adventure to a season of sweat and danger. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Summer Has Gotten Much Hotter. See How Bad It Is Where You Live. (Gift Article)
The notion of enduring the summer rather than embracing it has spread far beyond the Sun Belt.
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Jeff Goodell @jeffgoodell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
“Between 2018 and 2025, we estimate that some 9,000 deaths each year in the [U.S.] are impacted by heat — a factor of five higher than the official average over that same period. Some years, heat-related deaths can top 10,000.” Even this, I'd argue, is an underestimate. Great work by @npr.org
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
The cyclospora outbreak has reached 17,180 cases across 48 states. The FDA has recalled 1.6 million eggs due to salmonella contamination. Screwworm cases continue to rise. And we’ve just surpassed 2,700 measles cases (including 2 recent deaths) — a 35 year high. “Make America Healthy Again.”
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
That temperature seems to be a harbinger for catastrophe.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
A brief correction: one of Tracey McKinlay’s sisters has reminded me that both sisters had been travelling when the heat dome began, but they had both returned to the Lower Mainland in the days immediately preceding Tracey’s passing. I made an error in my interview around that timeline.
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Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I started my PhD program with an eight week old at home, sole income being my doctoral stipend, in a history program, in Knoxville, TN. And every month we got a new book to read to my son, free, mailed to us, so my kid, my kids, grew up in rooms full of books even when I had no money. That's Dolly.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Oh no. Oh, Dolly. 😢 It can reasonably be argued this woman saved millions of our lives through her finding of COVID vaccine research. Fly high, Dolly. Well done. www.bbc.com/news/live/c0...
bbc.com
Dolly Parton, legendary US country singer, dies aged 80
In a statement confirming her death, the singer's team says she will be remembered as an "inspiration" and for her "wit, warmth, and kindness".
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Students who previously had the grants have to apply for an exception and there's no guarantee it will be granted. I can tell you it came as a shock to my disabled kid in her third year studying outside BC.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Hey @kehyslop.bsky.social did you know Student Aid BC changed its policy re: its disability grants without telling the students affected? Now BC students studying elsewhere in Canada can't access that funding. studentaidbc.ca/explore/gran... studentaidbc.ca/explore/gran...
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consbegone.bsky.social @consbegone.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
European farmers face ‘unprecedented crisis’ after successive heatwaves www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
European farmers face ‘unprecedented crisis’ after successive heatwaves
Vegetable and grain growers call for urgent action, warning of ‘catastrophic’ harvests due to continent-wide drought
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
I interviewed a doctor working in BC’s largest ER who took care of 20 CTAS 1 (highest triage level) and almost constant Code Blues (quite a few in the waiting room!) on the worst day of the 2021 heat dome here. The ER ran out of ice and they had to send runners to get more. It was madness.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
You have GOT to be kidding me. Gee, @latimes.com I assure you “cooling herbs” would not have Prevented my HEART ATTACK from extreme heat at only 44. They sure wouldn’t have saved the 619 people who died in the same heat dome in 2021. This level of unseriousness is frankly ridiculous.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
A powerful argument, but I’m honestly crushed my health & so very many lives are so much less important than ✨the economy✨. Every time I read this all the names (that I know!) of who we lost in the heat dome run through my head. Tracey & Ed & Lorna & Young-ok & Denise & 614 others were invaluable.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
That part of the book was fascinating.
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Jeff Goodell @jeffgoodell.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
I talked to @amanpourcopbs.bsky.social about this summer's heat and fire, the divide between the cooled and the damned, and why reducing fossil fuel consumption is the most important task of our time. www.cnn.com/2026/08/11/t...
cnn.com
‘There’s no going back’: Journalist Jeff Goodell on the new climate status quo | CNN
Paula Newton speaks with the author of “The Heat Will Kill You First” about a climate fast becoming hotter and more intense.
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John Vaillant @johnvaillant.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Memo to capitalists (and @mark-carney.bsky.social): Climate risk makes things un-insurable. No insurance makes things un-mortgageable. No mortgages crashes the property markets. Crashed property markets trash the economy. - US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), 2024
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UBCIC @ubcic.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
"This day recognizes the rights, cultures, knowledge, and enduring contributions of Indigenous Peoples around the world, but it must also be a day of accountability." www.ubcic.bc.ca/ol_wildfires...
ubcic.bc.ca
OPEN LETTER: Wildfires and Floods are Devastating Communities; Canada and Alberta Must Stop Expanding the Fossil Fuel Industry and Respect First Nations Rights
Working towards the recognition, implementation and exercise of our inherent Indigenous Title, Rights and Treaty Rights
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John Vaillant @johnvaillant.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
This was a really fruitful - and sobering - conversation about how the nature of #wildfire is changing in real time. www.bbc.com/audio/play/w... #BBC
bbc.com
BBC Audio | The Climate Question | Is this a new era of wildfires?
Is climate change increasing the size and intensity of wildfires? And what can we do?
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
I’m safe right now, too.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
So I challenge you: hold onto your feelings right now. NURSE THEM. Let them ferment into “radical hope”, as Inuk climate advocate Siila Watt-Cloutier calls it, hope that makes you act. Don’t give into the numbing relief of the fall rain.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
And the thing is, your disastrous fall flood is often directly attributable to the same climate change and certainly that summer’s fires and droughts, which destabilize hill faces and river banks.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
I work in climate communications for my day job and this pattern understandably drives me loopy there, but even more so in my work writing about the 2021 heat dome. Our collective attention span can’t seem to hold onto the danger.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
While most of the Nortthern Hemisphere is up in smoke a month after tens of thousands of pple quietly DIED from heat, can we talk about “rainnesia”? The photojournalist & author Jesse Winter introduced me to this term to describe how the fall arrives and we lose momentum re: climate change.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
If you are near any of these fires, hang in there. ❤️
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BC Wildfire Weekly - Wildfires + More @bcwildfirewkly.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
LIVE UPDATES: “B.C. premier declares provincewide state of emergency as wildfires force thousands out of homes” www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... - CBC News BC #BaldRangeWildfire #BCPoli #BCWildfire #Okanagan #Summerland cc: #Peachland #Penticton #Wildfires
cbc.ca
B.C. premier declares provincewide state of emergency as wildfires force thousands out of homes | CBC
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
The fires, well, everywhere, are horrific and should scare you, but I must point out the most deadly form of climate change disaster has no dramatic photos and videos. Dying from extreme heat is quiet and undramatic. And heat kills order of magnitude more people than wildfire.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
“Climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you're the one filming it.” - @zackbornstein.bsky.social
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Tyler Olsen @tyolsen.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Highway 97 near Summerland at 12:45 last night and again at 2:15 am. Camera now offline.
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Mike Flannigan @mikeflannigan.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Another active fire day in BC but what scares me is the lightning forecast. Expect lightning in BC for the next 9 days. It is bone dry in parts of BC so if we see the lightning, we could see many new fire starts. ECMWF lightning density maps for Monday and Tuesday.
ECMWF 12-hr lightning density forecasts for BC on Monday Aug 10.ECMWF 12-hr  lightning density forecasts for Tuesday Aug 11
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Read this. Vaillant’s book on the Fort Mac fire is also required reading if you want to understand why we now have a fire season instead of summer. His encouragement to me at a public event was the spark, if you will, that started my work on a book on another climate disaster, the #2021HeatDome.
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John Vaillant @johnvaillant.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
@mark-carney.bsky.social @evansolomon.bsky.social @juliedabrusin.bsky.social #Summerland #wildfire #cdnpoli
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Yes, she would have. To appease him. People don't understand how abuse works and abusers use that to their advantage.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Thanks, Tyler. Appreciate your work and glad to have found you here.
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Hot Cities World @hotcitiesworld.xyz · 02/08/2026
Mexicali, Mexico takes the top spot at 46 °C — right now the hottest reading across the 1,030 cities we track. #Mexicali #Mexico #ExtremeHeat
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
So easy. Drop Dead Gorgeous.
static.klipy.com
Jesus Drop Dead Gorgeous Performance
Alt: Jesus Drop Dead Gorgeous Performance
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
For me, my morbidity from a climate disaster means my life span will probably be shorter than it would have been. It is certainly more limited. And as a climate casualty, I am already not uncommon. In a year or two more, I will be legion. I may be you.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Now tell me the value of fossil fuels to shareholders outweighs the costs of all of this, even to those same shareholders. Do the math. I'll wait. I think I can, anyway. My neighbourhood isn't roasting or on fire... this week. My heart condition *is* acting up though, so...
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
More people are harmed and killed. This person may be one of them. And the cycle repeats. Now imagine that happening with every climate disaster this summer, to tens of thousands. Think about the human cost. The monetary cost. The societal cost. The lost productivity. All if it.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
That person then needs more care: more doctor's appointments, hospital visits, meds, tests. They may not be able to work (I am very lucky I can.) They may need to rely on what little social safety net still exists. They become more vulnerable to all sorts of harm. And then comes the next disaster.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
It goes like this: disaster happens. A person gets sick because of it (for me, that was a minor heart attack caused by the 2021 #HeatDome). They live, but with a long-term of permanent consequence (for me, a heart condition.) Life goes on, but not as it would have if the disaster had never happened.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
What's morbidity, you ask? It's the term health researchers use to describe the illness, disease, and unwellness that is the consequence of an event (such as a pandemic, #wildfire, or #HeatWave.) It can be measured at the individual and the population level. I'm an example of the individual level.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
So the #ClimateDisaster happens. (Pick one. You have so many choices.) Some people die. Many people are hurt or made sick but survive. Other seem unharmed. Life goes on. What happens next? Hi. I'm Cindy, and I'm what happens next. I'm a climate casualty suffering from long-term morbidity.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
COVID taught us they will not concede even then.
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John Vaillant @johnvaillant.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Fire Tornadoes are now possible in the Northern Hemisphere. I wrote about it here: www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int... #wildfire #France
theguardian.com
Hellfire: this is what our future looks like under climate change
Forest fires and air that seems to combust: thanks to climate change, more parts of the world will soon be ablaze. California shows us what will happen when it does
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Extreme Temperatures Around the World @extremetemps.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
While ALGERIA had another exceptional hot day with 49.4C, Europe is preparing for another HISTORIC HEAT WAVE which will pulverize hundreds of records in Spain,France, Benelux,Germany,Switz,Austria,Poland,Belarus,Ukraine,Czechia,Slovakia,Hungary,Romania and the Balkans. Stay tuned.
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
💯! In total agreement
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Cindy Mac @cindymacd.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
It’s a both/and situation. We need to change how we are building our communities and homes, stop burning carbon fuels, AND we need to protect people right now in their own homes.
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