World Air Quality

Canada’s air pollution levels last year were worse than those in the United States for the first time since an air quality firm in Switzerland started publishing its assessments in 2018. The sixth World Air Quality report published Tuesday by Goldach, Switzerland-based IQAir says raging wildfires were a major influence on Canada’s drop in air quality in 2023, The Canadian Press reports. While the report found Canada on average still has some of the least polluted air, public health experts have repeatedly warned about the health dangers of more intense wildfire seasons, fuelled by human-caused climate change. “Air pollution is a silent killer,” said Dr. Samantha Green, a family physician with Unity Health Toronto and associate professor at the University of Toronto who was not involved with the report. “It’s a problem that I think we’re not used to thinking about, but that we need to be thinking about more.R...