British Columbia, Canada, reaches so far into the north of our globe that I once saw the northern lights close to its border with the Yukon. Canada’s geography perhaps makes it all the more stark that its recent heat wave has seen approximately three hundred excess deaths amid temperature highs of 49.5°C (121.3°F).

Many of the dead were elderly and living alone in unventilated homes. Shocking moments like this, now a more than annual occurrence, can jolt us into a renewed sense of urgency to do something about climate change.

Undoubtedly, Canada’s heat wave has garnered such attention in the Global North because it is a major economy, predominantly English-speaking, and largely white. We must not ignore the realities of extreme heat in parts of the world even more vulnerable to climate change’s impacts.