In June 2021, as this project began to truly spiral out of my control, a strange new weather event dubbed a “heat dome” descended on the southern coast of British Columbia, the part of Canada where I now live with my family. The thick air felt like a snarling, invasive entity with malevolent intent. More than six hundred people died, most of them elderly; an estimated ten billion marine creatures were cooked alive on our shores; an entire town went up in flames. It’s rare for this out-of-the-way, sparsely populated spot to make international headlines, but the heat dome made us briefly famous.

SEED: The extreme toll of the 2021 BC heat dome — 600+ deaths, 10 billion marine creatures — could anchor a piece on climate-driven ecological and human disaster in overlooked regions.

Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, loc. 6