Analysis of Wildfire Smoke and Air Quality - Plus Beckwith Interview on Prime Time National News @PaulHBeckwith

Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

Analysis of Wildfire Smoke and Air Quality - Plus Beckwith Interview on Prime Time National News

I chat about my CTV National News Interview on Prime Time at 6 pm on Wednesday July 15th regarding wildfire smoke and air quality and human health.

I also delve deeper in what apps like PurpleAir can tell you, like cigarette equivalents per day of the polluted air.

Please donate to PaulBeckwith.net to support my research and videos connecting the dots on abrupt climate system mayhem.

References and Links:

Paul Beckwith interview on prime-time CTV National News at 6 pm on Wednesday July 15th, for which I delayed my chess match in the Canadian Open Chess Championship:
review.bellmedia.ca/media/videos/291198933/22029123/22029123.mp4/view

PurpleAir Air quality map of PM2.5 exposure to wildfire smoke expressed as number of cigarettes smoked per day:
map.purpleair.com/air-quality-cigarettes-per-day?opt=%2F1%2Flp%2Fa10%2Fp604800%2FcC0#5.18/42.354/-85.404

PurpleAir Air quality map of PM2.5 exposure to wildfire smoke from US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA):
map.purpleair.com/air-quality-standards-us-epa-aqi?opt=%2F1%2Flp%2Fa10%2Fp604800%2FcC0#5.77/46.202/-90.819

PurpleAir Air quality map of PM1.0 exposure to wildfire smoke from US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA):
map.purpleair.com/air-quality-raw-pm1?opt=%2F1%2Flp%2Fa10%2Fp604800%2FcC0#6.08/43.267/-87.176

PurpleAir Air quality map of visual range in km from wildfire smoke from US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA):
map.purpleair.com/visibility-visual-range-kilometers?opt=%2F1%2Flp%2Fa10%2Fp604800%2FcC0#4.91/44.12/-87.43

PurpleAir Air quality map of PM10.0 exposure to wildfire smoke from US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA):
map.purpleair.com/air-quality-raw-pm10?opt=%2F1%2Flp%2Fa10%2Fp604800%2FcC0#5.94/45.478/-91.283

PurpleAir Air quality map of temperature in degrees C from US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA):
map.purpleair.com/environment-estimated-temerature-celsius?opt=%2F1%2Flp%2Fa10%2Fp604800%2FcC0#4.48/41.15/-97.6

American Geophysical Union Peer Reviewed Science Paper:
Health Impact Analysis of Wildfire Smoke‐PM2.5 in Canada (2019–2023)

Link: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12852501/pdf/GH2-10-e2025GH001565.pdf

Abstract
Wildfires are a source of air pollution, including PM2.5. Exposure to PM2.5 from wildfire smoke is associated with adverse health effectsincluding premature death and respiratory morbidity. Air quality modeling was performed to quantify seasonal wildfire‐PM2.5 exposure across Canada for 2019–2023, and the annual acute and chronic health impacts and economic valuation due to wildfire‐PM2.5 exposure were estimated. Exposure to wildfire‐PM2.5 varied geospatially and temporally. For 2019–2023, the annual premature deaths attributable to wildfire‐PM2.5 ranged from 49 (95% CI: 0–73) to 400 (95% CI: 0–590) due to acute exposure and 660 (95% CI: 340–980) to 5,400 (95% CI: 2,800–7,900) due to chronic exposure, along with numerous non‐fatal cardiorespiratory health outcomes. Per year, the economic valuation of the health burden ranged from $550M (95% CI: $19M–$1.2B) to $4.4B (95% CI: $150M–$9.9B) for acute impacts and $6.4B (95% CI: $2.2B–$12.9B) to $52B (95% CI: $18B–$100B) for chronic impacts. Additionally, a long‐term average annual exposure for
2013–2023 was estimated using air quality modeling. From this, more than 80% of the population had an average seasonal wildfire‐PM2.5 exposure of at least 1.0 μg/m3 and there were 1,900 (95% CI: 980–2,800) attributable premature deaths and a total economic valuation of $18B (95% CI: $6.1B–$36B), per year. Evaluating and understanding the health impacts of wildfire‐PM2.5 is important given the sizable contribution of wildfire smoke to air pollution in Canada, as well as the anticipated increases in wildfire activity due to climate change.

Human health effects of wildfire smoke report summary
canada.ca/en/services/health/healthy-living/environment/air-quality/wildfire-smoke/human-health-effects-report-summary.html

Outdoor air pollution and health: Overview
canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/air-quality/outdoor-pollution-health.html

HUMAN HEALTH EFFECTS OF WILDFIRE SMOKE (report from 2024)
canada.ca/content/dam/hc-sc/documents/services/publications/healthy-living/human-health-effects-wildfire-smoke/human-health-effects-wildfire-smoke.pdf

Please donate to PaulBeckwith.net to support my research and videos connecting the dots on abrupt climate system mayhem.

GoFundMe: gofundme.com/f/help-paul-continue-his-climate-emergency-research

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel. As well as my website, and YouTube, you can find me on Patreon, Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Reddit (multiple climate channels within), Quora, TikTok, Discord, Mastodon, Twitch, Vimeo, Bluesky, TruthSocial, Threads, Substack, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc...

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$Nanoplastic in the Oceans and inside the Human Brain Nanoplastic Concentrations Measured across the North Atlantic Ocean, and inside Every Human Brain A new study discusses recent observational measurements on nanoplastics (size less than 1 micron, or one millionth of a meter size) in the north Atlantic Ocean. Data was collected at 9 different points, ranging from a southern gyre to the far northern European coastline, at depths near the surface, down to 1000 m, and to the ocean floor. These nanoplastics are everywhere (ubiquitous) and are in much higher levels than anybody thought, with the cumulative mass in the north Atlantic of 27 million tonnes (27 MT), which exceeds that of much larger plastic chunks (macroplastics and microplastics). Because nanoplastics are so small, they easily pass through biological cell walls, and can penetrate everywhere including the entire human body. I chat about how there are copious amounts of plastic in the human brain, with total plastic mass in the brain approaching that of a common plastic fork. Food for thought... It is only recently that technology has improved enough to accurately characterize and measure nanoplastic sizes and concentrations. What happens in the ocean happens in the human brain. Paul Beckwith Please donate to http://PaulBeckwith.net to support my research and videos connecting the dots on abrupt climate system mayhem. Links referenced in video: Bluesky social media post on nanoplastics from a couple days ago: https://bsky.app/profile/fheritale.bsky.social/post/3luhida2cac27 New peer-reviewed scientific paper (open source, thus free): Title: Nanoplastic concentrations across the North Atlantic Abstract Plastic pollution of the marine realm is widespread, with most scientific attention given to macroplastics and microplastics. By contrast, ocean nanoplastics (size less than 1 μm) remain largely un-quantifed, leaving gaps in our understanding of the mass budget of this plastic size class. Here we measure nanoplastic concentrations on an ocean basin scale along a transect crossing the North Atlantic from the subtropical gyre to the northern European shelf. We find approximately 1.5–32.0 mg m−3 of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polystyrene (PS) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) nanoplastics throughout the entire water column. On average, we observe a 1.4-fold higher concentration of nanoplastics in the mixed layer when compared with intermediate water depth, with highest mixed-layer nanoplastic concentrations near the European continent. Nanoplastic concentrations at intermediate water depth are 1.8-fold higher in the subtropical gyre compared with the open North Atlantic outside the gyre. The lowest nanoplastic concentrations, with about 5.5 mg m−3 on average and predominantly composed of PET, are present in bottom waters. For the mixed layer of the temperate to subtropical North Atlantic, we estimate that the mass of nanoplastic may amount to 27 million tonnes (Mt). This is in the same range or exceeding previous budget estimates of macroplastics/microplastics for the entire Atlantic or the global ocean. Our findings suggest that nanoplastics comprise the dominant fraction of marine plastic pollution. Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09218-1 Perplexity.ai links to questions: Tell me about nanoplastics in the ocean. Tell me about nanoplastics in the human brain. https://www.perplexity.ai/search/tell-me-about-nanoplastics-in-clwe_g87Sxikt3MKh2ZDgw Please donate to http://PaulBeckwith.net to support my research and videos connecting the dots on abrupt climate system mayhem. What happens in the ocean happens in the human brain. Paul Beckwith$

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