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tv   Life at 50 Degrees  BBC News  July 24, 2022 9:30pm-10:01pm BST

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now on bbc news, life at 50 degrees. when i was growing up, my grandmother used to tell me that we lived here forever. there's this collective conscious knowledge that is handed down from generation to generation. what you do to the land, you do to yourselves. that is how i was raised. but since a child i have seen changes in ecosystems, i've seen less water, i've seen the trees struggling with drought and heat anxiety. if you abuse the land, climate change is a logical consequence.
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and this weekend, temperature records could be shattered across the province. a new all—time record i of 49.5 degrees celsius. the hot spot of course in lytton, british columbia. holy bleep... my daughter is asking every- day, "the town's burnt, mom?" it is all you're left. with, just memories. let's make some noise for fairy creek! we have fires all around the world destroying unprecedented amounts.
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all we want to do is protect the old growth. we, as humanity, are destroying huge amounts of our forest. reinforce the line, | reinforced the line! shouting and commotion they are going to tell us how forestry should be in british columbia? you are not from here, go home! we are trying to defend our livelihood. my computer... because of the pandemic, cbc set me up with all the gear.
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i connect right to the studio. 0k. hi, ian. fellow meteorologists and i saw this potential climate change means our summers are hotter and drier. so the brush and the fuel dries out so much quicker and fires start and spread and get out the much so much faster. a big dome of high pressure has built across this part of north america, trapping the air in place. this heat dome sat and cooked everything underneath. the village of lytton reached 46.6 degrees celsius yesterday. lytton broke all—time hottest temperature records, eventually landing on 49.6 degrees celsius... that's over 121 fahrenheit.
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..and the next day it went up in flames. as soon as i opened the door, it's smoke everywhere. a big hit of heat, everything was orange. and grey...ash falling. it felt like we only had - minutes, secondsjust to grab what we can. as we were leaving, those flames went from here...to as high as trees. just seeing my home town in flames... this is to the point of almost burning. so wish us luck.
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ijust keep going back- into town because i knew my landlord was still there. so i started helpingl him to fight the fire. we literally are the only people trying to save the house here. everything around is burnt. fingers crossed, man. pretty bad there. not even within an hour... everything was gone. all you're left with isjust memories.
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we had left the house within minutes before it was on fire. we basically left with the clothes on our backs. i was actually eight months pregnant the day of the fire. so cute! let's go. he's happy, just content. i cried of relief when we found out we had a hotel that would accept our pets. but every time we renew, we still don't know if we can get it again. hello. there's a list on the side of the door that says
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you are supposed to have three mixing bowls. oh, yeah, i was going to tell you, you talk too much stuff with you. we lost our home. living with me at the time was my daughter, serena. we were able to get a hotel room in abbotsford and we have been there ever since. what is your plan for dinner? just going to order in. i was going to cook but i'm really pooped, exhausted. this isjudith and ross urquhart�*s — their house. they are the former principal, lost her home. this is the lytton hotel.
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its fire escape stayed up, as did its chimney. the doctor's office, the hospital, all to the right. gone. to the left we have st barnabas' church, its rectory and a memorial, a parish hall. that survived. so somehow the fire did not get those three buildings. 0k. so this is 167 ir 17 road, 25 years we have been working on this property. one board at a time. one of the greatest memories of every one of my six kids is this, and i don't know if it's gonna live.
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0h! a drill made it! it's good to see you guys! pretty sure the battery's gone on this one. the people who have been suffering wanted to get together — and maybe some of them wanted to be angry, maybe some of them wanted to protest. it wasn't the train that burnt my house down. it was a by—product
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of climate change. heat, drought, wind created conditions in our town that required one spark, and that spark occurred and we lost our town. activists remain in fairy creek near port renfrew, ready to be arrested in their fight to save old growth trees. shouting and chanting man: ., . reinforce the line! woman: this was a - thousand-year-old being! woman: hang on, stay together!
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hang on, stronger than you think! i what's happening in fairy creek is people of all backgrounds have come together to protect some of the last remaining old growth on vancouver island, and notjust vancouver island, on the planet. drumbeat thank you for helping us teach the police... drumbeat. everybody at fairy creek has been there long term.
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we know we're doing the right thing. this past summer has been one that everybody is talking about. my parents don't remember it being this hot. we are not used to seeing this kind of heat. we must risk everything. we must... there is no sacrifice too great right now to save our planet. look at that tree growing right out, straight up... this summer in british columbia has been one of the worst fire seasons. the pathway is right there, right there.
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an entire town burnt down, and i feel like it is connected with the fact that we have zero respect for the trees. we don't see cedars this big anywhere any more. like, how often do you see fir trees that big with that kind of bark? we know our forests help us clean our air, and it's an exchange. oh, yeah! we know that the old—growth trees help on a bigger scale. we know that their roots go deeper into the ground, and they help the trees around them.
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reporter: the company that holds the logging rights for that area is speaking out. over 70% of the province is old—growth, is protected. forestry is a huge contributor to our economy. $32 billion for the gdp. they are going to tell us how forestry should be i in british columbia? you are not from here, go home! we're all lytton evacuees. and so if we weren't here, this camp ground would have nobody. we hoped that the owner would allow us to stay after i october but they said no, because i think it will cost them a lot to keep the water and septic and everything going. crying
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even after the fire, i didn't feel homeless. houseless, yes, i don't have a house — but i neverfelt homeless, because we were always together. patrick and i and babies, because we had... ..we had each other. but after yesterday, and after the conversation about having to leave by! october, i'm like, ok... you know, it hit. we are homeless. what about my friends... what's des gonna do? what's melanie and karen gonna do?
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can i get some air? we have been trying everything else, you know? we've voted, we've written letters, we've made phone calls. none of it's worked. all right, give her a tug. something needs to be done. reporter: this saturday rally. at mesachie lake was supposed to be a peaceful sharing of information. we're trying to defend our livelihood. man: turn your camera off! turn your bleep camera off! starting to boil over at fairy creek.
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let's make some noise for fairy creek! cheering and applause. chanting: fairy creek! fairy creek! loudspeaker: we order you to leave the road now and comply _ with direction- from police officers. failure to do so willl result in your arrest. 0k. this is all the first time. i have never done this before, just so you know! i have been relying on humour and hard work all my life.
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oops! laughs. steps in an rv. i took pride as a man and as a husband and as a father and a grandfather in meeting the needs of my family. it's expanding! this is the next step in the transition back to home. talk about decadence! my bedroom slides in and out of the wall. i usually live pay cheque to pay cheque. this is $1,000 a month, so 15 years to pay this off. it's not what we wanted, but we'll be ok. my sense of place went up in puff of smoke onjune 30. i am going to rebuild that sense of place. so we're building a home for notjust my wife and i today, but for my
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great—grandchildren who i have yet to see. my plan was to move from the camp site and when they have the power and water hooked up, i'm hoping that i will be able to put my rv right here and spend the next couple years rebuilding my home. it is really hard in my heart, knowing that everything that we're experiencing was the result of our action. if you continue to take too many trees, there was going to become a reckoning. we can elect people who have the courage to say, "no, i'm not going to continue the status quo". we need to leave the fossil fuels in the ground. we need to invest in homes that are designed to be cool in the summer, stay warm in the winter.
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i'm not scared of what's coming. at the moment, the sun is setting on lytton. but tomorrow, the sun will rise on lytton. is it hot? it's so hot! we came to al diwanya province to film the story of sheikh kazem al kaabi, a farmer whose area has been affected by climate change and extreme heat. filming this scene, i couldn't
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believe the temperature i was recording — the ground temperature was upwards of 60 degrees. it was like breathing in a sauna. you feel trapped. this year has been a very bad yearfor them. they have been farming, and unfortunately for them, it didn't turn out to be a very good year. and as a result, a lot of people are trying to migrate from this place. but it is a really tough condition to work — i don't think i have never worked or witnessed 55 degrees. even for me as an iraqi, that i am used to high temperatures, this
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is just too much. i grew up in iraq, so i thought i was prepared. but in recent years, the weather has changed a lot. it's hot — very hot. the camera is asking me to stop recording. i think you need to put it in the car. yeah. the camera needs... we leave it here? uh-huh. every 15 minutes, we have to cool the camera down. if we didn't, we run the risk of losing all our footage. just two minutes. two minutes. filming in peak summer is always complicated and difficult. as a film—maker, you stay calm and to stay focused
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when it is that hot, and you are drenched in your own sweat — then when you add temperatures that are upward of 45 degrees to it, it gets that much harder. injune, we travelled to mexicali, in northern mexico, to film a record—breaking heatwave. we were following a team of paramedics. there was a heat stroke patient who had to be taken to hospital. while filming, i heard lots of raised voices behind me. suddenly i saw gabriel, our producer, being surrounded by medical staff.
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even though we had taken lots of precautions, like limiting ourtime on the ground, drinking lots of water, the heat really had affected the crew. thankfully, gabriel got the treatment he needed. he was back on his feet a few hours later. we were lucky to have been embedded with the paramedics. it's ok, just keep filming. yeah, yeah, it's good. mexicali is right by the border with the us. many migrants pass through this desert as they attempt to cross the border. it's extremely hot here — it is 50—plus — and no wonder lots of migrants die along this way, trying to cross the border to the us.
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i mean, there is no way without enough resources to keep themselves hydrated they will survive this heat. seeing this place brought back my own experience of when i left iraq for the uk on foot. myjourney across the border was very tough, but i can't imagine making that journey in 50 degrees. a few hours without water, there is no way you would survive and yet, every day here, people attempt it. in this series, we met some amazing people who let us into their lives and shared the challenges they face against heat and the climate crisis. this is a threat we are all going to face — the planet is only going to get hotter.
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hello again. well, this month continues to be very dry indeed. the latest rainfall stats show that so far this month across southern wales, southern counties of england, parts of east anglia, running up to lincolnshire, there's been hardly any rain at all. now on sunday we have seen some rain around, but the majority of that has been falling across parts of northern ireland and scotland where it's been heavy and we have had this zone of rain stretching in across parts of wales as well, bringing some welcome relief from the very dry conditions we've seen. and indeed one of our weather watchers spotted something really rare forjuly in wales — a puddle. now across the eastern areas of england it's been a warm and sunny day, hot actually across parts of east anglia where temperatures in a number of sites reached over 30 degrees celsius.
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now, looking at the weather forecast overnight, we're going to continue with those south—westerly winds feeding in a few patches of rain here and there. some more persistent, heavier rain across northern scotland, where we've got a weather front that's slowly going to be sinking southwards towards the end of the night. temperatures, well, a fresher night for scotland and northern ireland but for england and wales, it's another warm night. temperatures, 16 to 18 degrees for many. and this area of low pressure that's been around all weekend, on monday slowly works out towards norway. we get these north to northwesterly winds following in, they'll bring a few patches of rain here and there, some sunny spells. we've got these bands of rain coming southwards across scotland, into northeast england as we head through the course of the afternoon. now our temperatures dropping across the board. high teens generally across the north of the uk, england and wales also seeing the cooler weather but still quite warm across east anglia in the southeast, not into the 30s but still mid 20s, warm enough. now for the rest of the week high pressure dominates the weather picture for much of the week ahead until we see this low moving in towards the end of the week. well, that will bring a return
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to some wet and fairly windy weather to northern ireland and to scotland. tuesday's forecast, well, by and large, a dry picture for many of you with some sunny spells. there'll be a few showers, though, around eastern england running from, say, north yorkshire down to about kent. many of the showers that do form probably not bringing that much rain and there will be some areas that missed them altogether. so it's not going to change the overall theme of that very dry july that we have seen and we continue to see. now beyond that high pressure for england, wales, a lot of dry, sunny and warm weather developing. scotland and northern ireland will see some rain for a time towards the end of the week.
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we arrived at folkestone about 9am yesterday morning and then we've slowly been crawling along for the past 21 plus hours! a miserable start to many people's holiday — and an alert from the aa that there could be similar scenes to come all summer. i think that we could see a repeat of this come next weekend, and indeed the remaining weekends of the summer holiday. we'll be asking whether we'll have to get used to living with delays. also on the programme...
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the harvest stuck in ukraine because of a russian blockade —

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