In July of 2025, a number of different posters by the Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition began appearing in some of the central areas of Winnipeg where I walk. It's primarily referencing the devastating wildfires that have displaced tens of thousands of people at various points this summer, and severely impacted air quality across this vast province and beyond.
Along with the posters themselves are smaller printouts explaining that this is a project with support from the City of Winnipeg and the Winnipeg Foundation (philanthropy, aka thinly veiled money laundering and capitalist PR). However, there are still people who insist on tearing down these posters, as you can see in some of the below photos (and several of the ones I was able to get in their full state have since been peeled away at), so clearly there are individuals in these neighbourhoods who love dangerously poor air quality that goes beyond what Environment and Climate Change Canada bothers to measure anymore (it's just always "10+"). Those people should simply lock themselves in a room that we can vent all the smoke into, if they love wildfire smoke so much.
To the people who made and put up these posters: thanks for doing this. We're all suffering together and we don't need to be. I hope I'm helping out by posting these on my little speck of dust on the vast internet, to share it just a little bit farther than where the signs are posted.
