In Canada and Germany, the climate crisis is finally on the ballot. But can it win?

It was just last week that Canada's British Columbia finally ended its state of emergency, more than two months after wildfires tore through parts of the province and reduced an entire village and its surroundings to ash. It wasn't a random, unfortunate disaster. Scientists said the heatwave that supercharged the fires was "virtually impossible" without the greenhouse gases trapped in the atmosphere -- now at the highest concentration in more than 800, 000 years -- put there by humans driving, flying, working and eating, and all the other things we humans do that rely on fossil fuels. The climate crisis has been a lingering concern for voters for a long time, though it's often overshadowed by other issues that feel more immediate, like unemployment rates, taxes and health care. Climate change rarely makes or breaks an election. But the tide appears to be turning. Canadians, who go to the polls on Monday, are among several nations casting votes on the heels of record-smashing, often deadly extreme weather this summer, boosted by climate change. Hundreds of people died in the US and Canada and dozens others in the Mediterranean from heat and fires, while flash floods killed more than 220 people in Germany and Belgium, and more than 300 in China.