It’s become an annual affair: at winter’s end, when floods and wildfires spread across the land, talk of “the new normal” sprouts into public discourse like mushrooms after rain. This year’s been true to form: when Alberta caught fire in early May, commentators across the media landscape deployed the phrase with abandon. Two weeks later, unprecedented flames roasting the outskirts of Halifax inspired the same response from editorial cartoonist Michael de Adder. By the first week of June, talk of the new normal had followed the boreal’s smoke all the way to New York City.
These days, the most frequent context for the term is climate change. But the new normal’s popular history, though brief, predates the rise of wildfire smoke–enshrouded cities.
