Yeah, It's Real

 

It's May 10 and already the wildfire 'season' is well advanced.  This year it appears to be Alberta's turn, which will then turn into Saskatchewan's, turn, then Manitoba's, and then Ontarians will be complaining because of our smoke.  While we may have been living with it for weeks, or - given it's only May - months.  For me, personally, the smoke became an issue yesterday with high pollution indexes for the entire city, during a heat wave (seriously, in early MAY?)

Yes, we have wild fires.  Never this bad, this early.

The photo is from last night and shows the smoke dispersion over Alberta.  The red is the very high concentrations of smoke, most likely over the actual big fires burning.  The mountains are holding some of it back, but we have our own fires and yesterday the skies here were yellow with it.

This is one of the faces of climate change.  The next face will be after the rains come and there is no vegetation left to help the water soak into the soil, and then the water runs off with the topsoil.  In Alberta, especially, this is going to be a disaster for agriculture.  And lord help us if the fires get into the tar sands and that lights up.

There is already too much carbon in the atmosphere and this smoke?  Is full of it and increasing an already overly burdened atmosphere with yet more carbon.  And round and round we go.

The disaster of wildfires is not just the land that burns, it's the smoke in the air, harmful to everyone's lungs, yes, including other animals.  It's the increase in carbon.  The soil erosion.  The landslides as steep slopes devoid of trees get washed downwards, taking out roads, homes, and in some cases lives.  And not just human lives, the lives of any of the animals who ALSO call this planet home.  And then, of course, the flooding because the water comes down from the clouds, isn't captured in the soil but enters the rivers, and rushes downwards to the sea.  And then places that are closer to sea level, like the entire southwestern corner of our province, you know, the one with about 3/4s of the population of BC, floods and wipes out the agriculture in the Fraser valley, killing the chickens, pigs, cows, etc., killing the crops, destroying billions of dollars of the economy.  Instead of tackling climate change, politicians simply budget for more disasters, ignoring the fact that these disasters will increase in number and severity the longer we ignore climate change.

Just like we are now ignoring covid.

When you know better, do better.  Every single person needs to hold governments and businesses to account as well as doing better themselves.  This is a complex problem, and will not be solved by simple measures.

Just saying...