This blame game over Canadian wildfire smoke has got to stop

3 years ago by T0rrent01 to c/canada

This new normal of near-constant wildfire smoke annoys me as much as the next person. But it serves as a reminder that we share one fragile atmosphere that we're collectively screwing up. Fruitless to waste all this energy pointing fingers like children when we should be joining hands to fix this. It's like nature's warning signal.

Whether it be wildfire smoke, a global pandemic, or heat waves, nature know no geopolitical borders. So maybe instead of squabbling over whose smoke is whose, we could acknowledge that we're all in this smoldering mess together. We only have one planet to live on, and we only have one atmosphere to breathe from.

(just food for thought)

9488fcea02a9 55 points 3 years ago

Wrong... Blame fossil fuel industry, blame the auto industry, blame tax cuts that result in the defunding of forestry management. and then most of all, blame ourselves for enabling all of the above

THEN we can join hands and fix this

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T0rrent01 15 points 3 years ago

You're 100% right. But my point is, international cooperation is key, and every country has a part to play. As we've all seen during the COVID pandemic politicizing natural disasters is a recipe for disaster, and unfortunately, it appears as though we haven't learnt a thing.

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YarRe 20 points 3 years ago

We have. Politicians who gobble fossil industry cock do not care. This is intentional and no amount of "learning" helps as long as oligarchs exist. Sorry.

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juusukun 7 points 3 years ago

"politicizing disasters" to me just sounds like exploring the possibility that there are people and actions to blame...

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HappyExodus 5 points 3 years ago

Disasters are kinda act of God. But doubling the odds (prob more like 10x) of having one is a human decision.

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Mamertine 29 points 3 years ago

American here. I was browsing all and saw this.

I'm not blaming Canada. I'm not aware that anyone is blaming Canada. The smoke comes from Canada. I'm frustrated with the smoke. So are you.

IMO it's like when a Canada goose shits in my yard. Im angry at the goose not Canada.

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Midnight_Ice 16 points 3 years ago

Yeah but how do you know we didn't send that goose on a mission to shit in your yard? Maybe you should be mad at Canada.

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homesnatch 8 points 3 years ago

What the heck, Canada?!? Least you could do is apologize...

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imasnyper 3 points 3 years ago

Ope, sorry

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ohlaph 1 point 3 years ago

I'm mostly mad at Canada because I have heard nearly enough apologies.

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nbailey 28 points 3 years ago

Some people seem to think that you can rope off a "designated peeing area" in the swimming pool...

We all share one climate -- it doesn't matter where in the world you burn the coal or where the fires break out, we all suffer together. That's the reality that a lot of people all over the world don't seem to be willing to understand.

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nihilist_hippie 5 points 3 years ago

“designated peeing area” in the swimming pool

No piss in la piscine!!

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cyborganism 2 points 3 years ago

Mais ça s'appelle une piss-in!!!

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Feweroptions 2 points 3 years ago

I mean they're basically telling you to...

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T0rrent01 3 points 3 years ago

I've heard this exact analogy before with COVID and you're right.

Wildfires and pandemics are natural disasters which are international issues. Just look at how the smoke is even compromising Europe's air quality. And anthropogenic climate change are increasing the incidence of both; climate change is a natural disaster.

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ohlaph 2 points 3 years ago

Well said. Climate doesn't have borders.

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ininewcrow 27 points 3 years ago

Welcome to the dystopian future ..... where we argue and fight with one another and maybe even start at a war or two about why our planet is falling apart ... rather than admitting we are all the problem and that we should do something about it.

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T0rrent01 14 points 3 years ago

The massive overreaction and resistance to COVID mandates gives us a bitter taste of what's to come. Like, if a certain segment of the population can't even handle relaxing at home for a little while and wearing pieces of cloth, they'll sure be in for a rough awakening once the severity of the climate situation necessitates measures like, I don't know, vegetarian mandates due to meat shortages, outdoor or N95 mask mandates for all the smoke like we're seeing now, or water rationing like what California has been doing for drought.

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fleet 23 points 3 years ago

I've seen no mention of forest management in this thread. I'm no expert, and I realise this issue is a few concurrent problems, but it is, at least, partially Canada's fault for allowing clearcut forestry methods on such a broad scale. Old growth forests are somehwat resistant to fires. The undergrowth burns, but many trees do not. The "forests" planted by the forestry industry are essentially monocultures and they burn hot and burn fast.

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jerkface 22 points 3 years ago

You know what? Whether or not these wildfires are a direct consequence of Canadian climate policy or not, Canada does not get nearly the blame it deserves for continually raping this planet and its people.

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DTFpanda 3 points 3 years ago

Yes, absolutely.

More info here

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PhoenxBlue 2 points 3 years ago

Care to elaborate on this?

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PerogiBoi 21 points 3 years ago

My province blamed the latest wildfires on offroad vehicles and as a result banned the use of any off-road vehicle.

I’ve got an electric dirtbike that doesn’t even get warm anywhere and I was asked to dismount over this risk. Kinda silly if you ask me.

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Darkonion 7 points 3 years ago

More nuanced rules would be good in some ways, but I think more nuanced rules would require a larger government and more expensive services to oversee, or even to make such rules. I would be in support of trying that, as I think the long term benefits will exist, but many are not as there is an increase in short term pain because we'd have to pay long before we'd see a benefit, and people would have to keep voting to be in pain before results are realized. Hard to sell.

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Smk 16 points 3 years ago

Is this even true ? Is there anyone blaming Canada for this ?

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Skunk 5 points 3 years ago

I was wondering the same, then I remembered all those shity headlines, post about vax, pizzas, Facebook comments about 5G or Covid and now I’m certain some peoples are blaming Canada for setting the winds to the US.

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Smk 2 points 3 years ago

That's right! I guess I meant serious organization like an elected official or something like that.

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Ginger 4 points 3 years ago

The New York Post had a huge "Blame Canada" headline on June 8th, so... Yep, very literally.

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sin_free_for_00_days 9 points 3 years ago

That's the New York Post though. They're just joke news for incel red hatters.

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Ginger 2 points 3 years ago

They still have a readership, unfortunately.

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Smk 1 point 3 years ago

Jesus Christ, I thought that was a beaverton article.

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Thedogspaw 15 points 3 years ago

In all situations the best course of action is to simply blame Canada https://youtu.be/kYB6ZSwdrvM

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hellothere 1 point 3 years ago

They're not even a real country anyway.

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Smk 2 points 3 years ago

They are basically the US but with healthcare and French people!

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Cl1nk 2 points 3 years ago

The Healthcare is a total wreck. Here you get a 50 % chance or surviving instead of a 100% of going broke

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Smk 2 points 3 years ago

50% chance of surviving? What are you talking about?

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torknorggren 1 point 3 years ago

I hear it's full of uncle-fuckers anyway.

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giantshortfacedbear 15 points 3 years ago

I've not seen, or perhaps not paid attention to, any blame game. This is exactly what all the modeling for climate change predicts, and it's gonna get worse. So if people want to point fingers, the list of countries and industries that have produced most CHG gases ever, and currently, is easily available online.

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mPony 13 points 3 years ago

They're just jealous that we even still have trees that can burn. Sorry, Manhattan.

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HappyExodus 5 points 3 years ago

Best comment IMO lol

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ninjamice 4 points 3 years ago

the way this made me cackle

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1bluepixel 12 points 3 years ago

Get ready for the blame game, because as climate change intensifies, that's gonna happen over and over again. We're leaving the "this may be real but is it man-made?" phase and entering the "okay, but it wasn't MY fault" phase.

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T0rrent01 3 points 3 years ago

A Narcissist's Prayer

That didn't happen.

And if it did, it wasn't that bad.

And if it was, that's not a big deal.

And if it is, that's not my fault.

And if it was, I didn't mean it.

And if I did...

You deserved it.

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1chemistdown 12 points 3 years ago

The title of your post makes me think of the song…

Blame Canada, blame Canada with their…

My family to the north, hold strong. It sucks, and after spending several summers behind doors away from wildfire smoke, all I can say is stay safe and healthy. Our elders have failed the world and we’re paying for it.

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cyborganism 12 points 3 years ago

Wait. Are people blaming anybody for this?

It's everyone's fault. Especially big corps, energy companies and some governments with less than good environmental policies that have been increasing greenhouse gas emissions for decades now. And the governments that have enabled them to do so.

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73rdnemesio 11 points 3 years ago

it's because you don't sweep your forest floor! /s

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AngryMulbear 10 points 3 years ago

We need to start taking forest management seriously in this country.

Human development has disrupted the natural forest cycle, and putting out every fire that threatens us is only making things worse. Couple that with the unknown consequences of climate change going forward, we need to be far more proactive than reactive.

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linearchaos 4 points 3 years ago

We just need to tax it. 47 tons of real smoke flavoring. /s

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CkrnkFrnchMn 4 points 3 years ago

What...next we'll get blame for the cold weather..?

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GrindingGears -11 points 3 years ago

It's actually a normal natural process that needs to happen. It's the only way Lodgepole Pines regenerate for instance (their pods need heat to crack open to release seeds). This is actually a healthy thing, for the environment anyways. Fires aren't bad, it's the methods we use to intervene and plan, and our development planning that's the real issue.

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joshhsoj1902 34 points 3 years ago

The size of these fires aren't good though.

When people talk about fires being good for an ecosystem they are talking about smaller fires where afterwards biodiversity is able to recover. With individual fires as large as we're having it takes a very long time for biodiversity to recover.

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juusukun 11 points 3 years ago

Yup! I recently read about aboriginal tribes doing controlled burns during the winter, rainy seasons etc. They even noticed certain plants would grow more afterwards, attract certain animals etc

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T0rrent01 3 points 3 years ago

Hey I don't mean to nitpick but the preferred term nowadays is "First Nations", thank you

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HappyExodus 2 points 3 years ago

And is it winter , or rainy or controlled ATM ?

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bluGill 3 points 3 years ago

while you are not wrong, there isn't really anything else we can do. At this point the best thing to do - because it is the only thing feasible - is let the first burn, and then start over by doing the regular burns that forests need. We know from other fires that forests tend to recover a lot faster than you would expect and so in a decade we will have healthy forests again.

Sure, if you can put in a large fire break across a province/state and burn just one side this year, and the other side next year that would be good. However both need to burn and there is no way to do just a small area every year and catch up to where the forests need to be.

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HappyExodus 11 points 3 years ago

Yes one or two wild fires every few years are part of natural process, but what going on RN is way out of scale and add to the already not natural pressure we put on forest regeneration.

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AngryMulbear 1 point 3 years ago

We've been suppressing fires for decades, allowing underbrush to build up creating even worse conditions for fires.

Either we let it burn, or make a conscious effort to clean up the underbrush ($$$). There is nothing we can do to reverse climate change fast enough to stop this.

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WheeGeetheCat 4 points 3 years ago

I think you're right in a micro sense. People are probably downvoting you because this logic is generally an opening volley by climate change deniers to argue that everything that's happening now is natural.

A fire isn't bad, giant fires that burn huge swathes of land because higher than normal temps have dried the land to tinder are kinda bad. And we need to recognize that the higher than normal temps are the result of fossil fuel burning at an insane rate (sorry for the reddit link, need someone to rehost this great graphic over here!)

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GrindingGears 2 points 3 years ago

In combination with poor forestry fire management. Which is essentially what I was getting at.

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GrindingGears 1 point 3 years ago

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Kbin_space_program 3 points 3 years ago

No, not like this.

These fires we have now, and have had for the last few years, do have a historical event we can look back on, albeit with dread.

The Permian Extinction. One of the characteristics of it was apparently forest fires on this scale.

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FaceDeer 1 point 3 years ago

The Permian extinction was caused by the basaltic flood eruptions that created the Siberian Traps, with a volume of four million cubic kilometers of lava. That's not happening here.

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HappyExodus 3 points 3 years ago

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HappyExodus 0 points 3 years ago

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HappyExodus 0 points 3 years ago

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