Ok, I can get sort of disagreeing the wildfires are from climate change - that’s a couple of logical steps you have to make. But “It’s not causing anyone to cough” is plainly ludicrous. It was making me cough when I went outside.
“It doesn’t smell bad”? Maybe they have COVID and lost their sense of smell altogether? It certainly smelled bad to me. And if you thought it smelled great - wow. I just don’t ever want to be around you if you like those sorts of smells. I can’t see it actually working with anyone who’s ever been in wildfire smoke before - like you don’t need science or education or anything to notice if it makes you cough, or tell something doesn’t smell great.
I kind of gave up trying to convince my family that this isn’t healthy, especially my high risk family members. I don’t get why they just don’t seem to care, especially the ones with major health problems.
Same … it’s clear that attempting to convince my own family is just as effective as speaking to a charcuterie board. Want to breathe the smoke? Fine, go ham. I’m fresh out of pity for the science deniers.
I don’t know why it’s so hard to understand that breathing particulate matter into your lungs isn’t a good thing… A child should be able to understand this. My 10 and 12 year old INSTINCTIVELY understood this… they pulled their shirts up over their nose on their own when we woke up and went outside on the first bad day.
I’m 38 with good breathing but I have multiple sclerosis. Wildfires make it so I’m unable to move my legs or do much of anything. It’s real and some people are idiots.
The world is burning down around us and these clowns would sooner burn with it than admit there’s anything wrong…
There will come point where they have no choice but to admit something is wrong, no matter how much try to ignore it.
I used to think that way, but climate change doesn’t discriminate. It will be the great equalizer. When global famine first hits, those with the most hoarded will become targets and no amount of private contracted bodyguards will be able to protect them. With that being said, it’s easy to be doom and gloom about climate change but please have faith that ultimately humanity will persevere even though it will get quite bad for a time. Remember, climate doom is just another means to encourage apathy and inaction. All hope is not lost, and future generations will pull thru.
canadian govt really needs a more active forest service - letting it get out of hand like this is a bit ridiculous.
It’s a rock and a hard place situation. One of the reasons the fires are so bad now is that for many years much effort was put into preventing fires. It allows a lot of fuel to build up, so that when the fire finally gets too big to handle it’s got a huge reserve to burn through. We may have to endure a few years of huge fires to get back down to the usual background level.
Canada has an absolutely massive forest service as well as an insanely large forestry industry overall. They’re better equipped to deal with this sort of thing than pretty much anyone else in the world. Once you reach this magnitude of crown fire there’s really very little you can do.
They’ll spend millions of dollars dumping water from choppers and planes, pushing in firebreaks that won’t hold it - there’s really nothing left to do at this stage but get out of the way. You can’t hose a crown fire out, people on the ground are just risking their lives.
Firebreaks are ineffective because this thing is causing spotfires miles and miles ahead of the front.
Are we ready to take climate change seriously? If not, this is your life every summer from now on.
Signed, a wildland firefighter and forest worker from Australia.
Yes, the reason people are losing it this year is because the winds are going opposite their usual direction so the smoke is going South. These fires happen every year but this year is much worse due to a dry winter.
In Alberta, where I am, there have been cuts to fire service, in some cases on idealogical grounds, which is frustrating. The fires people are worked up about are on the other side of the country but just pointing out this is nation wide and much worse than previous years (earlier, more, etc).
People I work with are infinitely suspicious of the wildfires. They say shit like, “Hmm, isn’t it odd they all started around the same time?”
Yes, Jeffrey, that’s how wildfires work. Entire biomes burn to the ground if the conditions are hot and dry for long enough.
Yeah, there’s a “Trudeau started the wildfires as an excuse for carbon taxes” narrative that is insanely popular among the Canadian right wing.
I’ve even seen some “15 Minute Cities” theorists claiming the fires are being lit in order to “drive people into the liberal cities so the government can control them”.
It’s just entirely divorced from reality.
I don’t get this weird need to be contrary to everything, doesn’t it get exhausting?
They’re not just doing it to do it
well that’s part of it, but it’s mainly “if we accept that climate change is real, then it’s us who are at fault for it; as such we need to discredit and downplay it and anything resulting from it”
like they have a vested interest in saying that it’s not a big deal, it’s a conscious choice that they’re making; they’re not being stupid (or at least not in choosing to deny this)
