Canada, We Need to Talk Climate
The devastating story of Fort McMurray is our own
“Did you hear about Fort McMurray?” a local farmer asked me at work this morning. I said I had and he shook his head. “God, that’s awful. Goddamn tragedy.”
He was right. I had nothing much else to say, so I nodded grimly and kept packing. End of conversation.
May 3. One of the biggest evacuations in Canadian history. The city of Fort McMurray, epicentre of the Albertan oil industry, burns.
Words can’t describe the devastation. The fear of evacuees fleeing the flames, the heartbreak of residents losing their homes, the exhaustion of firefighting crews and emergency support teams; all of that speaks to the magnitude of the catastrophe.
Days later, as the fire rages on and emergency systems continue to operate, the rest of Canada is still in shock. We are left struggling to comprehend the disaster unfolding, attempting to respond with compassion as best we can. Amidst all of the chaos is an underlying sense of helplessness.
In the face of such an insurmountable crisis, we feel utterly helpless.
The Fort McMurray wildfire lit in conditions that spell disaster. High temperatures and low humidity, coupled with the dry vegetation and soil left by last year’s disaster-level drought and mild winter, turned the boreal forest into a tinderbox.
The week before the fire had record-breaking warm temperatures in Alberta, following the warmest month and warmest year in recorded history. According to scientists, boreal forests haven’t burned so frequently in at least 10,000 years, and the area of forest burning has doubled since 1970. The Alberta government and Natural Resources Canada both list climate change as a leading factor in increasing wildfires.
This context is unmistakably linked to climate change.
Fort McMurray’s disaster is what’s classified as an extreme weather event — the kind of occurrence that climate scientists have been warning about for years. With climate change disrupting our atmosphere, this is the new norm.
“The fact that the forest fire season has arrived so early in northern Alberta is very likely a climate event — very likely related to extreme high temperatures and very low humidity, very low precipitation and it is, as we saw in the quote from one of the firefighters — it’s a firestorm. It jumped a highway, it jumped a river. It’s a devastating tragedy right now and I think our focus is always on the right now: to think for the firefighters, for first responders, for people who are losing their homes. It’s a disaster. But it’s a disaster that is very related to the global climate crisis.” — Elisabeth May, speaking to reporters
Making the connection between the Fort McMurray wildfire and climate change is not about placing blame. It doesn’t matter whether or not human activity caused the current disaster.
What matters is the next one.
We have to move beyond the paralyzing feeling of helplessness. That there will be another climate-related disaster is unquestionable. What remains to be seen is when we will decide to face the climate crisis. Indonesia burned last year, and we did nothing. Thousands died in massive heat waves in South Asia, farmers reeled in the worst drought in a millennium in California, livelihoods were utterly destroyed in the worst cyclone in the history of Vanuatu; and we did nothing.
Many people will say now is not the time to talk climate, not while Fort McMurry is still burning and people’s lives are still being affected.
It is time. Now more than ever, it is crucial that we make the connection between our industries, our lives, and the climate. Because right now, there are conversations happening across Canada about the Fort McMurray wildfire, just like my conversation with the farmer this morning. But instead of ending in helpless silence, each one of those conversations could be the beginning of a commitment to pre-emptively fight the next fire—a commitment to fight climate change.
It is not too soon. It is very nearly too late.
In the last several years, there have been numerous discussions in Canada about preparation for weather-related disasters linked to climate change. That’s not good enough. We are spurring this planetary crisis, so we need to do better than a firebreak.
The devastating story of Fort McMurray is our own. It needs to be the end of the old conversation, and the start of a new one.
Click here to donate to the Red Cross Alberta Fires Emergency Appeal. Join canada.breakfree2016.org to protest the fossil fuel dependency in Canada on May 14 as part of a global wave of escalated actions.
