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)
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.
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.
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
Hey I don’t mean to nitpick but the preferred term nowadays is “First Nations”, thank you