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Editor's column: Let’s put a name to the heatwaves

COVID, police shootings, thick acrid smoke filling our skies — 2020 just doesn’t quit. I was hiking last weekend and from the top of Frosty Mountain in Manning Park we could see Mt.
BC wildfires
This image shows smoke from fires in B.C. blowing across Canada. This image was acquired Aug. 10 2018, by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite instrument, on board the joint NASA/NOAA Suomi-National Polar orbiting Partnership satellite.

COVID, police shootings, thick acrid smoke filling our skies — 2020 just doesn’t quit.

I was hiking last weekend and from the top of Frosty Mountain in Manning Park we could see Mt. Baker — 75 kilometres to the west, but by the time we got down a thick grey haze blanketed the lake and the sun had turned an eerie dark pink.

(Actually, it was quite pretty, but knowing the cause made me think more of an apocalyptic than romantic sunset.)

It’s remarkable how in the past five years this has become such a regular thing.

I’m well aware there’s always been a fire season. My father was a forester in northern Manitoba and, when out surveying, his crew would often be called in to help fight a blaze somewhere nearby.

But this situation where every year we have days when we can’t see the sun and are told to stay inside because of the potentially deadly air quality — well, this is something quite new.

On the bright side, maybe we can see this as yet another kick in the butt to grapple with the reality of climate change… or maybe not.

It’s more than a little disheartening to hear journalists in Oregon report that some folks there are blaming Antifa protesters (short for anti-fascist) from Portland for deliberately starting the fires in rural areas.

I’m not sure why people opposed to fascism would want to set forests on fire, but tough questions like that never seem to get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.

Predictably, the rumours have gone viral on various social media platforms, spreading faster than the fires themselves. 

It’s hard to even know what to make of that kind of disinformation, other than to say the forces at work to avoid genuine conversations about racism or environmental degradation are insanely powerful.

Of course, it doesn’t help to have someone we all know asking his followers to simply blame the fires on bad forest management in predominantly democratic, West Coast states.

This isn’t to say fires aren’t sometimes started by human behaviour. Nor is it to say forest management is irrelevant.

But it is to say all of that needs to be seen against the backdrop of an environment that has been made extremely vulnerable due to human activity.

Back here in Canada, we have no reason to be smug. We, too, have our science deniers, although thankfully I haven’t heard anything about big city protesters deliberately setting small towns ablaze.

The greater challenge here is not just making the connection between climate change and a rise in dramatic weather phenomenon, but taking the next step in seeing how so much of our economic system is rooted in a disregard for environmental impacts.

I heard on CBC radio recently a woman talking about the need to name heat waves, noting that a record-breaking heatwave in California helped fuel the devastating fires we’re seeing in that state now.

Currently, we name hurricanes and tropical storms but heatwaves are simply heat waves.

Her point is if we actually name a heatwave, we’re more likely to give it the weight and urgency it deserves. Because, while a heatwave may not blow the roof off your house, it can kill more people than any natural disaster.

It’s the same issue we have with climate change.

Most of us recognize that climate change is real but it doesn’t smack us in the face the way a weather phenomenon or a pandemic does, so it’s hard to make the adaptations we need to.

If there is a silver lining, 2020 has been the year of adapting. Hopefully, the practice will put us in good stead to face even more existential crises to come.