Letter to Canada

We’re often reminded that there’s a reason for old sayings, such as the one that advises us to remain silent on an issue and only appear uninformed rather than weighing in and removing all doubt.
Eighth District Congressman Pete Stauber and three other members of Minnesota’s congressional delegation certainly removed all doubt with the July 7 missive they collectively signed and sent to the Canadian ambassador in Washington, D.C., complaining that wildfire smoke from our northern neighbor is ruining our summer fun here in Minnesota.
We’ll set aside, for our purposes here, the boorishness of such a letter, written at a time when the inconveniences being experienced by Canadians, where entire cities have experienced mass evacuations due to raging fire, are far and away worse than the smoke we’re dealing with here in Minnesota.
It’s the sheer ignorance expressed in the letter that truly sent our jaw dropping this week. While the members of Congress correctly remembered that bad fire seasons have become a pattern in Canada, their understanding of the reasons behind that trend were, well… bonkers.
Our illustrious representatives blamed the situation on “the lack of active forest management,” which left us wondering if they’ve ever looked at Canada on a map. It’s larger than the U.S., even including Alaska, and much of the vast boreal forest that sprawls across the country is miles from the nearest road, much less a viable timber market. Huge swaths of Canada are still wilderness and are beyond the ability of any country to “actively manage.”
Our congressional geniuses went on to suggest that Canada has a problem with arson. And that may be, if you consider Mother Nature an arsonist. The vast majority of fires in Canada, particularly the ones that grow large and produce the most smoke, are the product of lightning strikes in remote locations that may not even be within the range of water bombers. These fires burn, with varying intensities depending on the weather, until the snow falls and puts them out.
Sure, some fires in Canada are caused by human activity, but that’s the case in every country. What’s Canada supposed to do? Post a Mountie behind every tree?
Yet what most struck us about the letter is the irony. Every signatory of this letter has been an adamant opponent of addressing the biggest driver behind the worsening fire situation in Canada, Siberia, Scandinavia, and every other place the boreal forest is found on Earth: climate change.
The vegetative biomes found on this planet are shaped largely by climate. Dry and hot places hold deserts. Wet and warm places grow rain forests. The boreal forests found in the north are the product of a climate regime that includes long cold winters and short cool-to-warm summers with frequent periods of cloudiness and wet weather.
But as we’ve seen in Canada and the even vaster forests of Siberia, the climate regime that shaped the boreal forest is changing rapidly. Summer heat is coming sooner, droughts are more frequent and intense, and that is exacerbating the drying of the soils, particularly in Canada, where so much of the boreal forest sits atop the shallow soils of the Precambrian Shield.
As U of M forest ecologist Lee Frelich informed us this week, the boreal forest is second only to the chapparal of California in terms of its explosive flammability. Get a fire rolling in dry boreal forest conditions and you can have a firestorm within minutes.
The bottom line is this: the boreal forests in much of Canada and Siberia are no longer compatible with the climate regime that is taking hold and intensifying with every year we fail to act to address climate change.
This country had finally begun to take serious steps in that direction, and every one of the signatories of this ridiculous letter recently voted to stop that progress in its tracks.
Given the climate changes that now appear to be baked into the cake, the boreal forest is going to burn and transition as it does to various new vegetative biomes. And given that Minnesota lies next to Canada, and prevailing winds tend to blow in our direction, wildfire smoke is going to be a very prominent reality in our future for many decades to come. Minnesotans used to enjoy outdoor activities in the summer. They’d better start to look for some indoor pursuits, because the outdoors is becoming increasingly hazardous. And we have the climate change deniers, like Pete Stauber, to thank for that.