(Just a note – I wrote this column last week, before a fire flared up within half a kilometre from my home and forced us to evacuate on about 15 minutes notice. We are well; the house is safe… but it does affect one’s perspective a little.)
Anything that bumps Donald Trump out of the news for more than hour can’t be all bad. The forest fires in B.C. accomplished that, several times last week. The local television channel didn’t mention Trump once in a news special. Ditto for several radio stations.
But that’s about the only good thing that can be sad about the present forest fire situation.
As I write this, smoke hangs heavily in the Okanagan Valley although the nearest fire is 150 kilometres away. I can’t see across the lake. Visibility resembles the video images of Beijing during the last summer Olympics, with cars and cyclists emerging from the murk, and vanishing back into it.
The figures keep changing, but at one point, B.C. had over 230 wildfires burning, most of them uncontrolled; more than 14,000 people evacuated from their homes. Because the fires are so scattered, I can’t find a reliable figure for the number of homes destroyed.
But the number certainly doesn’t compare to the fire in Fort MacMurray last year, which raged for two months straight, destroyed 2400 homes, and forced the evacuation of 88,000 people. It doesn’t even compare with the 2003 Kelowna fire that burned 239 homes and forced evacuation of 33,000 residents.
More extremes
Still, fires are always good fodder for news stories.
They’re vastly more visual than meetings where dark-suited dignitaries sit in stone circles. Stonehenge shows more animation.
The nature worshippers who created Stonehenge might, in fact, have more understanding of the causes of this summer’s fires than we do.
Amid the smoke (and mirrors), a few still small voices have whispered the words, “climate change.” The gradual warming of the Pacific Ocean affects air flow patterns over the continent. As a result, summers get hotter, or wetter. Winters get colder, or milder. Which sounds confusing, even contradictory. Which is precisely what’s happening. As the air flow loops look more and more like a snake with constipation, weather becomes unpredictable.
The only sure thing is that whatever comes, it will be more extreme than expected.
So a few years back, we had a series of mild winters that enabled pine beetles to spread. The beetles killed huge areas of B.C. forests. Now those trees are tinder.
This last spring was unusually wet. A month ago, I commented to the dog – who, unfortunately, can’t corroborate my wisdom -- that wild grass had grown taller and thicker than I remembered in the last 20 years. Undergrowth flourished.
Then we had weeks without detectable rain. Dead trees provided no shade. Leaves dried. Grass parched. Soil grew hard and dry.
More tinder.
And it could get worse. The fire season usually peaks in August.
Underlying themes
After a week of what feels like wall-to-wall coverage of these fires, I’m feeling uneasy about some underlying themes.
From news coverage, I’d have to assume that forest fires are all about humans. Human lives. Human property. Human control.
“Our first priority is human lives,” a fire-fighter told Global News. So far, amazingly, no human lives have been lost. But many human lives have been disrupted.
The second priority seems to be human possessions. Things we think we own. Houses. Barns. Businesses. Domesticated animals -- dogs, cats, and cattle.
And third, human control. Fires have to be brought under control. A burned-out trailer park becomes a symbol of failure. There’s an implied assumption that we humans have a mandate to manage nature. For our own benefit, of course.
But it’s selective control. Fires that don’t threaten human homes or industries are allowed to burn themselves out. No one risks water bombers or fire-fighters to save a migratory bird flyway, a salmon river, a caribou range.
Does anyone care?
Perhaps the focus on humans is a natural conclusion. Humans are the media’s audience, after all. Moose do not buy newspapers; trees do not watch television.
Still, I don’t recall anyone discussing the ability of charred soil to retain moisture. How will this summer’s fires affect next spring’s flooding?
What will these fires do to the natural food chain? Will field mice overrun meadows because their predators have perished? Conversely, where will predators prowl if their natural prey have all been baked?
UBC-O professor Suzanne Simard has proven, beyond skepticism, that forests are sentient beings. Trees communicate with each other through their root systems, augmented by the filaments of fungi. The forest floor is a network of neurons. Should we care that fires have given the landscape a lobotomy?
I think we should. But maybe we don’t.
*******************************************************
Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca
********************************************************
YOUR TURN
Last week I wrote about the apparent contradiction of having too much water in the lake, and not enough for my lawn.
James West wrote from his current home in Williamsport PA: “You appear to be stuck in a dilemma that rational economics solves. A green lawn is not worth $300/month to you. I forget who said it: ‘Economy is a dismal science.’”
Bob Rollwagen shared some of my thoughts: “I live in Mississauga and we have flooding around Lake Ontario (up about two feet or more). Our summer home is on Lake Huron, part of the same river system, only it is only up 4". We had to hold back water so Montreal would not be washed down the St. Lawrence. Rain appears to have been the issue. Last week we had flooding in farmers’ fields because of excessive rain.
“It appears that we need to spend far more to improve the water management issues in this changing climate. It does not matter whether climate change is caused by the normal evolution of the solar system or by current human activcity, resources need to be focused on MANAGEMENT and PLANNING. Ontario corrected air pollution by PLANNING and MANAGEMENT -- and as soon as we had to start paying for the clean air, citizens started complaining and went back to blaming politicians. If we study history, we know that previous human conditions became extinct because they did not know how to PLAN and MANAGE their environment. Is it possible that the "human condition" has not changed?”
Judyth Mermelstein (in Montreal, not being washed away): “Your column underlines the dilemma the world is facing with regard to climate change. We humans have long assumed we can remake and control our environment, despite millennia of evidence that we can't. We choose to build on floodplains or grow non-native plants that require a lot of water on land that gets little. We chop down whole forests to clear space for ourselves, without thinking about the effects on erosion, soil fertility, or water. We make no allowance for nature's use of periodic fire to clear undergrowth and let forests renew themselves.
“Then we are appalled to see the devastation that follows, sooner or later, from our thoughtlessness.
“This isn't a modern phenomenon. We've been doing this for thousands of years. Settlements have exhausted the soils of their fields or their water supplies and their civilizations have fallen, as did great empires in South America. People have rendered their surroundings treeless, as did the Easter Islanders, and paid the price. What has changed is that the industrial era didn't just do this in local communities, but carried out the practice on a grand scale that affects everything: air, water, and the weather that enables us to grow food, live in difficult places, and survive.
“The problem is too big for any of us as individuals but maybe even our small decisions can have an impact. There isn't much you can do about the lake but have you considered the possibility of replanting your lawn with a drought-tolerant grass? It's no panacea for the big issues but it might please you by staying green.”
Bob Stoddard had a similar thought: “Jim, why are you spending money and precious water to maintain a lawn that does not belong in your climatic zone? You should grow vegetation (grass?) that is ecologically suitable that area.”
Dale Perkins might have been reading Judyth’s mind: “What all of this does is to point out the built-in dilemma we humans have with attempting to control everything. The ‘earth is the Lord's’ – in spite of the ridiculous theistic/medieval language of that declaration -= yet we humans have always thought the earth is ours! And we had some inherent right and power to orchestrate everything the earth throws at us ... in this case the quantity of water about.
“Bob McDonald (CBC Quirks and Quakes) make the point that the quantity of water on the earth remains constant. The only thing that changes is the characteristic of the water, i.e., it either is vapor, liquid, or ice/snow. We humans keep attempting to make water fit our needs, and with global climate changes happening because of human interference, that makes it almost impossible for us to control water any more, i.e., melting ice packs in arctic and ant arctic, storms and water surges throughout the globe, droughts and too much rain in other places, air vapor that rises or lowers affecting humidity, etc.
“It really all comes down to the general assumption that we humans must control everything, and when we can't we get upset and alarmed. It's not possible for humankind to stop manipulating everything to fit our peculiar needs, but we must learn simply to adjust to these variances and cope (and let go of our insatiable appetite to control everything).”
Isabel Gibson had a practical suggestion: “When we decide to spend the money on two water systems (or figure out home-scale water treatment systems), it will be a good day. We'll be able to stop watering our gardens and lawns with potable water.”
Isabel is not being unrealistic. Many parts of the world already have dual systems, reusing what otherwise becomes waste-water.
********************************************
TECHNICAL STUFF
If you want to comment on something, write me at jimt@quixotic.ca. Or just hit the “Reply” button.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send me an e-mail message at the address above. Or subscribe electronically by sending a blank e-mail (no message) to sharpedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca. Similarly, you can un-subscribe at sharpedges-unsubscribe@lists.quixotic.ca.
My webpage is up and running again -- thanks to Wayne Irwin and ChurchWeb Canada. You can now access current columns and five years of archives at http://quixotic.ca
I write a second column each Wednesday, called Soft Edges, which deals somewhat more gently with issues of life and faith. To sign up for Soft Edges, write to me directly at the address above, or send a blank e-mail to softedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca
********************************************
PROMOTION STUFF…
Ralph Milton ’s latest project is called “Sing Hallelujah” -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca
Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up, http://www.hymnsight.ca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)
Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>
I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com
Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town -- not particularly religious, but fun; alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatso@gmail.com or twatson@sentex.net