Dr. Sandra Steingraber @ssteingraber1.bsky.social:
Can’t stop thinking about this post as the Hudson Valley cycles in and out of air advisory alerts on what would be otherwise beautiful days. I’ve stopped running and still feel the weight of my lungs serving as a funereal urn for Canada’s forests.
Wendy Kloiber @wendykloiber.bsky.social:
The air has been poison for too many days in a row. My filter situation is usually overkill and tonight it can’t keep up and I don’t know how people in Canada are surviving this and I can’t remember seeing a single story about them.
How are you doing, Canadians? There must be so much grief.
Yes, there is. Grief for the trees, and other lives burned up, millions of them. The earlier spring fires are vicious and take out nesting song birds and many other species just born. I cannot cope with their grief, parents watching, fleeing, knowing they are unable to save their young, many not making it out. Their screeching calls, which I imagine, rip my heart and soul.
Here at Rosebud, when the wildfire smoke is bad, which it is now nearly every spring and much of the summer, all the birds that can, vanish (I don’t know where they go to find relief), only to come out and sing when the smoke clears, leaving them little time to tend their young. Some birds I’ve watched fall dead in flight, others stand on the ground gaping, sruggling to breath in the extreme heat and pollution. I make sure there is lots of fresh (cleaned daily, sometimes more often if lots of smokey birds are bathing – the stench on their feathers must be horrific) water for them, and notice when smoke clears, many take frequent long baths and drinks.
I do not live in the fires (so far), it will be horrific for living beings in them. And still, most humans just want to have fun, nothing they can do about it they say – best to focus on enjoying life they say, which rips me even more to pieces because that attitude is why life on earth is in the mess its in.
But, my grief is much deeper than fire grief. I’ve been grieving all my life for the harms, wild lives murdered, rivers polluted and destruction humans caused and keep causing. I began grieving as a child, when I began observing the cruel deadly raping callous of our species. Since, I’ve watched humans destroy everything I love, including water, my most beloved of all loves. As continents dry up, the fires become much more extreme, water much more at risk.
Wendy Kloiber @wendykloiber.bsky.social:
When these fires come to the Chequamegon
I can’t even think about that.
All of us bringing tiny bits of the lost trees into our lungs. A walking gravesite. Literally carrying the death of the forest around in us.
Changed the filters on the big luggable, checked the filters on the Mighties, turned off the furnace fan, put the luggable in my room with a Mighty which is still lit up red as Christmas so time to sleep in a mask.
Five days of poison air and my systems are shot. Apparently 4 days maxes them out.
There’s a lot more in wildfire smoke than lost trees and the wild beings that burned up in the ravaged forests. There’s industry, houses, vehicles, frac fields, chemical storage sites, radioactive waste storage sites, oil and gas fields, bitumen, and much more, burning up too. Our lungs are breathing in a chaotic mix of toxic man made shit and deadly chemicals in the wildfire smoke. Masking is advised, refer to table below. Note that most masks do not protect against gases which can also be present. On very bad smoke days here at Rosebud, even wearing an N95, breathing is too hard and painful, so I stay inside. Some summers, that means months of being inside. Central Alberta smoke days are mostly quite similar to Calgary’s (graph below).
@redsnoopy69:
The thing with wildfires is whether they are starting from lightning or human activities (forestry/mining/oil/gas/construction/farming/cigarettes/campfires/fireworks/ATVs/arson).
The fact that climate change exacerbates wildfires is undeniable and that’s the problem…
Wildfires now start more easily burn hotter, grow much bigger, and are harder to contain or control. People have to start acknowledging reality…
As wildfires rage and smoke fills the skies, the consequences of sidelining climate change in policy become starkly evident.
More than 400 deaths linked to L.A. wildfires, researchers say
@phavnosnibor.bsky.social:
“We won’t sit back while our air becomes a health hazard… we’ll actively encourage the burning of coal!” That commitment to the environment is touching.
@rrboola.bsky.social:
Says the party that wants to drill, drill, drill and make coal great again.
@darwinwoodka.bsky.social:
Remember they understand NOTHING
@nationalobserver.com:
“If Canada can’t get these wildfires under control, they need to face real consequences,” said Wisconsin state Rep. Calvin Callahan in a news release Wednesday. “We won’t sit back while our air becomes a health hazard.”
@deepsearov.bsky.social:
We’ll stop sending the smoke when you stop gunning down school children.
@katyoparty.bsky.social:
Touché
@hollsworld.bsky.social:
When Canada is choked by California smoke, we send firefighters. Just saying…
@tommyfr.bsky.social:
But Americans who pollute the world by hopping in a car to basically go to the toilet are exempt from facing “real consequences”
@roxannenugent.bsky.social:
Maybe they should look at their own back yard before blaming Canada. Fucking Assholes.
42,000 wildfires have burned across the US this year,burning 3.4 million acres.
National Fire News | National Interagency Fire Center
@scottwhill.bsky.social:
Dear Canada,
We’re embarrassed by all of our snowflake fascists. We’re sorry.
Also, can I get some ketchup potato chips, please?
— A WNYer
@ryankatzrosene:
Sorry Europe.
(Note: Spoke to a Canadian wildfire researcher today who noted that while this may not be common it’s also not unusual – there’ve been large boreal fires before that have sent smoke Europe-bound… what’s unusual is to have three years in a row where this kind of thing’s happening).