Canada's Wild Fires Made The Climate Crisis Real For Millions And Then We Shrugged.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

T.S Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The sky above me last week was ominously smeared with smoke that turned the horizon sepia tone. The fug was poisonous and originated at least a thousand kilometres from where I live. There, forests enormous in geographical size; they could be nations onto themselves are burning.

This conflagration is so large that journalists from laziness or shrivelled imaginations termed it "unprecedented," which is redundant during an epoch defined by an unfettered climate emergency.

In the last two years; the world experienced unprecedented floods, hurricanes, typhoons, droughts, heat waves, ocean temperature increases, and polar ice melts. Mother Nature is telling us we aren't in Kansas anymore. Yet we pretend otherwise and are made to believe that carbon offsets and cars powered by batteries made from the rarest of earth's minerals will allow existence to be one all-you-can-eat buffet of processed foods for eternity.

Calamities striking us from nature run amok by our pursuit of forever economic growth can be dealt with, mitigated and even eliminated. All we must do is change our politics.

But it is doubtful we will find,  the courage, or the common-sense and decency to stop taking advice from leaders who won't share the wealth.

We will soon be told that we can't fix this "unprecedented wrath of nature." And like Covid we will be told to live with it because capitalism teaches us, prosperity comes to those who grin and bear it. We will demonise those who protest the destruction of our climate by the 1%, especially if they slow our commute home because the news media likes to create controversy rather than simply reporting facts. Living in this strange new world of death from plagues, storms, and a perpetual cost of living crisis created by turbulent weather is already being normalised by the media and political influencers.

Millions of us experienced the hazy copper-toned smog that obscured last week's daylight sun, and we didn't even get angry. The smoke stretched from Ottawa all the way to the small city I now call home on the shores of Lake Ontario. It reached out westward to Toronto, slung itself downward into America's eastern seaboard right into New York City. It then exhaled, with the nonchalant rudeness of smokers on street corners to passers-by, into the Atlantic Ocean.

Yet, no one protested as they did over pandemic lockdowns. masking or covid vaccines. Today's corporate news-fed citizens gave it a shoulder shrug and continued on as if it was a dusting of snow that made the roads slick.

Some said that the daylight sun-obscured by a hazy, copper-toned smog- reminded them of the dystopian future portrayed in the movie: Blade Runner.

Since I could taste and smell this fog of combusted particulate matter, it didn't remind me of the times to come but of a time before when coal drove the engines of the industrial revolution, fouling the land like geese excrement in a public park.

Long ago, my dad told me of some women in Barnsley he remembered, who each time they put out to dry their newly washed  bedding found if they left it too long on the lines, the air pollution tinted the wash the colour of soot and nicotine.

Last week in that miasma- of pollutants, I used a K95 mask to protect my lungs while I walked the streets. Outside, my eyes watered, and my head throbbed from the stench of charred woodland that stained the air. There weren't many others like me wearing a mask. I don't think that my community, or anywhere has a paucity of "at-risk" residents. People don't know, or care to know, that they are vulnerable and must take precautions.

It's also difficult for citizens to comprehend how deep we have dug ourselves into the shit when political leaders like Ontario's Premier Doug Ford cast shade on the fact Canada has a historic level of forest fires this year not because smokers are more careless with disposing of their cigarettes in the woods but from climate change. The same holds true- for Britain, where Labour is drawing down on their green revolution pledges if they come to government next year under the excuse "that there is no magic money tree."

The smoke cleared around last Saturday in my town, and it felt good to breathe deep again without feeling that you lived near the stack of an oil refinery. The question is how long; will the air remain fresh and breathable until more fires break out. Will it be days, weeks or months until the air quality becomes again unsafe for outdoor activities?

The better off will be able to prepare for it by buying the most expensive HEPA filters, having the costly N95s- at the ready, or just decamping for areas that don't have smoke in their skies because they can work remotely. For everyone else, like me; we will ingest the poisons that are by-products of the tools that made the 1% wealthy but bring us closer to death.

As always, thank you for reading my sub stack posts because I really need your help this month. Your subscriptions to Harry’s Last Stand keep the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith alive and me housed. This month is proving to be real scramble to get next months together. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. Take Care, John