Wildfires cause for long-term worry
Afavourite question posed by media interviewers is: “What keeps you up at night?” For me it is wildfire smoke. Over the last four years, smoke has been a problem for us in the Okanagan. The worst being the summer of 2015, when the air quality index reached 23, which is worthy of Beijing or Mumbai. This year B.C. wildfires consumed about 400,000 hectares. There are 24 million hectares still left to burn.
Most of us are worried about the disruption of our summer activities. I care for my 93-yearold mother who routinely is housebound for days at a time during the summer. My friends with asthma or COPD are restricted as well. My soccer games are routinely cancelled.
I am more worried about real estate. If smoky summers are the new normal, who would want to live here? My wife and I have been thinking of where to migrate to if our summers are ruined by wildfires. Too much rain on the coast. The Prairies are cold. The Maritimes seemed to be blessed with too many storms. Too many people in Ontario and Quebec. Leave the country? A house is usually the most valuable single asset we will ever own. There is a phenomenon in the United States of weather migrants. We have all read of “Okies” abandoning farms during the 1930s dustbowl and moving to California. Now Americans are abandoning Phoenix because of the 48 C summer temperatures and Southern Florida because of floods. Preferred destinations for them are the Pacific Northwest and oddly enough Appalachia.
Not everyone is in an economic position to pull up stakes. What happens when a municipality loses its tax base of expensive houses and is burdened with the social costs of caring for the dis-advantaged who are left behind?
Weather migration is caused by climate change.
For too long, smug Canadians have done little to reduce their carbon output. My generation relies on gas-powered cars and most are lucky enough to take one or two airplane vacations each year. Some commute hundreds of kilometres to Alberta oil industry jobs.
In B.C. we are blessed with hydro generated electricity and we have been paying a carbon tax. I convince myself that the family apple orchard, which acts as a carbon sink, allowing me to wantonly pollute.
Our supposedly progressive provincial government is protecting the fracking industry in northeast B.C. Most of the Peace River area output is transported to the tar sands to dilute the bitumen. We are hypocritical at best.
It is a myth that we can somehow expand the tar sands to create economic prosperity and meet our carbon reduction obligations. Nobody wants Alberta workers to lose their jobs, but the expansion of the bitumen industry makes no sense.
David Suzuki relates a story of a hummingbird making trips from lake to wildfire with a beak full of water. The other animals mock the bird, who replies, “At least I am doing what I can to help.”
To reduce global warming, we can all do better if we want to keep enjoying the Okanagan summers of years past.
John Dorn is a retired tech entrepreneur living in Summerland.