Gregory Wrightstone - Should Canada be held responsible for wildfire smoke?

 Millions of Americans have dealt with hazardous air from Canadian wildfires. Should Canada face consequences for forest management policies that allow these fires to grow? Gregory Wrightstone is a geologist and Executive Director of the CO2 Coalition. He joins the show to discuss wildfire management, forest policy, and whether better practices could reduce the damage. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey, welcome back to the Lawrence Larson Show. It's a pleasure to be with you. You may have heard about that Canadian wildfire smoke that's coming into the United States of America and Donald Trump's comments on it as well. Should Canada be held financially responsible for sending that wildfire smoke into the skies of America's Northeast? Now, I live on the West Coast of America, which catches fire every single year, and we breathe plenty of smoke. So I have some sympathy, and maybe not so much, because Canada, Canada could fix a lot of this problem. But I thought I'd go to Gregory Wrightstone, who's both a geologist and executive director of the CO2 coalition. Gregory, welcome back to the program.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Yeah, good. Um, I mean, I love I love Donald Trump and his policies, but he needs to learn when to be quiet. He's he's really, I mean, he has no we have no reason in the United States to throw stones about our fire prote uh protection and forest management and lecture Canada because as you you are well aware that fires in the United States are primarily the big ones are mostly national forest properties that have been mismanaged. And it's you know the we we know too, and I know you're you're you've got you've got great listeners that are educated. Uh they probably also know that forest fires in the United States, in the contiguous United States here, uh have declined. We're we're we've about 20% the number of fires uh and area burned as we did 80 and 90 years ago. Uh and we had a continual decline up until about nine well, until the year 1983, uh during the Clinton administration, that all changed. They changed forest management, as you know. That and now instead of logging, they they got rid of most of the logging companies, uh, stopped prescribed burns, uh, a lot of things were that were helping reduce uh forest fires. And and now we see the results in the United States. In fact, Canada just today, uh the prime minister said, wait a minute, you know, we have American smoke coming into Canada for fires where you are. That, you know, come on, man. And so yes, the the big story here is Canada has lots of fires every year, and they have for thousands of years. The uh the Native Americans were doing controlled burns uh probably for thousands of years. And they did it to to burn off the prairie grass, uh, the undergrowth, and and it helped uh stimulate new growth. They usually did it in the fall, and what they did they burned the old stuff off, and then by the spring, the new grass comes up and the buffalo are attracted to it. And uh a lot of these a lot of these burns occurred where where they have uh short cliffs where they would drive the the buffalo off the cliff. Yep, and of course they would fall to their desk. Um but this has been going been going on for a long time, and the Canadian Fire Service, you can go to their um to their website to learn some of this. You can look and see in Canada the number, just in the like in the United States, Canada's fires have been in decline, the number has been declining. Area burn, it goes up and down differing depending on the year, but it is definitely not increasing. It's again, it's you know, some years there's there are a lot of fires and some there aren't. And what we're seeing here is in Alberta, uh most of the fires occur in May, because that's really the transition of of old dead dry gas to the new greenery that comes in the spring. Uh, but the rest all of Canada peaks in June, July, and August. And uh that's what we're seeing here. We're you know, we're right in the middle of July. This is the fire season for Canada, and uh it's been going on for some time. I in fact, I've got uh I'm looking here at a at a uh uh an article from the New York Times from the year 1910, and they're talking about they're calling them dark days in the United States. Uh the worst of those occurred May 19th and 1780, long before there were any FC reviews. You mean before Al Gore? Before global warming. Absolutely. There might have been an Al Gore back at that day, but it wasn't the Al Gore that we know. And so it was it was that was the worst. May 19th, 1780. We know the day. Uh and they list a whole lot of these different really, they call it dark days. Uh, but usually in the past, and and currently, when you get these days of of smoke coming down out of Canada, they're really orange. Um and and it's uh but the worst of them. It was completely dark uh during midday because of the smoke, the heavy smoke back in the 1800s, the 1700s, uh 19th century. Uh so this is a this is not a new thing, and it doesn't, it it absolutely does not uh reflect any climate change-driven increase in these fires.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

No, and and the other thing is I agree with you that Trump's being a hypocrite if he says you folks aren't managing your forests well, because the private companies with forest land in America, North America, especially Sierra Pacific, Warehouser, others, they do a very good job, and their forests usually don't catch fire, but if there is a fire, they put it out quickly. The national forest, not so much, because some of the people who've populated the Forest Service and the BLM are true believers. They they want the forest to burn, and they'd say when it catches fire, let nature take its course. Well, that might have worked a long time ago, but it's certainly, as you point out, an awful lot of both cowboys and Indians back in the day in the United States would come out of the hills uh, you know, as as they're bringing their, you know, their sheep or their cattle down from the mountains where they grazed all summer, and they'd be bringing them back and they'd drop a match every half a mile, and they'd set stuff on fire because it cleared out the low undergrowth and and made for really good uh spring cover when it came back up. But uh Trump's in no position in the United States, I should say is in no position to criticize Canada's bad management. But both countries could actually say there's a way to make sure these fires literally never happen. And uh, you know, even with lightning strikes, even with human beings, I think there's a way to do it.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

One of the things that hasn't been reported is that uh according to Canada Fire Service, uh about half of the fires are caused by lightning. The other half, uh you hope you're sitting down, they're arson. And for the most part, these are Native Americans. I believe the the Ojibwe, but don't hold me to that. Uh in Manitoba, northern Alberta, uh, they're required, they the government requires uh Native Americans to be hired first for firefighting duties. Oh and they love it because it pays well. And so this is this is just job uh security for them. Um and so a lot of these are are Native Americans that you know want to get a payday. And so that's it it's not being reported because that doesn't reflect it doesn't fit the narrative of the of the proud uh Native Americans uh conserving the earth and proud, environmentally conscious Native Americans, yeah. Yes, yes. Uh so that that that that's another part of the story that's not being reported.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Unfortunately, Gregory Wrightstone is the geologist and executive director at the CO2 Coalition. Gregory, thanks for coming on the program. I'll get back to your phone calls and emails in a moment. If you want to join the best conversation in talk journalism, it's right here at 866-A Lars. Hey, do you really want another summer like last summer? Barely sleeping because you were too hot all night long. Well, people blame that summertime heap for their bad sleep, but what really makes it tough is the mattress trapping heat against your body. And if you already sleep too hot, summer only makes it worse. And that's why I switched to a ghost bed. Helps keep you cool all night long. I love my ghost bed. No waking up sweaty, tossing or turning, throwing off the covers at 2 a.m. Cooling technology is built into every ghost bed. It's not some expensive upgrade you have to pay extra for. Hot sleepers are some of the best and happiest customers for the ghost bed. Just read the reviews. Ghostbed gives you 101 nights to try it at home for yourself with no risk whatsoever. You can sleep on it all summer long and feel the difference for yourself. How many more summers are you gonna waste on bad sleep? Right now, Ghost Fed has a special deal. Loyal Lars listeners get 10% off. Just do this. Go to ghostbed.com slash L-A-R-S and use promo code Lars. That's ghostbed.com slash Lars, promo code Lars. Send your emails to talk at LarsLarson.com. Vote in our poll on X, and you can always check out our Instagram feed where you'll find I have a face for radio.