DENYING INCREASING FOREST FIRES ENDANGERS WORLD LIFE
By Howard Scott & P Henry
American Politicians Criticise Canadians
American Republican congressmen protecting their voters backyard picnics rights demand that Canadians stop their wildfires’ smoke invading America. They claim it’s due to Canadian’s poor forest management, ignoring that “Canada has long been seen as a global leader in the sustainable management of its 907 million acres of boreal forest … around 9% of the world’s total forest cover.” [1]. Also ignoring that Canada “is warming at a rate twice as that of the global average due to its large land mass, and its Arctic region is warming three times as fast.” [2]
Neither Americans nor BBC acknowledge the connection made by Canadians that increasing climate change fuels wildfires. The USA is the world biggest polluter and this year it has the most forest fires[3] while increasing its pollution by 262% since 2000[4]. The Manitoba Premier Kinew criticised the American politicians for “ambulance chasing” and trivialising dangerous issues by playing politics, where lives are lost and courageous firefighters continue to save lives[5].
The Americans again use deflection and blaming others for problems they cause.
This denialism persists as the situation gets worse and worse. Right wing politicians in the USA like to blame the fires on “poor forest management.” A Fox news station airheaded host talks to their resident expert, a meteorologist. He suggests that the current extreme conditions occur “every few years”. He rightly points out that the areas in northern Canada with the worst fires currently are difficult to access, and wrongly says nobody lives there (but there are many Indigenous people).’
Eastern Canadians report that they’re suffering more and more from the effects of climate change, not just the extra heat, but the smoke from wildfires in western Canada, which spreads all the way to the eastern side of the continent when the wind is right. Of course, people out there get it worse, especially the Indigenous people in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Meanwhile, politicians are trying to come up with pretexts for continuing to support fossil fuel extraction. “Clean energy” from gas (a bit less bad than petroleum) and “decarbonized oil”, the term used by the Canadian prime minister.
Prof Daniel Harvey shows scientifically that its human productions creating the unprecedented wildfires, and they will increase unless “we wean ourselves off oil and gas”[6].
It’s clear there’s a feedback effect with climate change: changing conditions (heat and dryness) mean more fires, and fires put more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Plus, as more northerly regions heat up, permafrost is thawing, which will release huge quantities of methane, which has a greater greenhouse effect than CO2.
Worldwide
Forest fires vary annually but increase during these extended dry spells caused by global warming. In 2025 over 1,000,000 sq. km[7] have burnt so far. This is about the size of Portugal, Japan, Scotland, Connecticut, Nova Scotia, Tunesia, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Iceland and Cuba combined.
In 2023 4,000,000 sq. km were burnt[8].
These man-made disasters involve mass pollution, more CO2, NOx and other volatile toxic substances with irreplaceable loss of life, fauna and flora and food supplies.
Denial that these catastrophes are related to climate-change satisfy only oil producers and politicians[9] like Trump.
[1] Wildfire Today https://wildfiretoday.com/american-republican-pair-claim-canadas-wildfires-are-due-to-poor-management-and-demand-nation-deal-with-smoke/
[2] BBC online https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czjkgg0kk3lo
[3] 102 million hectares has burned globally in 2025 – compare with the record years of 2012 and 2015 | CTIF – International Association of Fire Services for Safer Citizens through Skilled Firefighters
[4] Crippa, M.; et al (2024). GHG emissions of all world countries. Publications Office of the E. U.
[5] CBC news. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/premier-us-republicans-wildfire-smoke-timber-tantrum-1.7603143 BBC News. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg9jrxvjpjo
[6] https://youtu.be/re0Je1b2Dvo?feature=shared
[7] https://ctif.org/news/102-million-hectares-has-burned-globally-2025-compare-record-years-2012-and-2015#:~:text=By%20June%201%2C%202025%2C%20over%20100%20million%20hectares,around%20440%20hectares%20burned%20each%20of%20those%20years.
[8] https://ourworldindata.org/wildfires#all-charts
[9] https://davidsuzuki.org/story/climate-change-fuels-wildfires-worldwide/ “David Suzuki …. it’s up to our political leaders, especially, to take a realistic look at causes and solutions. …Burning coal, oil and gas is pushing the planet to heat at unprecedented rates, which creates the conditions for increasingly severe wildfires.”
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