The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - It's Only February But Fire Season Is Here Already -- Guess Why.

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

The statistics are surprising to say the least. Wildfires are burning in different parts of the country already, some have been burning through the winter.  Are we prepared for what seems almost certain to come from fires to drought? Chris Hatch covers climate for the National Observer from Vancouver and he's our guest.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's February and it's already fire season. Can you believe that? It's true and it's coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here in Stratford, Ontario. Welcome to Tuesday, welcome to another episode of The Bridge. Quick reminder that our question of the week this week is if there's one thing you could do to improve the healthcare system in Canada, what would that one thing be? We'll have your answers on Thursday's Your Turn edition. Get your answers in by tomorrow, Wednesday, by 6 p.m. Eastern Time. Remember, include your name, the location you're writing from, and try to keep your answer. A paragraph is usually the best way to do it.

When I see one coming in at, you know, three, four, five paragraphs, it's going to be a problem to make it onto the list, okay? So keep that in mind if you can. All right. Today's topic. Oh, first of all, those letters go to the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. All right, today's topic.

You heard me flag it, as we say, at the beginning of the program. But let me tell you a little story to get things started. When I was growing up in Ottawa in the 1960s, the 50s and the 60s, but in the 60s we lived in an area of Ottawa called the Glebe. Very nice area. It's near the near the Rideau Canal. And as a kid in the late 50s and in the 60s, as kids we used to go down near the canal, especially in the summertime. It was always beautiful watching the boats and the cabin cruisers going up and down the canal. Remembering its history, the canal was built in the, I think it was the 1830s. And it was part of the defensive structure for

North America in terms of the British against a potential invasion from the U.S. In fact, we'd had one 20 years before. And this was one way of preparing ourselves on the military front for such a secondary invasion by the Americans. So there was this fast route up from Kingston, which in those days, I guess, was kind of the capital of Canada or was being designed as the capital, but they thought, got to move it away from the border, so we'll build this canal up through the Rideau Lake system to Ottawa, by town. And that can be the capital eventually.

So, I think he was a colonel, John By, was the fellow who was the main architect for the Rideau Canal, and it's quite something still today. It's a World Heritage Site, UNESCO. It's still almost in its very original form, still a workable canal. So it was built. So as kids, we used to look at this canal.

Summer was spectacular. The winter, nothing really happened there. They kind of drained it, half drained it, and it was closed up. You were told to, you know, stay away, don't go out on the ice there. What little ice there was. In 1970, and by then I'd left Ottawa, I was already living in Western Canada by then. But by 1970, there was a fellow who was the chair of the National Capital Commission, which is sort of responsible for all the, a lot of the beauty in the nation's capital,

and has a significant budget to ensure that. So the new chair of the NCC was a fellow by the name of Doug Fullerton. And it was his idea that, you know what, this is a beautiful canal in the summer. Brings in the tourists, no doubt about it. But why don't we use it in the winter? Why don't we turn it into a skateway? The Rideau Canal Skateway. And people can skate on it. And it'd be good for tourism, it'd be good for exercise, it'd be a beautiful thing to see. And so they designed it, and they opened it. And by 19, I guess it was 71, I think it was the first time it opened. And it was a huge hit immediately.

And in those days, days before the climate started changing, it was open for quite a while. That first year, 1971, it was open about five weeks. The next year, 1972, it was open three and a half months. And that, I think, still is the record, that second year, three and a half months. But there were a lot of, you know, two months, two and a bit months, all the way through until the last few years. Where the season of the skateway has shortened considerably.

And we know why. We know why because the climate is warming. And this year was the shortest on record for the Rideau Canals Gateway. Ten days. That's it. That's all. Ten days. And I don't think they were consecutive. I think they were to close in the middle of it all at one point.

But ten days compared to three and a half months, only, what, 50 years ago. Now, it's not been a steady, perfect decline. It's had its ups and downs. Just three or four years ago, it was a couple of months. But this year was 10 days. And you know what? Not just Ottawa.

This winter has been, well, if you believe in winters, it's been a bit of a failure. Not much winter in the winter of 23-24. And the Ottawa winter was one that only cost us our recreation. When you look to other parts of the country, and especially in the West, it has been devastating, and continues to be so, and could pose huge problems as we move towards the summer. Drought.

So that's what we're going to talk about today, and its relationship to covering this story, and the whole relationship to climate change and where our heads are at on climate change these days and where government's heads are at in terms of climate change these days. So that's our topic today and we've got a great guest to talk about it. Chris Hatch is his name. Some of you may very well be aware of him. He's the climate reporter for the National Observer, based out of Vancouver. He had a feature story a couple of days ago called Zombie Fires and Smoldering Desire in his column called Zero Carbon

in the National Observer. So I dialed up Chris the other day and asked him if he'd appear on the program to talk about what he discovered and where we're kind of at as we head deeper into 2024. And it's a picture that I think you're going to find alarming. You may have heard some of the fringes around this story, but we'll go into it in a little more detail with Chris.

So why don't we get right at it. Chris Hatch, climate reporter for the National Observer. His column So let's get to our discussion with Chris Hatch. Here we go. So Chris, when I started reading your newsletter, I think I was just surprised about some of the things in it as you were when you discovered them, starting off with the fact that Alberta's already declared the official start of the fire season.

It's February. How is that? How did that happen? It is shocking. It's only February. We should be in the middle of winter, and we're really seeing it from coast to coast of the country. You know, the gateway is closed again, only open for just a few days.

We have low snowpack across the country. We have huge swaths of the country already in drought, extreme drought, a lot of it. And that's right. When Alberta is already declared to start the fire season, there are something like 50 fires overwintering in the province, completely unheard of. You know, I think most people know that we all have to be really careful about putting our campfires out because they can look like

they're out but they they're actually smoldering away below the surface but in recent years what we've found is that even these um enormous um forest fires that look like they're out once the snows come and the winter sets in are actually smoldering away all winter long and then flare up again. Don't need any lightning or any ignition at all once spring comes around. So we've got 50 already in Alberta, and I think you said there's even more in British Columbia, in this phenomenon of overwintering fires,

which is something new to, certainly new to me, certainly new, I'm sure, to a lot of people. You call them, I don't know whether it's your term or whether it's an accepted term, this is zombie fires. Where's that come from? What is that all about? Yeah, well, I think the more technical term is overwintering fires um but you'll hear even scientists talking about them as a as zombie fires just i think a lot more catchy and and and really you know um makes the point that um we are entering into an era as we've changed the climate more and more and more where really crazy things are coming at us weather patterns that we had just never seen before

zombie fires lasting over the winter is just the most most recent cause for concern yeah and you know as you're saying Alberta's already declared a state of emergency people are really worried I think they're the the the briefings that politicians are getting must be pretty scary because we had the federal public safety minister come out recently, Arjun Sajjan warning that we're, we're really could be in for it this summer. Same thing in British Columbia. The premier is issuing public warnings already and setting aside money.

And, you know, as I'm sure we all know, last summer was just off the charts. You know, we released more climate pollution from forest fires, well more, I think three times as much as the whole country emitted in climate pollution and everything else we do, all our factories and cars and everything else. So these are the kind of runaway effects of climate change that really drive home the fact that the time to act is now. We've got to get our act together on this issue if we don't want to risk things spiraling beyond our control. I want to get to that point in a minute and get your thoughts on it.

But first, Ontario too, you included a thing in your newsletter that the Ontario firefighters, those who deal with the forest fire situations, are quite concerned that their government isn't isn't concerned enough or isn't taking it seriously enough as to what could be happening uh in their province as well yeah that's right the um some of the forest fire crew leaders and um union representatives that um you know that represent the firefighters are really worried about just how we're organizing firefighting, how disjointed it is, how much we rely on summer students to get out there, the levels of burnout, just the the amount of people that we're we're going to require

going forward and the level of coordination within provinces and between provinces that we're we just were not at all ready for what we saw last summer and there's not much evidence that provinces like Ontario have gotten their act together. So that if something like that does happen again, which it almost certainly will at some point in the future, we don't know this summer or next, but we know that's the direction we're headed. We just really need to get coordinated in terms of forest fire fighting. And, you know, it's not an easy job. It's not like your normal summer job that we tend to think of.

I mean, there were fatalities in more than a few last year, fighting fires in Canada. I guess aside from that, the one thing that I'll never forget about last summer, and I guess, you know, it was caused by an intersection of a number of things, the wind patterns, et cetera, et cetera. But those images we saw in New York and Boston of the, you know, the pink sky, it was caused by smoke, as they told us, from Canada, from Western Canada. It was something that we'd never seen before. It looked apocalyptic. But as I said, it might have been a combination of a number of things that were happening. But I assume that the way you're talking, that we could be heading into more of that kind of thing

where it's seen well beyond just the areas of the actual fires yeah that's absolutely right um you know the the general trend is just so clear and and so worrying that um we keep making the landscape hotter we keep making it drier um you know we're turning our forests into it into a tinderbox especially the the great boreal forests that reach across northern canada and and we know it's not it's not just happening in canada you know it's um that same belt of forest reaches around through siberia which is also having enormous fires. And in even drier regions, you know, we saw what happened around the Mediterranean last summer.

So it's like, you know, climate change doesn't cause these fires. Climate change dries out the landscape and makes, turns our forests tinder dry. So that when you have a fire, by lightning or from whatever source of ignition, it just rages in a way that we've never seen before. And that's what we hear from all the forest firefighters reporting back, is that it's fire behavior that they just hadn't seen before you know it's a thing that looked like it was miles off and suddenly it was right at the edge of town you know a fire that where you used to set up a perimeter or you imagined the river would

be a natural fire break just leaps it in a matter of minutes. And the speed and ferocity of this new era that some people are calling the pyro scene, the age of fire, is just not like anything firefighters have had to deal with before. And aside from drying out the forest, as you hinted at earlier, the drought that it's causing in areas that we depend upon, like the prairies for wheat, et cetera, et cetera. Some of the early indications, if they don't get, you know, some sense of heavy snow in the immediate future or rain clearly a lot of it in the spring, we could be into, you know another kind of i

don't know whether to say dirty 30s but it could be really ugly across the prairies this summer if that drought those drought conditions continue yeah well we're already seeing um pictures of reservoirs that are down to you know half of where they should be right now, or even much worse, 12% some reservoirs in Alberta are reporting. task force and is already beginning talks with communities about how they're going to ration water if things play out the way that they look like they will. But again, you know, this is the kind of thing the scientists have been warning us for a lot of years now that would come with climate change. Not only the landscape would dry out in a lot of food growing regions but we lose the glaciers and the snow pack that act effectively as our natural water towers that bring you know supply water through the summer and so we lose those at the same time as the rainfall itself, you know, becomes a lot less during growing season.

And so we're looking at real problems for agriculture, especially in the Canadian prairies, which are, you know, predisposed to dry, predisposed to drought. We know we've had major problems um with drought in the past the dust bowl is that you mentioned is a you know such a you know an incredible example and what we're doing with climate change is just loading the dice and making it much more likely that we get those kinds of events more and more frequently in the future and that last longer and longer and become at first a semi-permanent part of our life and then, you know, we really hope not, but very likely permanent change in the whole region. The other part of your newsletter that I found intriguing

and was a bit surprised by it, because guess like you i get you know i don't just get mail about people worrying about climate change i get mail about people saying it's all bs you know that it's all this has always happened i think climate's changed and blah blah blah all that and there's nothing specific about this one that makes it any different than the past ones um here's my here's the other part that i found intriguing though in your newsletter about this one that makes it any different than the past ones. Here's the other part that I found intriguing, though, in your newsletter. It's that this new study, a recent study by Gallup,

the polling organization, along with a number of scientific organizations, did some polling on how people are prepared or want to see their governments doing more. And this wasn't just your normal sort of thousand person poll by Gallup or any polling organization. This was a huge poll, hundreds of thousands of people involved in different parts of the world. And the conclusion seemed to be that people in a high percentage of people, very high, want their governments to do more. Don't think they're taking it seriously enough. Did that surprise you when you saw those numbers? It did surprise me. You know, we're talking about 125 countries that they surveyed, 130,000 people.

And in 125 of those countries, or sorry, out of the 125 countries, in 114 of them, a full majority is willing to contribute some percentage of their income to, um, tackle climate change. And in all of them, um, you know, a large majority thinks the government, uh, should be doing more, but, um, the really interesting, one of the really interesting things to me was that, um, in almost every instance, that majority thinks it's a minority. So the people don't realize that their concern and their worry is shared. And I think that makes a big difference for our politics and in terms of how concern is able to be expressed. How do you square that? Why do you think that's the case? The fact that they themselves are surprised

that they're a part of the majority, not the minority? I think that we've had a really tragic history of climate change in public dialogue where for literally for decades it has come under fire as a hoax and, um, been bound up in the culture wars. And, you know, it's a crazy situation where this is really something that's just a matter of looking at thermometers around the world and you know the basic physics of trapping heat in the atmosphere um from burning fossil fuels and and releasing um carbon dioxide

and other greenhouse gases the very basic physics it's um very basic science we've had um the observational data to tell us that it is playing out just as science expected, um, for quite a long time, but it has been so heavily, um, politicized and, um, and fought that I think, I mean, I find this myself, I, you know, I just don't want to have the conversation at a family dinner because it's, it's just likely to turn nasty or it could turn nasty. And so I think we're, we're, we're wildly, um, overestimating how likely it is to turn nasty. In fact, that most people, um, you know, are right there. They're worried too. They see the fires. They see the threats to agriculture. They're worried, and they wish someone was doing more about it.

But it's just not something we talk about in our daily life with our friends very much. And it does seem like that is one key to breaking this open, is breaking that silence. You know, your beat is climate. You talk climate. You're always looking at the climate stories. So it's more than just, you know, family and friends at the dinner table.

It's the people you cover and the people who read your paper and read your columns. What do you say to them when they challenge you on climate change? What's your answer? Well, I do not engage very much with people who are all the way into climate change as a hoax. I just have not had any success really. And I think it's a very tiny sliver of the population. Um, much more, um, I think constructive is to talk with people who for whatever reason, um,

are worried about the kind of solutions that we need and what that might mean. So if you're, you know, if you're working in an industry that, you know, relies on oil and gas in some sense, or maybe it's steel, you know, where high heat is required, um, you have very good reason to be worried. You know, how am I, what's my job going to look like in 10 years? How am I going to feed my family, pay my mortgage? Those kinds of concerns are totally legitimate. And there, I think, you know, there's a really important question that we need to have where we, we come to agreement that the way we've been doing things is going to have to change. And thankfully, there are tens of thousands, literally hundreds of thousands of people around the world beavering on better ways, better technologies to supply all of the energy needs that we have.

Have you thought about how you're planning to report on and cover and interview in terms of this year ahead? With every indication at this point, there could be worse than last year. You know, fires for one thing for example have you thought about how you how you plan to tell that story any differently than you'd been doing it all already because you're sort of out there on the front edges of this of this story um. Um, but as you say, you got to keep convincing people. Yeah. I think that, um, one of the reasons, um, that we haven't taken climate change as seriously as, um, we should have logically, um, is that it's, you know, it's what they call psychological proximity.

It just has always seemed like it's something that's going to be a problem for someone else somewhere else, and probably in the global south. And it's a real tragedy, but we're going to be okay here in a country like Canada. And that's increasingly not the case. And I think that the stories of people that make it more and more real and something close to home for folks. And close to home can make so much of a difference. You know, I remember when I first went to the Arctic to cover climate stories was early in this century.

So it was like, you know, 2003, 4, 5, 6 in there. So about 20 years ago. And the scientists who were there looking at the situation, the argument they were making was, this is the pointed end of the problem for Canada. You're seeing it first here. but it's coming your way. And that was hard to convince people of, just as you're saying, you know, it's somewhere else's problem, right? But it seems from what you're reporting in your newsletter, and it's elsewhere now too um that that that point of it coming to you soon

has come to us now we're seeing it and this could be you know last summer was bad enough this summer could be worse on on a number of fronts not just the fires but the drought um So it is coming to us. You can't back away from it now and point elsewhere. Am I overstating it? I think you've got it exactly right. It's coming to us, and, you know, it's like a supertanker to turn this thing around, you know. It takes a lot of work in a lot of cities and provinces it's like a super tanker to turn this thing around, you know, it's, um, it takes a lot of work and a lot of cities and provinces and countries all acting together to, um,

cut climate pollution back down and the impacts are not waiting. So it's, um, it's really tragic that it should be a politicized issue in this or in any country around the world. Because what we really do need is for politicians to get proactive here. You know, they're getting the briefings. They know where this is all headed. And I think it's really tragic to see it politicized because it just confuses the public. It makes it incredibly hard to move any policies forward.

And we need to be moving a lot faster and in a lot deeper way than we are right now. And I, I, I do really think this is the kind of issue that, um, you know, it sounds naive, but we need politicians to be able to say, look, this, this, this is serious. This is a common threat that we all face. And, um, let's stop playing with it as a political issue um trying to aggravate um you know sort of people's sense on either side and um and come together in the way that we do on some issues you know we we have depoliticized largely, I think, immigration in this country in a way that other countries have not, because we recognize that it's for the common good in the long term.

And I think something like that is dearly needed on climate change. Well, I'll tell you what doesn't confuse the public is good journalism and good reporting. And you're certainly doing some of that, Chris. We appreciate it. And I certainly appreciate the opportunity to have a chat with you about some of these latest things that you're keeping the public aware of and unconfused about. And I'm sure we'll have the opportunity to talk again. So for this time, though, thanks so much for this. That means a lot coming from you, Peter. Thank you.

Chris Hatch from the National Observer. He's based in Vancouver. You can follow him at thenationalobserver.com, and he writes the climate piece in the National Observer. And his latest article, or at least I guess it was last week, his column is called Zero Carbon. And you can find his latest column, Zombie Fires and Smoldering Desire,

as I said, at nationalobserver.com. All right, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, something, well, something a little more upbeat in terms of why we love this country. And that comes right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge right here on Sirius XM, Channel 167 Canada Talks

or on your favorite podcast platform. Wherever you're listening to us, whatever platform you're listening to us on, we welcome you on board. You know, I got a letter last week from somebody who was complaining that I stutter and sort of ramble with thought at times. And it's true, I do. But that's what this is all about. You know, this is the podcast. There's nothing written here. You know, I read the odd

letter and I read the odd in bit. But I don't write anything down about what I say. So sometimes I'm thinking live. And it just sort of comes to me as it comes to me. And sometimes that involves a little bit of stutter is not the right word, but you know what I mean. Anyway, I got something here that I found in theplanetd.com

And it's a great piece that I found in theplanetd.com. And it's a great piece because it's about Canada. And if I can only find it, I'll share it with you. Here it is. The headline on it is 35 Best things to do in Canada by Canadians. Now, I'm not going to read all 35, but I'll read a few of them because they're pretty nice, and they do a sweep across the country, and it's always nice to look at things that they tell you

these are the best things about something, and you've actually been to them or seen them or eaten them or whatever the case may be in terms of the list you're looking at. And so this one, 35 Best Things to Do in Canada, is pretty neat. You know, the very first one on the list, I grew up with back when it was not an organized tourist thing. They were just right there in your community.

You figured it out, I'm sure, already. Walk with polar bears. That's the number one thing, apparently, according to this list and theplanetd.com, of the best things to do in Canada. You don't want to walk too close. That's why they have those special buggies, Churchill, Manitoba, to have a look at the bears in what's generally accepted as the polar bear capital of the world, right up there along Hudson Bay.

So that's polar bears. How about soaring over the banff national park you know you get up there get up high you can either take one of the kind of tramway things upside of one of the mountains of banff but it's pretty spectacular still in the same area, canoe Lake Louise. Now, I've never canoed Lake Louise, but I've been to Lake Louise a couple of times. And it is, it's awesome. You know, you're just, you're struck by it, no doubt about that.

You know, the ice fields near Jasper. That's pretty good. Go tidal bore rafting. Right in the Bay of Fundy. Thrill seekers will love tidal bore rafting on the Bay of Fundy. Drive the Dempster Highway. Well, you've got to be committed and go north for that. On the Bay of Fundy. Drive the Dempster Highway. Well, you've got to be committed and go north for that.

Halfway through that drive, the Athabasca Glacier, the Columbia Icefields. The icefields are the largest non-polar icefields in the world. I didn't know that. In Algonquin Park, that's in Ontario, a moose safari. Never done that. They claim there's nothing more Canadian than seeing a moose while canoeing. That may be true. that may be the case and guess what's

last on our list of at least the ones I'm sharing with you today skate on the Rideau Canal well you gotta be fast to do that right skate on the Rideau Canal. Well, you've got to be fast to do that, right? They only had 10 days to do it this year. But it is a treat, and it's something you'll never forget.

As I said, I grew up before they started building the canal in Ottawa. But when I got back to Ottawa in the late 70s and early 80s, I was working on Parliament Hill as a parliamentary correspondent. We used to go skating on the canal. It was amazing. It was just an incredible feeling to do that. You sure felt it in your legs after. I think it's about a seven kilometer run from the locks down at the Ottawa River out to Dallas Lake.

I think it's seven kilometers or seven miles. I think it's seven kilometers. So it's a good, healthy skate. Okay. That's going to do it for this week. Or not for this week, but for this day. And the reminder that the question of the week, and you've only got until 6 p.m. Eastern time tomorrow to get your answer in to qualify for the book, signed copy of one of my books. The question is, if you could do one thing to improve Canada's health care system,

what would that one thing be? So send that one thing in a paragraph or so to the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. Please remember your name and the location you're writing from are important. So add those. Keep it short. 6 p.m. tomorrow, Eastern Time, is the cutoff date. So tomorrow, it's Encore Wednesdays, and a special encore this week.

It's not really an encore. It's a special edition. It's an encore of another podcast, one that I was a guest on, called The Big Story. And this was just a couple of days ago. And so I'm going to play that podcast for you tomorrow in the Encore Edition slot of The Bridge. So catch that one if you can.

It's more of me rambling. Ramblin' Beat. That's it for today. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. I'll talk to you again. Well, we'll talk to you in a different way again in 24 hours. Thank you.