The Language of Climate Change

[Music]

climate change isn’t just changing the

natural environment

it’s changing language take the word

megafire

which was once the way we described our

largest and most destructive wildfires

that burned over a hundred thousand

acres

nowadays we have gigafires that burn

over a million like a 2020 fire in

california

that burned an area nearly three times

the size

of los angeles black summer

was a term coined by australians for

their recent bushfire season

due to the unusually intense fires that

burned an area more than

five times the size of vancouver island

and here in british columbia canada we

lived

through the smoke from fires in

washington and oregon this past summer

we can recall the effects the sting in

our eyes and lungs

sunny days hidden by a smoky blanket

but there were also the effects that we

didn’t see

as an ecologist watching these fires

burn

i saw carbon carbon stored in trees

shrubs and soils that took decades

sometimes centuries to accumulate

quickly combusted and sent into the

atmosphere as greenhouse gases

the same gases released by the burning

of fossil fuels

the main driver of climate change that

we’re facing today

and i saw all the climate benefits of an

intact forest

carbon removal as plants take co2 carbon

dioxide

out of the atmosphere as they grow i

watched those benefits

disappear as well and these wildfire

missions are nothing to scoff at

here in bc our two back-to-back extreme

wildfire seasons in 2017 and 18

each produced three times more

greenhouse gases

than all other sectors combined

meaning forests which are one of our

most important assets in the fight

against climate change

can just as easily be a liability

trees can and do regrow post-fire

building up carbon as they do

but building that carbon takes time

and in the fight against climate change

time is precisely

what we lack so

how did we get to an era of gigafires

and what can we do about it

let’s start by talking about fire

suppression a phrase that used to be

jargon but is now just part of our

general vocabulary

before this policy many landscapes in

north america burned regularly

due to fires ignited by lightning and

those ignited by indigenous people to

sustain healthy ecosystems and

communities

fire maintained ecological integrity and

landscape mosaics

forested stands clumps of shrubs

grasslands and bare ground

all intermixed this variation changed

the flow of fire across the landscape

and constrained the severity of many of

these burns

but european colonizers forcibly removed

indigenous communities from their land

and inhibited traditional fire

stewardship around the turn of the 20th

century

both canada and the united states

implemented comprehensive policies of

fire suppression

and effectively banned burning by

indigenous communities

intentionally excluding fire we

fundamentally altered

the structure character and resilience

of our forests

our landscapes became dominated by

conifers which in large continuous

stands can quickly carry and spread fire

and increase the risk of pest and

disease outbreaks like mountain pine

beetle

which has taken a staggering toll here

in bc

in the absence of regular fire and with

millions of beetle kill trees

our forests are packed to the brim with

fuel ready to burn

layered on top of these dangerous forest

conditions

is climate change which brings us not

only new words

but reinvigorates old words with new

meaning

words like unprecedented which i know

after 2020 none of us want to hear again

but

at the same time when it comes to

climate no other word captures

the moment that we’re in or where we’re

headed

in relation to today’s forests

unprecedented

applies to higher temperatures extended

droughts and rapid fire spread

so we see bigger fires more often that

are harder to control

and riskier to humans in relation to

today’s climate

unprecedented applies to atmospheric co2

concentrations

which ice cores tell us are higher than

any

time in the last 800 000 years

meaning higher than any time in the

history of our species

this is a direct consequence of fossil

fuel burning which governments around

the world have subsidized

even after the consequences were well

understood

despite language about the new normal

the changes to our climate are just

getting started

if we continue to burn fossil fuels we

will keep breaking records

and move deeper into an unprecedented

world

so what do we do

as the conditions of our world change we

must shift our thinking

re-examine our language and let words

take on new meaning

why because changes in language are a

precursor to action

and a first step towards change

the word conservation conjures ideas of

preservation

of landscapes untouched by human

activity

but in reality indigenous people have

been managing and shaping north

america’s landscape since time

immemorial

and now climate change is bringing human

influence to even

the most protected areas of the world as

temperatures shift and rain patterns

change

some forests will no longer be able to

support the species that we’ve expected

there for generations

instead of viewing conservation as the

preservation

of what once was we need the language of

conservation

to mean preparation for what will be

in a word we need resilience

ecological resilience so that our

forests can persist

and thrive in the face of tomorrow’s

wildfires

so that they can continue to support not

just our species

but all species that call these forests

home

so that forests can be part of the

solution and

actively remove carbon from our

atmosphere

but resilience like trust is

challenging to build but deceptively

easy to dismantle

thousands of years of evolutionary and

human history

created the resilient forests of our

past and it just took

over a single century of burning fossil

fuels

and suppressing fires to unravel the

whole

damn thing

those invested in continuing to burn

fossil fuels

embrace the language of moderation that

climate

action means each of us turning down our

thermostat by a few degrees or

simply abiding by smokey the bears

refrain that only you

can prevent forest fires but

what climate action demands is the

language of transformation

transforming how the energy that powers

a thermostat is generated

and transforming the conditions of

forests themselves

building resilience requires

unprecedented action

to match the scale of this crisis and an

acknowledgement

that climate change is not an individual

problem

but a systemic one not an issue of

choices

but of policies that’s

not to say that individual decisions

don’t matter

they’re just insufficient

because when it comes to climate change

our systems

have failed

all right that was heavy

but there are reasons for us to hope

because if

policies got us here policies can help

us get

out we could restore indigenous land

stewardship

and remove the bureaucratic barriers

that stifle the reintroduction of

traditional fire

we can replace the language of fire

suppression

with that of adaptive management which

is already practiced here in bc

but could be practiced at a much greater

scale

this means investing resources to create

jobs so we can physically remove

fuel from our landscapes by using

thinning or

prescribed burns but then also we need

to use that fuel

that carbon in ways that keeps it out of

the atmosphere

even after it’s left the forest

we could remove the word glyphosate a

powerful herbicide

from our forest management policies this

chemical is currently sprayed on

thousands of acres of regrowing forest

and promotes commercially valuable

species at the expense of hardwoods like

aspen

which can naturally moderate fire

behavior

and finally we have to eliminate fossil

fuel subsidies

which are in direct conflict with

provincial and federal

efforts to combat climate change because

when it comes to carbon without reducing

the amount of greenhouse gases that we

pump into the atmosphere

all the tree planting and forest

management in the world

won’t make a difference

the language of climate action is here

for

our taking what we need is the

collective courage to act

as individuals we must demand

transformative action from our elected

officials

and the systems they represent on our

behalf

we can proactively manage our forests

with carbon and tomorrow’s wildfires in

mind

we can reimagine the language of our

policies

to prioritize justice and climate action

and we can transform our systems to meet

the urgency of this

moment the urgency of our

moment by doing so

we give future generations a fighting

chance at resilience themselves

because while gigafires may be our

reality today

they don’t have to be our future

thank you

you