Editorial: Smoke and mirrors

This week, we experienced first-hand the effects of climate change without significant destruction of property or well-being. While the smoke from the wildfires may have caused some discomfort to some Vermonters, the crisis to our north has caused far more acute problems in other corners of our country.

Some said: "This was just a wildfire; they have been happening on the planet forever."

Sure, fires are normal, and in many cases, they are helpful in keeping ecosystems healthy. That is not the case with the fires in Canada, experts say.

Unusually hot, dry weather that wouldn't stop gave rise to the wildfires. A warming planet will produce hotter and longer heat waves, making for bigger, smokier fires, according to Joel Thornton, a professor and chair of the department of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington.

That's a problem. The intense smoke flowing from dozens of wildfires in several Canadian provinces carried excess levels of airborne soot. In this case, it is a problem for much of the East Coast. The Quebec-area fires are big and relatively close, about 500 to 600 miles from Rhode Island, and they followed wildfires in Nova Scotia. According to published reports, strong winds high up in the atmosphere can transport smoke long distances and it's common for large, violent fires to create unhealthy conditions hundreds of miles away from where forests are burning.

That was an understatement this week.

The right mix of circumstances had to align for the smoke to blanket major U.S. cities: A dry, hot spring set the stage. Then weather did the rest.

In Canada, air is circulating counterclockwise around a low-pressure system near Nova Scotia. That sends air south over the fires in Quebec. There the air picks up smoke, and then turns east over New York state, carrying smoke to the eastern seaboard. This wind pattern isn't particularly rare. But the confluence of events is.

Then there is the factor of what's in that polluted air. Smoke is made up of a complex mix of shapes, from round to corkscrew-shaped under the microscope. It's also a mix of chemistry: gases and carbons and toxic metals. Much of what we see in the air and measure is small particles, or PM 2.5. These are so small they can get deep into the lungs, where oxygen enters your circulation.

Not so with smoke. With climate change amping up fires, increasingly, the concern is that more people being exposed to less extreme smoke for weeks or months. So health officials, including folks here in Vermont, are cautioning against the health risks due to poor air quality. In other words, pay attention in the coming days — and perhaps weeks. It is not over.

This week, President Joe Biden called the smoke from Canadian wildfires in the eastern U.S. "another stark reminder of the impacts of climate change" and said cabinet officials are monitoring the impact on travel and air quality.

It is another example of the changing world around us.

Last month in Vermont, there were concerns extreme weather — in that case cold snaps — had severely damaged spring crops and fruit trees. For years now, we have seen changes to our seasons that are affecting growth patterns, our tourism industry, and the rise of invasive plants, insects, birds, reptiles and animals.

It was reported this week that a warm winter in the South may have had a significant impact on fruit trees there. Some peach farmers in Georgia lost almost their entire crop due to warmer-than-normal conditions. Houston, Tupelo and Atlanta all had one of their top five warmest winters on record this year, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information. Farmers are contending with those warming winters by using new or improved agricultural techniques, trying out new crop varieties and even growing crops that were previously less common in their regions.

(In case you were wondering, the National Weather Service is predicting a warmer-than-normal summer — June to August — for the Northeast, with an average amount of precipitation. That is also not ideal.)

Meanwhile, 30 energy environment and trade ministers plus 50 CEOs assembled in Paris urgently calling for greater investment in energy efficiency for factories, cars and appliances to meet international climate goals. Why? A report released Wednesday says that demand for energy is growing, yet emissions are not growing as fast. Efficiency is increasing every year as technology improves, and last year that increase was twice the average of the previous five years.

In other words, we may be hastening the effects of climate change. Eliminating wasted energy is the most affordable way to bring goods and services to the people who need them — while slowing greenhouse gas emissions — the main driver of global warming, energy experts say.

That, among other reasons, were why young activists are demanding a seat at the next COP28 summit. They feel global leaders are not pushing hard enough, and that without significant policy shifts and changes in attitudes at a planetary level, climate change and its effects will literally take our breath away, along with all of the other resources we need to survive.

The smoke over Vermont was a warning shot. Don't hold your breath that it's going to get easier.