ECO-SHOWBOATING LED TO USA & CANADA CHOKING IN THE SMOKE

New York Mayor Eric Adams tells New Yorkers not to panic

by Daniel Barge

The jury is still out, but it looks like there is a clear suspect for the forest fires that have been choking tens of millions of people in parts of Canada and the United States. It seems the chief suspect is none-other than Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his emotionally needy desire to be seen as "woke" on the environment and the question of "indigenous peoples".

A few months ago at the Cop15 climate change conference, Trudeau announced a massive C$800m (£510m) funding initiative to pay indigenous people to "manage" large tracts of forest. 

As reported by the Guardian at the time:

On Wednesday, the Canadian prime minister committed C$800m (£510m) of funding over seven years for Indigenous-led conservation projects in his country across an area the size of Egypt, starting a “story of reconciliation” with Indigenous peoples.

The pork-barrel package emphasised the "superiority" of indigenous peoples in supposedly "managing" the environment:

“We are putting forward a new model around conservation with Indigenous-led protections with government participation, and even drawing in private sector and philanthropic initiatives because it is powerful,” Trudeau told a media roundtable attended by the Guardian after the Indigenous-led funding announcement.

“Indigenous communities leading on this is a really good thing. What we’re able to do here is not just show a story of conservation, but a story of reconciliation, about recognising that it’s these partnerships that are going to be essential going forward,” he said.

So, Trudeau basically gave "native Canadians" shitloads of money to let large areas of forest grow wild and become cluttered with deadwood and undergrowth, etc., because it boosts the number of bugs, fungus, and lichens. Talk about decolonising the environment!

More Trudeau judo?

This is all part of long-running changes to "forest management", which basically just means that a lot less gets done, under the banner of being "green" and "inclusive". 

Former "evil White man" forest management techniques have been discarded, with the removal of dead wood and undergrowth using low-intensity controlled burns and maintaining fire trails being allowed to lapse.

In 2020, a paper in the journal Progress in Disaster Science warned that operations to prevent major wildfires were being constricted by lack of funding through de-commercialisation and added environmental red tape caused by attempts to micromanage Canada's biodiversity.

Now all that hard work of moral-signalling is up in flames and choking several major cities.