CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – It’s human nature to think that there must be a ‘solution’ to everything.
Sometimes there isn’t.
Consider the wildfires in Canada.
Canada has some unusual ideas about what to do about them. The Canadians suggest that the United States remove tariffs on lumber. No tariffs would lead to more lumber sales in the U.S… and more harvesting of trees in the forests of Canada. So… less fuel for wildfires.
The United States, instead, has raised tariffs as a punishment for the smoke-filled air that’s drifting into the U.S. We say Canada does an inadequate job of managing its timberlands. They don’t clear out dead underbrush. They don’t clear-cut areas that could serve as fire breakers. They don’t devote the same resources to fighting wildfires that we do.
But what we forget is that Canada is much larger than the United States – two-thirds larger. Almost all of their forest land is uninhabited. We fight wildfires to keep neighborhoods near Los Angeles from burning. Canada is far more remote.
Some environmentalists say mankind is to blame for wildfires. That there’s less snow, so less ground moisture, and more dry conditions to fuel fires. Yet most of the forests of Ontario, where the fires are burning now, average between 60 and 90 inches of snow each winter. These are not dry lands.
What we need to grudgingly accept is that the biggest negative environmental event this year is not caused by automobile tailpipes, or coal-burning power plants, or the smokestacks of industrialization. It was started by a random lightning strike, hitting a tree, and setting it on fire. And it will be put out by mother nature, the next time a heavy rain falls.
Sometimes, nature is big. Mankind is small.
Chris Conley
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