The impact of global heating is creating disasters for which governments are not prepared, so must be on the agenda of the class struggle, argues John Clarke

At least one-third of the town of Jasper in Alberta has been destroyed by a major wildfire. Along with the national park in which it is located, this major tourist resort attracts millions of visitors each year. As of 28 July, it was reported that the fire had already consumed 79,000 acres and ‘the flames could stay ablaze for months’.

The Parks Canada website states that this ‘is the largest wildfire recorded in Jasper National Park in the last 100 years, and ensuring that residents and visitors are safe to return will take time.’ Officials also noted that it had been possible to ‘widen the control line to protect the town of Jasper from the increased fire activity that’s expected to unfold later this week.’ It was important to take these measures because weather ‘forecasts indicate that dry conditions will make it easier for the wildfire to grow.’

The risk that the fire continues to pose to the town is obviously very considerable. ‘The fire has burned over a very large area. Due to the drought conditions that existed before the fire and the high intensity of the fire itself, many hot spots exist throughout the fire’s area and along the perimeter. These hot spots take extraordinary amounts of water directly applied to them in order to be fully extinguished.’

The Jasper fire, which is considered to be ‘out of control’, is one of 125 that are currently burning in Alberta and, on 27 July, it was reported that the neighbouring province of British Columbia had 396 active wildfires to contend with.

Wildfires intensifying

The wildfire season in Canada in 2023 was by far the most destructive on record. There were more than 6,132 fires that spread over 16.5 million hectares of land, an area that is larger than Greece. By 24 July this year, some 2.2 million hectares had been torched but there is very little reason to take comfort in this smaller figure. With weeks to go before the end of the present season, this year’s fires have already burned an area that is almost equal to the yearly average and the present upsurge of fires in Western Canada suggests that this average will be surpassed by a wide margin. This year provides further evidence that a pattern of intensifying wildfires is still underway.

The same pattern is also apparent in the western part of the United States, where a series of very major wildfires are presently burning out of control. In northern California, on 26 July, a fire the size of the city of Los Angeles was consuming eight square miles every hour. On the same day, the National Interagency Fire Center reported that more ‘than 110 active fires covering 2,800 square miles (7,250 square kilometres) were burning in the U.S.’

In both countries, the climate-related factors that are generating a hugely increased risk of wildfires are very easy to discern. A Government of Canada drought assessment for June of this year noted that at ‘the end of the month, 38% of the country was classified as Abnormally Dry (D0) or in Moderate to Exceptional Drought (D1 to D4), including 35% of the country’s agricultural landscape.’

Conditions of drought, moreover, are compounded by intensifying episodes of extreme heat. Last month, the BBC reported that more ‘than 70 million Americans – about one in five of the population – are living under heat alerts as temperatures soar. Warnings have also been issued in four Canadian provinces with much of the continent now gripped by the heatwave.’ The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests the global trend is towards the intensification of extreme heat and that this is ‘fuelled by activities like burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests.’

It is striking that two climate-related records were broken in Canada last year. Not only was 2023 the worst year ever for wildfires but the country’s crude oil production was taken to new levels. According to Statistics Canada, annual ‘production of crude oil and equivalent products rose for the third year, up 1.4% to 286.4 million cubic metres in 2023, resulting in the highest volume since the start of this data series in 2016. Based on the latest available international data (2022), Canada remained among the top four oil producers worldwide.’

A comparable situation exists in the United States, which ‘is the largest crude oil producer in the world, pumping out nearly 13 million barrels on average every day in 2023, an all-time record.’ Moreover, as an article in Vox shows, for ‘the last six years, America has outstripped Russia, Saudi Arabia, and other OPEC countries in crude oil production.’ The Biden administration has actually outdone that of Donald Trump in this regard.

As the wildfire threatened the Jasper area, Reuters chose a very ironic headline to describe the situation. The news agency informed us that ‘Canadian wildfire reaches Jasper, firefighters battle to protect oil pipeline.’ As The Narwhal explains, this effort was had to be taken up because ‘Trans Mountain, a 1,150-kilometre pipeline system that transports both crude oil and refined petroleum products from Edmonton to refineries and export terminals on the B.C. and Washington State coasts’ runs through Jasper National Park.

Trans Mountain officials put out a statement in the midst of the crisis that included a reassurance that ‘we continue to work with the Town of Jasper and Jasper National Park to safely monitor the pipeline. At this time there is no indication of damage to our infrastructure, and the pipelines continue to operate safely.’ In the middle of such a climate-induced disaster, the contention that a fossil fuel pipeline is operating safely is bitterly humorous.

Lack of preparation

Last year’s wildfires in Canada and those that are raging this year point to how shockingly unprepared the authorities are to deal with such disasters. This is part of a broader problem when it comes to planning and preparation to deal with the impacts of climate change. An article in the Guardian in February observed that from ‘deadly floods in California to devastating fires in Chile, scientists say the world is not prepared for the climate disasters that are hitting with increasing frequency as human-driven global heating continues to break records.’

The article quoted Raul Cordero, a climate professor at the University of Santiago: ‘Fuelled by extreme weather and climate extremes, the frequency of climate-related disasters has dramatically risen in recent years.’ He added that in ‘some regions of the world, we are facing climate-fuelled disasters for which we are not prepared, and it is unlikely that we will be able to fully adapt to them.’

Cordero’s observations certainly apply very well when it comes to the Jasper fire. When Alberta’s premier, Danielle Smith, spoke publicly about the devastation inflicted on the town, ‘her voice slipped and she held back tears.’ Yet Smith’s right-wing government has relentlessly downplayed the question of climate change and supported the most reckless course when it comes to fossil-fuel production. She has even tried to suggest that wildfires are the result of arson, when, of course, the issue is not one of what ignites a particular fire but how combustible the forests have become because of climate change.

An article in Press Progress, explains that, as of 2023, Alberta governments headed by Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP) had reduced the province’s wildfire management budget from $130 million in 2019 to $100.5 million. While Smith insisted that she would introduce a ‘more nimble’ system of fire management, the UCP cuts meant that the province’s ability to detect and effectively fight wildfires’ was very seriously undermined.

As the extreme weather and disastrous events caused by climate change continue to intensify, it becomes ever clearer that governments, left to their own devices, will fail to adopt the measures of public safety and social protection that are utterly essential in such a situation. Workers and communities under threat are going to have to mobilise and press their demands in the face of such abandonment. The climate crisis is generating a fight for survival that will reshape the class struggle in the years ahead.