Fire weather: climate chaos is already here | The Chris Hedges Report

Few places illustrate the destructive cycle of fossil fuel-driven climate change as well as Alberta, Canada. Home to the tar sands boom, the province's remote north has also become a site of some of the worst climate disasters in recorded history—like the 2016 Fort McMurray Fire, which swallowed up 1.5 million acres and burned for three months. John Vaillant, author of Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World, joins The Chris Hedges Report to discuss the Fort McMurray Fire, the tar sands industry responsible for the conditions that produced it, and the tinderbox world Big Oil has made in its all-consuming pursuit of profit.

Studio: David Hebden, Cameron Granadino, Adam Coley
Post-Production: Adam Coley, Cameron Granadino

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[SBb]

44:50 We didn't just 'become dependant' on this way of life, we were all born into it, and it exists against our will or ability to fight, at least as individuals. It is an infrastructure we must use to survive, and yet it is simultaneously destroying us. This is dystopia.

[voltrevolt]

John Valliant's book is really excellent. One of the best books I've ever read, really. He's a very good writer who deeply explored the subject matter -- very highly recommended.

[bobbyshorn]

I'm from Canada and this is the best reporting of the subject of Albert and the environment. This news items puts Canadian news and reporting to shame. This is amazing work Real New Network.

[julienkinsale]

I am a welder who spent about 10 tours in Fort Mac. Starting in 1983 to 1987. I then had a 23-year leave from Canada. I went back to 2011 and 2012. I was in Long Lake for six months where I had a serious episode of asthma. Chris your guest is spot-on about camp life and the life for workers in the town of Ft. Mac. And the workers from Cape Breton and the other Maritime provinces. I watched the fires from Phoenix AZ in 2016 and ‘23 with deep sorrow because I was so familiar with Ft Mac.
Thanks for the education from another point of view.

[aaronneil]

As a young adult who was treeplanting in the boreal forest of Northern Ontario in the summer of 2016, and remember hearing news reports about this, I would also add to what the author was speaking about, in that it should be mentioned that the forest around fort McMurray was largely replanted by monoculture tree crops (jack pine and black spruce largely) for the forestry industry. When these saplings were planted, some decades ago after harvesting, they were planted in areas that were previously peat bog and devoid of trees. This dried up the peat and made it essentially a massive pile of tinder for what became the firestorm described. So the forestry industry also played a huge role in this catastrophe. Also this could have been avoided if indigenous land management and forest thinning and small burn practices had been adopted in the years leading up to the fire, emphasizing the importance of indigenous knowledge in adaptation to a changing climate. Such a tragedy.

[cd]

climate crisis? or globalist corporate capitalist terrrorism? I think some of us at least know what we're actually watching

[cheri]

Thank you again, Chris Hedges and John Vailant, for this excellent opportunity to hear this conversation. This is my second time listening.

[rbj]

The Horrors of the current corporate dystopia beautifully spoken❣️⚡️🙏‼️🌎🇺🇸💔💔💔💔💔💢😞

[susanmercurio]

My heart breaks for the wildlife. What did they do to deserve this?

[fluidsystems]

John Valliant, thank you for your journalism & research illustrating this dissociated petrocene effect on daily living...

[daniellatanswell]

Outstanding interview! Thanks Chris ;-)

[davidschlessinger]

the people perpetrating this ecocide are some of the most depraved, psychotically greated, evil jerks the world has ever known

[gabrielmaroto]

Never have I ever experience 60° in March in Minnesota! The first winter ever we haven’t been able to take the family sledding no snow this entire winter in Minnesota !

[JosephBoxmeyer]

The abnormal numbers of food production facilities burning cannot be connected to global warming. The Lahaina fires must be considered suspicious, as neither were efforts made to extinguish them, nor were there any efforts to help the victims. And now they are declaring their intentions to repurpose that land and not allow the house owners back.

[jamesparker]

DEW's...Floods and fires and earthquakes at the flip of a

[danielclint]

Yes Chris, DEW has become common place.

[danielclint]

Just put a blue roof on it and you are fine, isn’t that odd?

[TennesseeJed]

We are not going to slow down our civilization's use of energy until we are forced to by the brutality of nature.

[andreleblanc]

I live in New-Brunswick Canada and this winter has been absolutely bizarre in every sense, feels more like fall weather sometimes. We are fucking-up the climate in ways that will become more and more evident in the coming years.

[danielfaben]

These men have marvelous verbal abilities. Communicating this material is vital. Thank you so much.

The plastic world will burn.