I have a great weather app conveniently called “Weather.” Its animated wind maps are hypnotizing. It also has air quality maps, complete with recommendations for what we should do to minimize exposure when the air quality index leans more toward fiery purple than cool green. You would hardly know those increasingly warm colors on the maps mean Canadian forests are burning again, that mother nature’s hair is on fire.
In 2016, about 88,000 people, most of them drawn to Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada, for work mining tar sands, staged one of the most successful evacuations in history. In a few days, large portions of that city were not so much burned as evaporated. Even cement, in some areas, was spalled by the heat, flaking apart when touched. Aside from a fatal car crash, no one died from the fire or the evacuation, largely because most of those fleeing were oil workers and their families who were used to relying on one another. They cooperated.
I recommend “Fire Weather,” John Vaillant’s brilliant account of this massive fire in the northern forests. The title refers to both the weather that led to fire — including humidity comparable to Death Valley — but also to the weather generated by the colossal heat of the fire itself. Old rules did not apply. Firebreaks, for instance, weren’t only crossed by flying embers. Radiant heat was so intense it could cause trees on the opposite bank of a river to burst into flame, a “flashover” usually confined to rooms in a burning house. Whole homes disappeared in minutes, not hours.
Vaillant’s conclusion? The one that struck me was that a potentially fatal flaw for humanity is our poor understanding of exponents. Not what I was expecting. He says it another way. If you talk to survivors of a catastrophic hurricane, they always seem to wonder what happened to the time to prepare. They may have seen the storm coming for a week, but when it was upon them, it felt like it came suddenly. We’ve been hearing about a coming change in the climate for way too long. Now that it is obviously, irrefutably upon us, we are recognizing the really big “uh-oh.” Climate change causes climate change. Those burning forests, the purples on the app, are releasing the carbon they used to trap. Climate change is exponential, not linear. It accelerates.
Massachusetts has been a leader in trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. Our Climate Leader program offers an incentive of up to $1 million a year in outright grants to towns for energy improvements. The program is intentionally weighted to promote transition from fossil-fueled to all-electric homes. Yes, electric power is still largely from gas, but the state recognizes that it will be easier to convert a few generation stations than every house in the state. Furthermore, the funded projects are the very alternatives needed to reduce reliance on gas-powered generation.
The so-called “extended stretch” building code Climate Leader communities must adopt — the focus of resistance in Deerfield — only affects new building, not renovations. The misplaced perception of added construction costs has delayed bringing Climate Leadership to vote at town meeting even though it would mean no change at all to current codes for new all-electric buildings, except for incentive payments that actually lower the cost. External fossil-fuel backup systems such as gas-powered generators are allowed. The code does allow mixed-fuel building but with added requirements including pre-wiring and solar capacity that would add up-front cost.
Deerfield averages about two new homes a year. We know that $1 million could largely pay for solar on our school and DPW buildings that would save $83,000 each year. Surely, a fraction of that $83,000 could be dedicated to reimbursing new homeowners should heating with electricity prove to be more expensive than it would have been with gas, which is by no means a given.
Ultimately this is a moral, not financial decision. Deerfield already receives funding for monitoring the advance of disease-carrying insects as our winters warm. The town and local farmers have already received millions in disaster relief for flooding that is likely to get worse. Don’t we have any obligation to do our part? Is it such a debilitating sacrifice to accept $1 million a year just to do the right thing?
Climate change is exponential. It is time to pay attention to the purple. The least we can do is vote to become a Climate Leader Community at our next town meeting.
David Gilbert Keith lives in Deerfield.