When Wildfires Strike, Canada Blames Racism Instead of Taking Action
Hannah Geiss
News Article: https://www.dailywire.com/news/when-wildfires-strike-canada-blames-racism-instead-of-taking-action
Referenced Publication: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07878-z
Last year was Canada’s most devastating year on record for forest fires. During 2023, a total of 6,623 fires across all 13 provinces and territories forced over 230,000 people to evacuate their homes and dangerously reduced air quality for many more (2). Many factors impact the ability and likelihood of a fire to spread, and most of these factors, including landscape, wind, and weather patterns are entangled with climate change. Wildfires play an important role in the carbon cycle in an undisrupted ecosystem. They release carbon, primarily as CO2 and CH4, into the atmosphere where it can potentially later be incorporated into carbon sinks, including forests (3). Climate trends appear to be impacting the frequency, size, and expansiveness of wildfires (2).
The Byrne et. al. publication in Nature seeks to quantify the carbon emissions that resulted from the record-breaking Canadian wildfires between May and September of 2023. These fires burned more than seven times the average annual area burned or 15 million ha which is 4% of Canada’s forested area. They quantified emissions using the CMS-Flux atmospheric inversion system to inversely model satellite CO observations. Three different ensembles of inversions were performed using three different records of prior fire data. This yielded a mean estimate for carbon emitted of 647 TgC (terragrams carbon, 10^12 g). For context, Byrne et. al. reports that this figure is four times larger than Canada’s cumulative fossil fuel emissions, 149 TgC/yr, and comparable to the nation of India’s annual emissions, 740 TgC/yr. The severity of the 2023 fires was therefore extremely anomalous.
Byrne et. al. explains that although the factors that affect a fire’s spread and intensity are complex and variable, hot and dry conditions are “extremely important in driving fire behavior” (Byrne). Records indicate that 2023 had the driest January-September period since at least 1980 as 86% of forested areas experienced below average rainfall. Additionally, the May-September period was the warmest since at least 1980, with almost 100% of forested areas experiencing above-average temperatures and a shocking 90% being more than 1 s.d. above the average for the past 19 years. Fig. 3 from the paper shows fire emissions as a function of Z-scores for temperature and precipitation. Not shockingly, emissions are highest for combined warm and dry conditions for which 2023 experienced more than any preceding year. This is proposed to be why although 2023 did not have significantly more fires (6,623 fires compared to a 10-year average of 5,597 fires) those fires were so much more dire in their consequences. The last prong of the publication frames these emissions within the context of Canada’s participation in the Paris Agreement, as IPCC guidelines treat all emissions on managed lands as anthropogenic. The authors also highlight how the projected increases in forest fires will compromise Canada’s forests' vital functionality as a carbon sink moving forward.
Matt Walsh of Daily Wire fame authored an article titled, “When Wildfires Strike, Canada Blames Racism Instead of Taking Action,” which previews his descent from rigorous scientific journalism. Walsh’s opening line perfectly encapsulates the hopelessly disingenuous, driveling tone and dependence on assorted fallacies that perpetuate throughout the remainder of the article. In this line, Walsh introduces a strawman argument that will become a central component of his thesis. He conflates climate and weather, which allows him to reduce any data-based climate policy to a “convoluted scheme to control the weather.” The main thrust of his argument is based on the idea that we do not have the capacity to combat climate change because we “actually have very little control over our environment.” This frustratingly false claim ignores the immense body of evidence that shows a statistically significant departure from Earth’s natural fluctuations in temperature, atmospheric CO2, and many other variables since the Industrial Revolution which decidedly suggests that human activity can impact climate.
A few paragraphs after discussing how little control we have over the weather, Walsh completely contradicts this claim by calling out the government of Canada and blaming the fires on poor forest management and arson. Walsh claims that the Canadian government should focus its resources on policies that align with these aims. Byrne et al specifically finds that 2023 did not have significantly more fires than the historical average, so it doesn’t seem reasonable to conclude that some significant increase in arson is to blame. The data suggests that the increase in hot/dry conditions allowed a similar number of fires to ravage seven times the area compared to historical data; no increase in forest management can change the temperature and moisture deficits.
To his credit, Walsh accurately reports the magnitude and severity of the 2023 fires and their enormous carbon emissions. However, he attempts to discredit the “experts” who claimed that the fires were only so severe because of climate change by highlighting how ridiculous it would be for a 1 deg rise in global average temperature to affect changes in fire activity. This is an almost comically obvious strawman argument that blatantly ignores essentially the entire rigorous statistical analysis in Byrne et. al. that relates climate change, hot/dry conditions, and increased fire spread. Instead of developing this shell of an argument, Walsh treks on to make fun of the fact that the Canadian government acknowledged that the federally managed evacuations resulting from the forest fires disproportionately impacted members of the First Nation by reopening the very recent wounds caused by the turbulent history of residential schools and the Sixties Scoop.
Overall I would rate this article a 1/10 because it misrepresents and inaccurately contextualizes the data. Walsh uses the dire reality that rigorous scientific data has shown that the world is literally burning as a result of climate change to fearmonger about his weird, xenophobic attitudes towards ethnic and gender minorities and the somehow equivalently frightening, but equally invalid threat that the government will infringe on your ‘right’ to have a gas stove. His primary goal seems to be spreading a political narrative rather than reflecting on or contextualizing actual data. I give him one point because he did not completely manufacture the data, he managed to cite an actual publication.
References
Ercolao, M. 2024 Canadian Oil Production: A Short-Lived Boom. https://economics.td.com/ca-oil-production-2024 (accessed 2024-10-16).
Wildland Fires, Insects, and Disturbances. https://natural-resources.canada.ca/our-natural-resources/forests/wildland-fires-insects-disturbances/forest-fires/13143 (accessed 2024-10-17).
Wildfire Emissions. https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/documents/frequently-asked-questions-wildfire-emissions (accessed 2024-10-17).
Great analysis! I would definitely agree with your rating of this article. I’m surprised when reading the article that it started off with such a politically motivated statement that government are taking away your rights to have a car and stove, and take away more taxes and less your benefits. Such unsupported and extremely personal statement should be not be included in a news report but rather more fitting in a personal blog. The information presented is accurate, but it is ridiculous how he went and tried to discredit the publication. This article overall sounds very much like someone who had almost no background in the field attempting to fabricate a narrative that supports all their personal beliefs and undermining all other arguments and data by falsely claiming that they are “unreasonable” even with such rigorous study and the acceptance into one of the top scientific journals.
ReplyDeleteI think that your point about personal blogs is interesting. I agree that there is a trend in contemporary media to conflate opinion with fact and this is particularly concerning as it seems to have exposed the lack of critical media literacy skills in the general public. I think that it might be helpful if there was some kind of clear cut way to outwardly tag or fact check opinion pieces like this, it seems that these tools do exist. It is also interesting to recognize the extent to which Walsh just entirely dismisses the Nature publication and has very little respect for the integrity of the journal. He seems to scoff at the idea of the journal and the credibility of the researchers with his remark, "If you check with the experts, of course they will tell you that the wildfires were only so severe because of climate change."
DeleteReally great analysis Hannah, the article is clearly biased and cherry-picks data from the nature article when they want to. I applaud you for finding a news article that would be comical to read if not for the fact that many people believe the Daily Wire at face value and form opinions because of it. Upon looking up Matt Walsh, the author, it is clear that he has a biased agenda on the Daily Wire. As a white male, he seems particularly interested and critical of liberal "DEI" or "anti-racism" topics (see: "Planes Are Falling From The Sky And The DOJ’s Priority Is DEI", "Kamala’s Desperate Final Plea: ‘Vote For Me Or You’re Sexist’", "Kamala’s Pathetic Plan To Bribe Black Voters With Reparations And Marijuana" all within the last 2 weeks). It's really shocking to me how he even found a connection to racism here when climate change and forest fires impacts all people in an area. Even though he seems horribly biased, he still seems to garner attention and has over 1.02 billion views according to his Wikipedia. Considering people like Matt Walsh, someone with apparent influences and adversarial agendas, what can be done so that a nature article so meticulously produced is not used in such a malicious fashion?
ReplyDeleteThanks for adding in the background research on Matt Walsh! I wish I had more time to discuss him and address all of his arguments, he is quite the nefarious character. He seems to have a few issues that will always get him clicks that he tends to try to integrate into every article which is why it seems like he turned an article about forest fires into a discussion about race and gender. To address your question, I am honestly not to sure because this can be a tricky area to regulate as there are legitimate concerns pertaining to free speech. I think that some social medias like Facebook and Instagram have introduced some fact-checking programs, but Walsh primarily publishes on the Daily Wire which has no such regard for facts...
DeleteI really enjoyed your analysis of this article. Although I could not access the second half of the article because it was account protected, the first two paragraphs are aligned with what your analysis states. I think the author definitely has a political agenda when reporting about the scientific article in some way. I think it is interesting how the nature scientific paper is a pure quantification paper about how the forest fires in Canada have affected climate change, yet the scientific paper immediately starts politicizing this scientific discovery by equating the forest fire caused climate change to the "failures" of the Canadian government's attempts to eliminate plastic straws in the economy. The article fails to address how dry seasons are affected by humans which makes it seem like humans have little control over forest fires or the climate in general. I would also give this article a low score because of the same reasons you stated in your analysis.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a great point Allison! Walsh does not engage with the actual content of the Nature article at all. Yes, he cites their statistics about the severity of the fires, but he does not critically engage with the actual findings. This is why I believe he is misrepresenting the findings. He takes there data, ignores the context and uses it to substantiate his weird, hateful takes.
Deletewow. What an article. Hannah, I really liked your analysis and agree with your rating (1/10). Not only were Walsh’s arguments and claims inaccurate and extremely charged, the grammar and sentence structure were also horrendous. The purpose of Walsh’s article was to fuel xenophobic and racist sentiments instead of accurately reporting scientific findings. I noticed Walsh didn’t even include a link to the nature article; however, the title did not include any indication that the scientific article would be the main focus of the paper (ex. ‘a study finds’).
ReplyDeleteWhile Walsh’s new article is an extreme example, my question for you is when journalists report on scientific articles, do you think they can input their own opinion? What is the balance between being objective and subjective for journalists when reporting on climate change?
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DeleteMia, thank you for adding in a more literary critique. I think this is actually an interesting topic to address through a more humanities type lens. I wonder if he is trying to appeal to a more anti-academic crowd purposefully. I think that there is absolutely a time and place for journalists to share their opinions. I think that this is a very important and normal part of discourse. Things tend to get messy when journalists are presenting their opinions as if they are facts, of spreading opinions that are antithetical to reality. Personally, I think there is plenty of room for onion in regards to climate change research. What type of policy could most effectively regulate x? There is a lot of subjectivity in policies and timelines for phasing out pollutants and questions of economic fairness. But there is little room (in my opinion) to critique peer reviewed journal articles when you are ignoring the content of said peer reviewed journal article.
DeleteI enjoyed and agree with your rating of this article. I know it's generally unproductive to respond to every click bait news article that remotely misrepresents scientific research but it would be a stretch to say that this news article referenced or used the nature article in a productive/constructive manner; it's borderline misrepresentation. If you were one of the authors of the paper that Matt Walsh didn't even bother to link, would you say/do something? I know it seems moot and a waste of time given the audience of the Daily Wire and how his credibility and readership doesn't come from his background but rather from his political stance but proper dissemination of scientific research to the general public can be as important as conducting the research.
ReplyDeleteTeresa, I completely agree with your point that how you share the scientific findings can be just as important as the research itself. In my opinion, it might even be more important. In many cases what the information 'does' is the important part (I am thinking about scientific discoveries of the atomic bomb and penicillin). Therefore, accurately conveying that information is a very important piece of the puzzle. It might be helpful for the authors to issue some kind of statement, but I agree that it might fall on deaf ears given the audience in question.
DeleteI agree with the prior comments and your conclusion that this was definitely an interesting news article. I find it amusing that the article is in the "opinion" section, rather than the "science" or "news" sections. Unrelated to the article, I thought it was also interesting to note that Matt Walsh, who one can only assume is a man, has a documentary on The Daily Wire titled "What is a Woman?". Regarding the article though, I agree that it was extremely politically charged, and seemed to use center around the notion that environmental regulations infringe on individual rights. Regardless of personal opinion, journalism should be about facts first and foremost. Matt is entitled to feel infringed upon, but as a journalist, there should be more dedication to straightforward honesty in my opinion. As others mentioned, this article definitely felt like someone who isn't familiar with the field taking points that agree with their viewpoint as fact, while ignoring contrary points. Overall I agree with your 1/10 rating, assuming 0 isn't an option...
ReplyDelete"What is a Woman" is a doozy. If you want to hear more of Walsh's takes on things that he has absolutely zero experiential or academic knowledge of (womanhood) make fun of people for having different opinions than him (based on their experiential or academic knowledge) while being sexist, transphobic, and racist be sure to check that out.
DeleteI agree that Walsh seems to prioritize these "rights' that he has laid out. And personally I think it would have been more interesting if he had written an article along the lines of "Climate change is having these serious effects but I don't think the government has the right to regulate it because of ______ political theory I subscribe to." I think there are some interesting points to be made along those lines that I might still disagree with but at least could have a more productive conversation about.
Your review offers an excellent and thorough breakdown of the main issues in Walsh's article, highlighting its shortcomings and inaccuracies with a clear focus on the science presented by Byrne et al. You effectively illustrate how climate change, not poor management or arson, was the primary driver behind the devastating impacts of the 2023 Canadian wildfires, a point that’s crucial for readers to understand.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I think you’re spot on in critiquing the use of a strawman argument, as well as the attempt to oversimplify complex climate science to fit a particular narrative. Walsh's failure to grasp, or deliberately misrepresent, the broader climate science context only furthers misunderstandings. His focus on racial inequities in evacuation response without discussing the socioeconomic and historical contexts adds another dimension to his misrepresentation.
I agree with your rating of 1/10 because there are many problems with this article.
I agree with your analysis. I think that the fact that Walsh brought up arson at all is somewhat of a red herring because even he admits that only ONE of the fires was started by arson. Even considering just the quantity of fires (almost 7,000) this is clearly negligible. The issue of forest management is a bit more ambiguous, but even if you disregard the correlation with hot/dry conditions. Canada is home to 8.5% of the world's forests. That is a huge amount of forest to manage, this should be plainly obvious regardless of your perspectives on climate change.
DeleteOverall, this article and the author present a pretty deplorable point of view. In terms of orchestrating his point of view, I guess Walsh does do a good job by cherry picking data and weaponizing some peoples' hateful views. With that being said, in terms of news reporting and journalism, this is an easy 1/10. Instead of focusing on the science at hand, Walsh makes this a "political issue" which may work when talking about how to correct for problems with the climate (Because this ends up being a bipartisan issue in the United States), but it does not work when discussing the cause. I wasn't super surprised to see this type of reporting from The Daily Wire, regardless of the reporter, so I can't say I am disappointed, but it is concerning that articles such as this can go out so easily to a generally popular news site with probably little trouble.
ReplyDeleteThis article was awful. Obviously the Daily Wire is an incredibly biased and partisan source, but I hadn't expected them to entirely discredit the experts and rewrite the facts. Walsh's article history shows that he writes an equally inflammatory article almost daily. He is a "commentator" with no scientific background, so I can understand him not being able to comprehend scientific papers, but it does not excuse this drivel. I suppose I'm happy he decided to actually cite a scientific source, even though he doesn't even link it. I have to wonder what he, and other similar "journalists", think about these articles they write: They surely understand that they're just parroting false talking points, and must know that their articles have no journalistic merit. Do they just do it for fame? I agree with your 1/10 rating.
ReplyDeleteI wish I knew the answers to many of these questions...they are very valid. I assume that there is a significant amount of money to be made in advocating for the status quo, especially when it comes to climate change denialism. But the unfortunate reality is that articles like this get clicks. It is hard for us to comprehend because we have dedicated so much time and energy into learning about the process of scientific research. I know a lot of people, including my entire immediate family who wholeheartedly believe everything that Matt Walsh and friends publish. There is a lot of money to be made in producing content like this.
DeleteGreat analysis! I agree with your rating of 1/10. This article was truly awful with the fear mongering and misinformation. As someone has mentioned already, Walsh does not have any scientific background or higher level educational background and although not having a college degree is not inherently bad, in this case when communicating about science, having a higher level degree (especially related to science) would be extremely beneficial for conveying the science of the article accurately. Do you think if the Daily Wire had someone who had a science background report on this article, that the way the nature article was conveyed to its audience would change? Or do you think since the Daily Wire leans towards anti climate change (and so does its audience) that having someone with a science background would not improve the article?
ReplyDeleteGreat question Sam! I am not totally sure, that is an interesting idea. I would guess that because the Daily Wire generally presents certain narratives they might not even be open to bringing someone on board that would critically evaluate scientific literature. I would guess they have extensive analytics on their audience's demographics and content engagement history so that is probably why they tend to stay in this lane of a-scientific thought.
DeleteReally nice analysis, Hannah! I definitely agree with your rating of the article, not only does it do a terrible job of getting across the ideas expressed in the paper, it also actively encourages the spread of misinformation. While I have zero desire to create a Daily Wire account, and could not access the whole article, even the opening paragraphs get the point across. Walsh takes a pointless shot at Canada's GDP and frames climate consciousness as restrictive and unneeded. What really bothers me about articles like this one is the missed opportunity for actual communication. Rather than consider the paper's message about these fires as both a symptom of and compounding factor in climate change, or approaching the topic with willingness to invite healthy debate, Walsh, like many conservative pundits, soundly disavows anything that might agree with the "woke left." Turning complex topics like climate change into repetitive statements of "haha, DEI strikes again" may appeal to a conservative base, but it destroys the chance of in depth thought or compromise on important issues at a time when we greatly need thought and compromise.
ReplyDeleteNicole, I think you are making a really important point. When Walsh publishes this article but does not engage with the content of the Nature paper he is preventing future productive discourse. Of course people have the right to disagree with one another, but doing so by disregarding the facts to construct a separate reality inhibits future collaboration
DeleteGreat analysis Hannah! I completely agree with you that this article is completely biased and seems politically charged, particularly with anti-liberal sentiment. The article itself is very poorly and unprofessionally written, making clear oversimplifications of climate issues and dismissing environmentalist perspectives with phrases like "you're told... if you give the government enough power... you can help change the weather... All you need to do is pay more in taxes... give up your car... and maybe your entire livelihood." In an effort to bolster these conservative viewpoints, the author almost entirely neglects to summarize the actual findings and methods of the scholarly paper; rather, Walsh simply cherrypicks statistics from the paper as he sees fit to support his unfounded viewpoint. As others have commented, it is shocking to see how Walsh has so deeply skewed the purpose of this well-researched Nature paper to make it about racism (from an anti-DEI perspective) and to argue that we cannot in fact impact our climate. It is scary to think that news sources spreading such misinformation/misinterpretations of scholarly articles have such large audiences; such misinformation must be combatted if we are to pass policies to deal with pressing environmental issues such as large-scale carbon emissions and increasingly intense forest fires.
ReplyDeleteYou have found such an outlandish article! I agree with your analysis of the pop media article in comparison to the research paper. It is shocking how much people can twist the words of researchers; this highlights not only how careful we as chemists need to be when presenting our research, but also how easy it is for our work to be misconstrued. I found it interesting that Matt Walsh's wikipedia page has no section for or mention of his education. After further searching, I could not find anything about his education other than Quora post saying he has nothing more than a high school diploma. He has expressed the opinion in a podcast that "the public school system needs to be abolished," so judging by this it appears that he himself does not have the adequate education to be making any claims about the chemistry surrounding wildfires or the carbon cycle. This leads me to the question of where we draw the line between free speech and public misinformation. It is a slippery slope to say that uneducated people should not be allowed to make claims about subjects they aren't experts on (this is actually a terrible idea and would silence a vast variety of the population), but at the same time it is difficult to ignore the dangerous nature of twisted claims like Walsh has made.
ReplyDelete