In the Pontiac, we essentially live in the forest. As we’ve seen over the past two weeks, we may hear about forest fires in faraway B.C. and Nova Scotia, but we also experience them here. And not just somewhere else in vast Quebec, but right here in the Pontiac, with immediate consequences for our own air quality and anyone with compromised health.

In the midst of the forest fires came word from Canada’s natural resources minister that the hot, dry conditions that were making our forests so susceptible to fire would only worsen through June and the months beyond, and that we could expect smoky conditions through the summer. Others who have studied the subject say it will be a feature of life for years to come.

Climate change promotes forest fires in several ways. Warmer air speeds up evaporation of water from obvious sources such as streams, lakes and rivers, but also fields and forests. Dryer forests burn more readily. More moisture in the air produces more intense storms involving lightning, a major catalyst of forest fires. Climate change also makes winter here milder, enabling pests such as the emerald ash borer that would previously not have survived to thrive, leaving vast stands of dead, dry timber in the forests ready to serve as fuel.

And as if this was not already disturbing enough, forest fires themselves dump tons of carbon into the atmosphere, further contributing to the greenhouse effect that is warming the planet. They call it a feedback loop, similar to the thawing of the Arctic permafrost releasing vast amounts of methane into the air making the problem even worse.

In the Pontiac, we also live close to the land. The effects of extended periods of heat and drought are felt by everyone growing anything from apples to zucchini. It’s a matter of serious concern for anyone whose livelihood is agriculture, whether cropping or raising livestock. As it is for people whose business is tied to tourism, recreation or anything involving the great outdoors.

So is flooding, whether from rapid spring snow melts or intensive rainfall. Many live so close to the water that sand-bagging has become a frequent precaution and occasional necessity, not just a once-in-a-hundred-years occurrence. As is the need for vigilance around downed trees and broken power lines, whether due to derechos or ice storms. We are learning new terms from polar vortex to atmospheric river.

So, what to do. Some would say there’s nothing we can do about it. Some had a similar response to fascists marching across Europe. And probably there is nothing to be done about either fascists or the climate crisis that doesn’t come with some risks, some costs, some sacrifice.

But maybe there is much we can do. We’ll never know unless we look. And we’ll never look until we recognize there is a problem that needs to be looked at.

And this brings us to the point of this editorial: to congratulate Pontiac warden Jane Toller for not hesitating to say out loud that the forest fires that have erupted across the country, including here in the Pontiac, are a product of climate change.

Her high degree of availability to the media here and elsewhere over the past couple of weeks to provide informed, timely updates on the state of the fires was already impressive. But her unambiguous, unqualified statement naming the climate change origins of the problem looks like leadership to us.

Charles Dickson