It's not just American firefighters, of course, as I was reminded on the previous post!

[conuly]

Canadian fire crews cheered in Australia as front-line teams prepare for the worst

Comments

[sabotabby]

Expect my country to never shut up about this, despite its complicity. (Kudos to the fire crews, though.)

[conuly]

How so are you complicit in this? Climate change denialism running rampant through the streets or...?

[sabotabby]

Worse—climate change denialism isn't that prevalent (though it's not zero, especially in my province) but we have politicians that believe it's happening and do the opposite of anything that would help. We have one of the largest deposits of oil in the world, which is particularly tricky to extract and transport, and therefore far more environmentally devastating. What does our sensitive, teen heartthrob Liberal government do about it? Increases production, builds pipelines through Indigenous land without their consent to transport it, and then sheds a single fucking tear and claims that no sane government would leave it in the ground.

[conuly]

Sigh. Maybe we ought to just give in, burn it all to the ground, our successor species can do better.

[sabotabby]

I reached that point today when someone posted a "welcome to heaven" type image of Steve Irwin surrounded by animals that died in the Australian bushfires.

[conuly]

:(

[topaz_eyes]

This particular fire crew is from Alberta, the province at the centre of Canada's climate change denial shitshow. Also the province with its own $30 million/year government-funded, privately-run propaganda machine to tell the world that oil and gas is so great, by golly it keeps babies healthy! Also the province that has cut back on its own advanced fire detection and early response crews, despite major forest fires in northern Alberta these past several years, including one in the heart of oilsands country in 2016. Also the province that gave a $4.5 billion tax cut to oil and gas corporations in this year's provincial budget, then cut back health and education funding to compensate.

Can't wait to see how the war room spins this article... rah rah oil and gas doing its bit to fight fires, or something. /s Yes, I'm with sabotabby, all the kudos to the fire crews, but I expect Alberta to need Australia's firefighting assistance in the not-too-far future itself.

[conuly]

Argh, fuck all those fuckers and their shit. Firefighters, all the love.

[tielan]

We are so grateful for anyone able to come over and help with the crisis. Especially because our government was initially so very reluctant to ask for help from anyone, and while they're willing to pay certain volunteers for up to 2 weeks, it only applies to people who are self-employed, not to people who were previously job-hunting and therefore have no income at all, or people who work for companies and may have taken their own personal holiday leave to do this.

There'll be many more Australian volunteers trained up in a year, but I don't think any of us expected it to be like this now.

[conuly]

I cannot believe your country relies so heavily on volunteers for firefighting. I mean, you're a dry country! Even before the drought. (I should talk. The US uses prisoners for fighting fires in California.)

while they're willing to pay certain volunteers for up to 2 weeks, it only applies to people who are self-employed, not to people who were previously job-hunting and therefore have no income at all, or people who work for companies and may have taken their own personal holiday leave to do this.

Well, fuck them and their miserly little hearts. JFC, is every country run by dipshits right now?

[tielan]

I think the initial line from the government about paying volunteers was something to the effect of "not wanting to distract from the noble aims of volunteering by corrupting it with money" which...this isn't a bit of charity work by people who can afford it, you dipshits, it's people putting their lives on hold for months on end in a task that they're not being paid for in any dimension and which offers them absolutely no recompense.

And, yeah, I don't know why we don't have a paid firefighting force for bushfires. Possibly because, traditionally, it's been fires in the city that we had to worry about. The rainforests were old and damp, the country could get dry and burn but it always renewed over winter.

Climate change has made it a whole new game, and meanwhile, Murdoch-influenced governments have flipped the game table over and left the common people scrambling to find the cards.

[conuly]

I mean, leading the country is a noble aim, but I bet they still get paid to serve their country in that fashion.