Six members of Congress wrote a letter to Canada’s ambassador in Washington this week, demanding Ottawa to do a better job of dealing with wildfires sending smoke across the border.BC Wildfire Service/The Canadian Press
Smokescreen
Re “U.S. Congress members press Canada to deal with wildfire smoke ruining their summer” (July 10): This is a bit rich.
Wildfires are a normal part of boreal forest ecology, recurring about every few hundred years. The ferocity of those fires, however, has increased.
This is a consequence of the higher temperatures and weather patterns stemming from global heating, which is driven by the pollution of our atmosphere by carbon from the combustion of fossil fuels. Carbon once emitted remains in the atmosphere for decades. It is not rapidly washed out by precipitation like, say, sulphur dioxide.
Current emissions by China are now larger, but the cumulative emissions of the United States are the largest in the world. It bears the largest responsibility for the pickle the globe is in.
Canada may be able to more effectively manage its enormous forests, especially if the U.S. contributed to the task. Or is there a way of putting a tariff on this import, so the President may understand?
John Hollins Ottawa
I applaud these U.S. lawmakers for bringing attention to Canada’s lack of control over wildfire smoke.
Now I suggest they turn their attention to Iceland and countries around the Ring of Fire for allowing volcanos to belch ash into the atmosphere and disrupt air travel.
Robert Jackson London, Ont.
I do not suppose it occurs to them that one of the root causes for a year like this just might be a global issue – and I very much include the United States and Canada.
The failure to control these fires is, yes, in some part due to government failure to anticipate the number and size of fires. But it is also due to planetary sloppiness and delay in recognizing the impact of climate change on environments unprepared for the scale of looming disaster.
I do hope to see an article about the great U.S. efforts to control global warming, though I do not recall much on that subject in Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Mary Lazier Corbett Prince Edward County, Ont.
Climate change has made wildfires hotter, harder to control and more frequent and destructive.
U.S. Republicans recently voted to eliminate billions of dollars in clean energy subsidies, which will seriously impede American efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Now some of those same Republicans are complaining about wildfire smoke spoiling their summers.
Do they not see how silly they look?
James Worrall Ottawa
Neighbourhood welcome
Re “Sheertex founder Katherine Homuth in dispute with Muskoka township over cottage venture” (Report on Business, July 5): The founder of Sheertex should consider what Mr. Rogers might have thought of her idea to monetize the neighbourhood.
However she might be spinning her effort to bring back the days of good old-fashioned outdoor fun, it seems to me that she has just created an exclusive club which charges two-year-olds $750 to join. What’s wrong with simply inviting the neighbours over without making a business of it?
As Mr. Rogers would say, just be kind.
Clare Samworth Toronto
Take my card
Re “Without business cards, we lose an important record of our lives” (Opinion, July 5): I have a reasonably tidy collection of 2,000 business cards and counting. Up until now I never really thought about why.
Certainly a few have special meaning, while some are just utilitarian. As for the others, I hope it has something to do with the people and their stories.
Ken Sutton Toronto
When I was a major medical centre spokesperson, I worked with journalists from around the world. Some of them were as haughty as one might expect; they had their producers give me business cards for assistant producers.
But a good many became personal friends. I remember one who made sure I put his card in a safe place. I thought that odd, but when I looked at it later, I saw he had written: “Call me when you are in Washington. I’m not being a national news jerk.”
Well, I did call him and we had a brief long-distance romance, which settled into a friendship that lasted for years.
I still have that card. It’s proof I can hold to remind me that a simple business card can sometimes lead to so much more, including memories that linger even longer.
Mary Stanik Tucson, Ariz.
Great outdoors
Re “Lawren Harris’s Trees and Pools” (Made in Canada, July 7): The inclusion in July of Canadian artwork is brilliant.
I am enjoying the art as well as learning more about Canadian artists. Well done.
Liz Young London, Ont.
More than 25 years before the Group of Seven held its first exhibition, C. W. Jeffreys first expressed the need for “a distinctly Canadian school of art.”
“The first potent stimulus that we younger men experienced came about in 1893,” Mr. Jeffreys wrote. “At the Columbian Exposition, we were shown for the first time on this continent pictures by contemporary Scandinavian painters … the work of artists dealing with themes and problems of the landscape of countries similar in topography, climate and atmosphere to our own: snow, pine trees, rocks, inland lakes, autumn colour, clear air, sharply defined forms.
Mr. Jeffreys’s first paintings in this new style were created in the first few years of the 20th century. Eric Brown, the first director of the National Gallery of Canada, purchased one of those works and remarked that it was “the beginning of a new era in Canadian painting.”
John Sewell Toronto
Walk back
Re “Walking soccer offers a new pace for players to enjoy the beautiful game” (July 7): I hate to be a stickler, but I need to correct your article.
No, walking soccer was not created in Britain in 2011. Instead it was born on a July day in 2006, during my friend’s stag weekend about 100 kilometres west of Montreal.
Stuck on an island cottage in South Glengarry, Ont., during a monsoon, this game developed organically with a soccer ball, physical constraint and the help of a few beers. It does help “build social connections” and we also defined walking as “at least one foot in contact with the ground.”
However, our version required everyone to have an open can of beer and forced a change of possession for “spillage” or “labouring.” Both rules are meant to flush out and punish slow consumption.
Otherwise, kudos for finally making this sport front-page news.
Brian Miller Beaconsfield, Que.
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