Disaster Politics: When unprecedented MT fires are ignored, who benefits?

As I write this, my lungs are aching, my glands are swollen, and my shoulders feel like needles are poking into them. I’ve got brain fog and fatigue, and frequent stomach aches. Influenza? Nope. Like everyone else in Missoula County, I have been breathing an unprecedented amount of smoke for more than five weeks now. But what is making me queezy today is a theory about our predicament that I just had to write down. I am going to attempt to give a loose background:

On July 24, our governor declared a State of Emergency, but the federal government denied this request.

Then the devastation of Hurricane Harvey happened. Of course all resources possible should go there. We in Montana know this. Many of us feel guilty for asking for help, too. The feeling is: since we have our homes, and our jobs, that we just put our heads down and ignore our symptoms, and we will get through it. Despite the fact that there is a supertanker plane , grounded by policies and who knows what else, we keep quiet and keep going for the sake of the worse disaster down south. Montanans have a ton of pride in our resilience — but our pride can make us vulnerable if we aren’t paying attention.

These environmental emergencies are connected by climate change. So it is important that while we send aid to those most in need, we think about the big picture, too. Extreme floods and fires are a global issue. For the sake of this blog entry, I am only referencing the U.S. because U.S. policy is what is able to provide or deny aid to the disasters in the U.S. And U.S. energy politics are what are at the root of these policy decisions.

On September 1, our governor declared Montana a State of Disaster. More National Guard have been deployed.

This week, there has been a lot of rhetoric in our local news about “environmental extremists” being the reason for these fires. The right winged politicians, and some centrists as well, believe that logging bans are to blame for the severity of these fires. Not severe drought. Not climate change. But “environmental extremists” with their “frivolous lawsuits.” These words are spreading faster than the wildfires in our state, and they are just as damaging. Proper forest management is worth discussing, but please put these arguments on hold for a moment.

I believe this debate may be preventing us from getting any aid. These talking points are being used almost like victim blaming. The undercurrent of this messaging, in the context of the fires happening right now, is: why send us aid if its our own damned fault?

Why would anyone victim blame right now? Maybe they want our land for oil. Montana often finds bipartisan agreement about natural conservation. We have been pretty hard to push around when it comes to that because both sides of the aisle want to protect our beautiful state from being destroyed. Oil and Gas interests want us to sell our public lands. If it is all burned to hell, then its easier , perhaps, for them to come make land grabs. If you were an oil and gas lobbyist with Zinke and Trump in your back pocket, woudnt you stand around the fire smiling right now?

What if they are letting the fires do the clear cutting for them? So whether you believe logging is good or bad for our forests, please ask questions about who benefits from what is happening right now. If anything, we can’t let our hearty Montana pride get in the way of wondering where our vulnerabilities are. People are struggling to breathe in Seeley Lake right now. We need to unify so that our voices can be heard as we call for help.This is a call to get together, from all sides of these issues, and make sure that we unite in our shared values of conservation. Once private interests have control of our land, we won’t be a part of that debate any more.

Individual Montanans who believe in forest thinning really do seem to have protecting our beautiful state at heart. But that logging argument is being taken advantage of by industry elites, to justify private ownership of our public lands. And the heart of the private ownership interests is not land management. It is oil.

*many more photos of our fires are available online. I didn’t want to use anyone else’s photos without permission, so used photos I took on walks in my area.