The largest fires in Canada's history have been raging over the last few weeks. The smoke from the fires has carried far into the United States, stretching all the way south to Atlanta and across the East Coast and Midwest, blocking out the sun and making it risky to step outside—or even stay inside.

The fires and the smoke choking Canadian and U.S. cities are both a danger to life and health right now, and a signal to all of just how far, and how fast, climate change is moving—because of the capitalist-imperialist system and its unceasing burning of fossil fuels and injection of greenhouse gases (carbon and methane that trap heat) into the atmosphere. The key factors causing the fires—drought and rising temperatures—have been greatly magnified by climate change.

Climate change knows no borders: it is a phenomenon of, and an existential threat to, our planet. It is leading to record heat waves in countries of Asia and Africa; devastating floods in Pakistan; rising sea levels endangering island countries and coastal areas throughout the world; threats to food production in Central America and East Africa.

The Fires

Canada is home to 28 percent of the world’s remaining, intact boreal forests (the forests in the northern parts of the planet). The lakes, streams, and water in the soil and trees of Canada contain more surface freshwater than any other place else on Earth, and influence the environment of the whole planet. Since the start of this spring, fires have raged from the west coast of Canada to the east. As of June 6, there were 437 active fires in Canada, more than half out of control... and the summer heat is yet to come.

Global climate change has raised the temperature of the Arctic in Canada’s far north nearly four times faster than the global average temperature rise.¹ And on top of this, this past year has seen both drought and unusual heat. And, so, the forests became tinderboxes.

The Smoke

Massive layers of smoke have stretched across parts of Canada and the eastern portion of the U.S. This has shocked people who have not seen this kind of smoke from climate change before, and it has endangered millions. Smoke from the fires contains very small particles that can go deep into the lungs and into the bloodstream—triggering asthma, and other heart and lung problems, even death, especially for young, old, and people with health problems. New York City had the worst air quality of any major city in the world for a short time. In many cities, athletic and cultural events were canceled, and many schools were closed or held remote sessions.

Smoke from the forest wildfires is exceedingly dangerous. A recent study found that smoke from wildfires is more harmful than pollution from cars.² In addition, forest fires driven by climate change are increasingly encroaching on towns and urban areas, where paint, furniture, cars, and more are being burned, adding further toxins to the smoke from the forests.³

Global Climate Crisis Accelerating

The fires are one more big sign of the environmental/climate crisis. Alarming reports from scientists are released almost constantly, pointing to how global warming is accelerating, and how huge changes are coming unless there are drastic and immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Two weeks ago we reported on a new scientific study projecting that the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere will likely climb past the 1.5 degree Centigrade danger line for the first time in tens of thousands of years!

In another alarming note, scientists recently reported that the ocean current circulating in the Southern Ocean (around Antarctica) has slowed as much at 30 percent since the 1990s. (Ocean currents are the directional movements of seawater caused by gravity, wind, and other factors.) This seems to be happening because the ice of Antarctica is melting. Again, these changes are occurring far faster than scientists had previously expected. If this Antarctic ocean current stops, it would quickly and radically change the climate of the whole planet.⁴

The changes already unfolding are a product of the capitalist-imperialist system, and they are hitting hardest at the people in the Global South who have contributed the least to the greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. In the case of these fires, it is Canada, and the U.S., at the top tier of the global imperialist system, that are getting hit right now.

The shock from this can jolt people in the U.S. to open their eyes to see the even bigger changes already happening in places like Pakistan and many other countries—and the even more devastating changes that are sure to come if this system stays in power. But people will not open their eyes without sharp struggle to see and to act: to raise their sights to the revolution to overthrow this system and create a sustainable socialist system that enables us to go to work on saving the planet.

The System Causes and “Normalizes” Climate Change

In the June 8 episode of The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show, host Andy Zee pointed to the way that extreme and extremely dangerous things are “normalized” in this society right now: from the war over Ukraine spiraling towards world war and nuclear war, to climate change. People are trained to ignore this or to “adjust” to live with what should be sparking outrage and massive protest. One example of such normalization is the many stories in the news on the fires, on the immediate impact of the fires on people in the U.S.—and sometimes on the need to do things like build better infrastructure so society can withstand a warming world. In other words, get used to the fact that the climate is changing, and “get along with it.”

And a big part of normalizing all this is U.S. chauvinism: Don’t confront the stark reality that the USA is the #1 emitter of greenhouse gases in history, #1 in per person emissions of greenhouse gases among the major industrial countries, and #1 in producing oil and gas, and that the U.S. military is the #1 institutional emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet. Don’t move heaven and earth to stop the emissions of greenhouse gases. Instead, adjust your thinking to living in a new “normal”—and surviving in this citadel of imperialism.

The Hard, and Liberating, Truth

Bob Avakian speaks deeply to why capitalism-imperialism cannot stop destroying the environment here and here. And think about this existential crisis and the two ruling-class parties of the U.S. The Republi-fascists don't even fucking recognize the reality and science of global warming! As for the Democrats, “keeping the oil in the ground” is assuredly NOT the agenda of Biden and company. The Biden administration has given the green light to new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska—and its signature climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, places no limits on fossil fuel extraction. This is madness.

We are hurtling toward a future in which the biological foundation of human life on Earth is being ripped apart because this system cannot stop burning fossil fuel. It is a system that in its relentless, competitive pursuit of profit and more profit treats the natural world as just so many “inputs” for profit-based production. Whether there will be, for generations to come, the ability to breath air that does not burn your lungs, water to drink, conditions where plants and animals that sustain human life can grow... depends on what we do now. And what is most urgent and effective is to learn about and become part of the revolution to overthrow this system and establish the liberatory socialist system based on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.

From the proclamation WE ARE THE REVCOMS:

Bob Avakian has sharply expressed this profound reality: We can no longer afford to allow these imperialists to continue to dominate the world and determine the destiny of humanity. And it is a scientific fact that humanity does not have to live this way—a whole different way to organize society, a whole better world, is possible.