What was the cause of the Canadian Wildfires, is my research topic. I did a lot of research for this project. I looked at a lot of news articles, blogs and YouTube videos to find which sources worked best to answer my research question. I believe the sources I choose provided the best information I could use. My genres are a blog, a digital news article and a YouTube documentary. I think these genres are fine for doing research but if I wanted to educate, inform and bring attention to the causes of the Canadian Wildfires I would create a Podcast. I believe a Podcast would be an excellent genre to spread the word about the Canadian Wildfires and the causes. My audience is Gen Z, this is my age group; ages 13-24 and we love Podcasts. 47% of Gen Z listen to Podcasts monthly. That’s about 24 million Americans in my age group listening to Podcasts monthly! Podcasts are a way to speak your mind on a topic you feel passionate about to a wide audience. I want my Gen Z audience to know the fires in Canada are not unusual and happen annually helping to regenerate the forest ecosystem. I want them to know fires are an important part of nature but unfortunately, the Canadian wildfires that occurred this season are not normal and are a very serious result of the negligence of humanity. They need to know previous generations just allowed big oil and industrial corporations to pollute our planet with no accountability. I want to use my Podcast to bring attention to our society’s dependence on oil, gas, plastic and cars; and all the other materials we use in our daily lives that pollute the atmosphere, the ocean and our entire planet are directly to blame for the climate crisis we currently find ourselves in. I want to breakdown the science in a way my Gen Z audience will understand, the information featured on my Podcast will be clear that the climate crisis is to blame in one form or another for the out of control Canadian wildfires that burned 34 million acres of land this year, displaced thousands of people from their homes and sent large amounts of toxic orange smoke across the Northern East Coast of the United States and as far away as Norway. My Podcasts will discuss the urgency to my Gen Z audience of working together to make some changes. I would stress to my audience not in a lecturing way but in a way that lets them know if we dont wake up and address the climate crisis now, today, we will not have a planet left to live on! The Canadian wildfires will have burned everything up to a barren wasteland that cannot regenerate itself and that would be bad for every generation!
Author: Alexis A
Alexis Abraham Unit 2-Source Entries 1
Source 1:
“On the Fireline: Inside Canada’s record-breaking wildfire season”
By Neetu Garcha Global News
Published September 30, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jni2DhxzTo4
The source’s content was brought to us by Global News current affairs program The New Reality, featured on YouTube. The New Reality is a made in Canada news show that features documentary and investigative reports. The reporter, Neetu Garcha and her crew were granted rare access to the British Columbia WildFire Service crew to shed some light on why this season’s wildfires have been so devastating. Some interesting factual information featured in the report is that British Columbia has had record breaking wildfire seasons before but this current wildfire season is the most destructive on record. With more than 2 million hectares burned so far and this report was done at the end of July 2023 while fires were still burning. The firefighters use a tactic called a surface burn that uses fire to fight fire by using small hand torches to burn natural fuels on the ground like dried grass. The theory is items like grass and wood that are already burned and black will not ignite again. Wildfire Ecologist Robert Gray was interviewed for the report and says, “acceleration of climate change is amplifying the length and severity of fire seasons’ ‘ and “climate change is resulting in more lighting, about a 12% increase’ ‘. Forest debris, hot and dry weather can all be contributing factors to wildfires. According to Gray and stats from Canada’s Federal government, “Lightning strikes caused nearly half of all Wildland fires in Canada and nearly 60% in British Columbia. More than 230,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes, Indigenous communities among the evacuated are often hit by wildfires severely. Amy Cardinal Christensen is a Native American research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service in Alberta Canada, she discussed a process called “Cultural Burnings’ ‘ where Native American tribes conduct planned burnings of the land to combat seasonal wildfires. “Cultural Burnings’ ‘, are ancient and passed down from generation to generation but because of many federal government rules about land ownership in Canadian territory Native Tribes are sometimes left out of the seasonal land burning.
I believe that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jni2DhxzTo4 was a really good source for this topic. The reporter Neetu Garcha gained access to ride along and film the British Columbia WildFire Service crew while they were in the process of managing the wildfires that had hit British Columbia back in August and September 2023. Neetu Garcha’s credentials are of a veteran reporter who has reported on crime politics and global weather events affecting Vancouver British Columbia for many years. She also sits at the news desk for Global News when not doing investigative reporting. Her reporting style is honest and straight to the point, making sure she asks all the right questions and interviewing experts in the specific field. The purpose of reporting on the Canada wildfires is to inform the world on why this season’s fires were so devastating, how much devastation was recorded and what the government in British Columbia did to manage the wildfires. I believe Neetu Garcha’s reporting is credible because the British Columbia WildFire Service crew gave her access to film and report on what they were doing to manage the wildfires.
I believe Neetu Garcha’s chose this genre because it allowed her to film some of the destruction the fires caused in real time, it was fast pace in your face reporting getting the facts from the fire and climate experts, and gives the audience, who I believe would be people who are genuinely interested in knowing more about the Canadian Wildfires a much better understanding of what these wildfires really involve by using a strong visually component. Film/video is always a more impactful genre to use as a reporter. Having the documentary air on Youtube allowed it to reach a larger audience. Global News has almost 4 million Youtube subscribers and since the documentary aired on September 30th, 2023 almost 7,000 people have viewed it.
A really important statement I want to highlight was made by Aus Al Mubarak, a task force leader on the British Columbia WildFire Service crew. In the interview he said, “You’re pushing the limits of what humans can do in this job a lot of the time but they’re physically, emotionally or intellectually just the amount you have to manage at any given moment.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jni2DhxzTo4. This tells me the firefighting crew responsible for fighting the wildfires are stretched thin and can experience physical, mental and emotional stress. Fighting wildfires is hard labor intensive work. Mubarak in a leadership role has to make sure his crew is safe and carry out the orders he is giving them in order to prevent the fires from spreading.
Alexis Abraham Research Question Proposal
Canadian WildFires
What was the cause of the Canadian Wildfires? Canadian wildfires are not a new thing, Canada experiences wildfires all over the country every season, every year. However, what made this wildfire season so significant is how much damage the fires caused, sources I reviewed claimed “37.8 million acres of land, nearly 10 times more than 2022 and roughly the size of New York state.” was burned in the wildfires. The smoke spread across the Midwest and the East Coast of the United States, filling the sky with yellow haze and creating hazardous air quality conditions to all the states impacted. This question intrigues me because I was directly affected by the air quality warnings, having to stay inside my apartment with the windows closed. It was crazy to me to see that yellow sky filled with smoke. I could taste the smoke in my mouth, feeling it burning my eyes and smelling the strong smell of burnt wood and gas in the air when I did go outside. It made me think, how could fires happening all the way in Canada affect us in New York? In Brooklyn? It Impacted us so severely that the City and State had to send out warnings and red alerts telling people to stay in their homes because the air quality was at dangerous levels! That was crazy to me and it made me want to find out more about what caused this event, how the Canadians were coping with the wildfires, what the Canadians were doing about it? Is this going to happen again? Is climate change to blame? Will New York and the other states that were affected be better prepared for another Canadian Wildfire event if it happens again?
