[email protected] reviewed Fire Weather by John Vaillant
Three or four books welded together?
4 stars
Content warning climate crisis, wildfire
Felt like several rather disjoint narratives -- a pretty short history of the tar sands, a discussion of how wildfires are changing, a lengthy account of the Fort McMurray fire, followed by a lengthy history of climate change and the way fossil fuel companies have concealed the facts so they can keep making profits. The first and last are, unfortunately, nothing new. The discussion of how wildfires are changing was a real eye-opener (I've since looked up 'fire tornadoes' on YT and, yikes!) but the description of the fire in Alberta, while perhaps interesting as an illustration of how things are changing so fast that it's hard for people to comprehend, ultimately felt a bit like a thriller, but written about real peoples' lives. A bit mind-boggling, I will say, that Fort McMurray had a population of around 90,000!