Wisconsin’s and the U.S.’s unhealthy air

From The Washington Examiner

Daily on Energy, June 28, 2023

THE BACKGROUND: Today, Canada is suffering more than 450 wildfires and more than 80 millIon Americans are under air quality alerts because of the smoke.

Now, Canada, which has long received criticism for its wildfire management strategies, has released a plan to coordinate its disjointed fire response efforts.

THE PLAN: Canada yesterday released a National Adaptation Strategy on Climate that would unify the country’s 10 provincial governments around a single response plan to fight wildfires, floods, and other natural disasters.

Unlike the U.S., where both federal and state budgets can allocate resources to fire prevention and response, each province or territory in Canada has its own budget allocation — leaving them, critics have said, woefully underfunded. The amount set aside by individual provinces can vary widely in scope, based on size, estimated risk, and wildfire patterns.

That’s a problem, especially since some provinces have taken an ax to funding recently. Ontario, for example, reduced its emergency firefighting budget by 67% in 2019, and Alberta slashed funding by around $30 million earlier this year.

Canada’s new plan is to spend more than $6 billion on climate adaptation and resilience at the federal level, and includes a series of goals on public health, forest management, and new forest and flood mapping.