Online Event: “Smoke Seasons: Living with Wildfire since 1900” with Mica Jorgenson

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“Smoke Seasons: Living with Wildfire since 1900”

Mica Jorgenson, University of Stavanger

Historians on Planetary Futures Lecture Series

Online Event – April 12, 2022 – 6pm (AEST/UTC +10)

Hosted by New Earth Histories & the Laureate Centre for History and Population, UNSW

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‘Smoke Seasons: Living with Wildfire since 1900’

Climate change means wildfires on every continent are getting longer and more intense. As apocalyptic images of orange skies and charred landscapes circulate on social media, those of us living in fire ecologies add a fifth season to our annual cycle: the smoke season. Although the first sparks of combustion are localized events, forest fires quickly become cascading crises impacting massive geographies. Each year, airborne pollution from distant forest fires darkens the skies of the world’s cities, kills hundreds of thousands of people, slows economies, and provokes environmental anxiety.

Today’s smoke seasons lie within a longer history of human-smoke interaction (wild and domestic). That relationship has been brought to a breaking point over the last century. Based on research conducted in Northern Canada and Scandinavia (and extended to Australia, America, and Southern Europe), this talk chronicles our sensory engagement with wildfire through smoke. The smell of burning and the sight of rising plumes held specific meanings for people that changed over time. I argue that smoke history is tangled up with colonialism, industrialisation, and the environmental movement. Our complicated relationship with smoke creates serious challenges for modern wildfire policy. Understanding the historical roots of these challenges offers insights to help us navigate our smokey future.

Feature Image: “Smoke From Canadian Wildfires Drifts Down to U.S.” by NASA Goddard Photo and Video is marked with CC BY 2.0.
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Mica Jorgenson

Mica Jorgenson is an environmental historian of natural resources in Canada. She works in both the academic and public sectors, and teaches periodically at the University of Northern British Columbia.

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