Maybe Trump will shoot the smoke

By demanding damages from Canada for the wildfire smoke, Trump and his anti-science republicans are unwittingly endorsing legal claims pending in 51 lawsuits against major fossil fuel corporations.

Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. CreditDave Sanders for The New York Times

On Friday, Trump blasted another announcement of his ignorance to the world, claiming that Canada’s wildfire smoke is an air “invasion,” one that he’s going to fight with… tariffs. Before thanking everyone for their attention to this matter and announcing more punitive Canadian tariffs, Trump deemed Canada “responsible” for the wildfire smoke still blanketing parts of the U.S. “They are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein, and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable!... This is Willful Negligence!...”

Republican toadies were quick to parrot the idiocy. Meeting Trump’s bombast and raising him one, Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, introduced the “CANADA FIRE Act” declaring a national emergency, stripping Canadian officials of their visas, and expelling the Canadian ambassador until the smoke clears. Moreno announced, “Ohioans across the state are being subjected to hazardous conditions – we will not tolerate this incompetence.” Representative Lisa McClain borrowed Trump’s phrasing andhis penchant for turning everything into us vs. them, claiming that Michiganders were “breathing Canada’s negligence,” because Canada is “exporting” their smoke “into our skies.”

Yet another coalition of Republican dunces sent a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney threatening military reprisals. They warned that if Ottawa didn’t act, the US military/agencies would “act on our own” by physically crossing the border to perform unilateral logging and fire suppression. Apparently, threatening invasion against a sovereign ally is easier than contradicting a petulant boss.

Satire and irony glove up, punch back

While Trump and Republicans try to punish the wind, the internet is having a field day. Mocking the sheer absurdity of the world’s largest historical carbon emitter demanding damages for climate-driven wildfires, one plan, the “Build a Sky Wall” Plan, would have Trump construct a massive wall along the border to keep the “illegal air” out. A competing “Weather Bureaucracy” proposal would post U.S. customs agents at the border to issue speeding and littering tickets to wind currents passing through.

Canadian satirist David Hehn presented an initiative to draft every able-bodied Canadian between 16 and 65 to tidy up the Boreal Forest. The Forest Undergrowth Clearing Kindling Operation for Foreign Friends (boss acronym) promises to negotiate with local Canadian beavers to submit environmental impact reports. Canadian internet users, overall, were quick to see the incongruity, with one viral tweet noting: “We’ll pay for the smoke as soon as you give us a refund for the acid rain and global warming.”

While this irony may be obvious, another one, more subtle and even more delicious, hasn’t made the headlines. By demanding damages from Canada for the wildfire smoke, Trump and his anti-science republicans are endorsing a rising legal theory currently pending in 51 lawsuits brought by states, cities, and municipal governments against major fossil fuel corporations. Big oil accountability lawsuits, filed by ten states, fifteen municipalities, and two tribal governments, seek to hold fossil fuel corporations accountable for deceiving the public about their role in the climate crisis.

Republicans’ outrage also implicitly endorses legal claims from developing countries now demanding that nations like the U.S. and China, which have emitted the most greenhouse gases since the industrial revolution, assist them financially in addressing heatwaves, floods, disappearing coasts, droughts and crop failures worsened by rising temperatures.

An adult in the room responds

Although political commentators routinely criticize Trump for dismissing climate change as a ‘con job’while simultaneously complaining about its effects, no U.S. elected official has yet accused Trump of causing Canada’s wildfires through climate inaction. It’s not clear why democrats haven’t come out swinging on this; research shows that the U.S. has directly caused over $10 trillion in climate damages globally since 1990.

At least Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, the only adult in this spat, can still state the obvious. Carney countered Trump’s accusations by pointing out Trump’s willful failure to address the climate crisis.

Carney replied to Trump’s wildfire threats by noting, statesmanlike, that “fighting climate change is the responsibility of all countries, including the United States.” While Canada is investing in clean energy, Carney noted, Trump is doing the opposite.

An anti-science moron, Trump is deliberately accelerating climate change

Carney’s right. Trump has systematically rolled back almost every clean air protection; his regulatory rollbacks directly accelerate emissions and global warming. Aside from withdrawing the US from global climate bodies like the Paris Agreement, Trump consistently promotes climate disinformation (“it’s a hoax”) and claims black air from burning coal is good for you. One expects an Executive Order requiring home furnaces to convert to coal.

While Trump engages in coercive, anti-factual measures to benefit his fossil fuel donors, he has halted all federal permitting for offshore wind, closing deals with energy companies to abandon wind farms off California, New Jersey, New York and North Carolina in exchange for investing in fossil fuel projects. His other climate-change acceleration projects include:

· Revoking the scientific declaration that greenhouse gases threaten public health.

· Eliminating federal tailpipe emissions and efficiency rules for cars and trucks.

· Weakening methane regulations and enforcement codes that required fossil fuel companies to fix gas leaks.

· Freezing billions of dollars in incentives for renewables and paying over $2.6 billion to cancel wind farms already under development.

Even Trump, at 80 years old, knows he won’t be around in 30 years when Miami slips into the ocean.

As he engages in unparalleled corruption, starts WWIII out of sheer stupidity, and tries to take the planet into the grave with him, the silver lining in his attack on Canada should be celebrated. Just as his war in Iran is hastening the world’s transition to renewables, his lets-sue-Canada-for-climate-damages policy will make a fine opening exhibit— and closing argument— for plaintiffs suing big oil.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1^st and 14^th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.