Americans, Who Walked on the Moon, Cower in the Face of an Orange Sky

As smoke from Canadian wildfires wafts over America’s Northeast, the press and government have citizens cowering, a response out of proportion to reality, raising questions about how we’d confront a real threat — say, fallout from an atomic bomb.On Wednesday, the Democratic mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, urged New Yorkers to “limit outdoor activity,” this in a city that triumphed over the Civil War Draft Riots, Superstorm Sandy, and 9/11 — a far worse and longer-lasting pollution event.Bad air quality can be a threat to people with health problems like asthma, but in modern America, it seems everybody wants to pack onto the V Train for victims, to panic like house cats that run under the bed at every strange sound.One common comparison was reported by CNY Central, which reported that breathing in the air was akin to “smoking 3 to 11 cigarettes a day.” Except it would have been that many cigarettes over a few hours, which is not the same as sustained use.Plus, even lifelong smokers don’t all die of direct cigarette-related causes. Mark Twain joked on his 70th birthday that when nagged about his habit of puffing up to forty cigars a day, “I smoke in moderation: Only one cigar at a time.” He died four years later, contented, from heart failure.The Democrat & Chronicle of Rochester sought out a physician at Harvard, Dr. Kimberly Humphrey, to say the two kinds of smoke have “different toxins” and “different impacts on health,” but we ought not feel safe — although we do, say, enjoy roasting s’mores around a campfire. “Don’t just think that you can go outside for a couple of hours and it won’t have an impact on your health,” Dr. Humphrey said.In the same piece, a professor at Cornell, Max Zhang, likened the event to “living in a house with a chain smoker.” Again, since this was a passing event, it’s more like visiting such a person, isn’t it? A University of Illinois Chicago associate professor, Dr. Susan Buchanan, provided some sanity.Dr. Buchanan called the comparisons “scientifically unsound, noting the efforts have never been lab tested or peer reviewed.” Besides, we’re not trapped outside. Buildings have windows, filtration systems in air conditioning, and ubiquitous purification devices.Furthermore, it’s interesting that this smoke is threatening even as Mr. Adams laments marijuana smoke on city streets. Try lighting up a Marlboro at a concert and someone will call the police; spark a joint and everyone breathes it in silence.Canada, in any case, is not forested by tobacco plants, meaning there’s no nicotine. Furthermore, before states started banning smoking indoors, New Yorkers spent hours in bars like McSorley’s Old Ale House, undeterred by the blue haze yellowing the walls.The overreaction to Canada’s wildfires recalls the Maple Syrup Event of 20 years ago. I remember returning with lunch to my office over Radio City Music Hall only to find staffers pouring out the elevators in terror.It was possible that Al Qaeda had weaponized the syrup then known as Aunt Jemima’s, but Occam’s Razor — a pretentious name for what we used to call common sense because it was common — encourages us to look for simple explanations.The source of the smell was innocent: A factory across the Hudson River processing fenugreek seeds, a component of maple syrup alternatives. It may seem amusing, but how many work hours were lost to panic?Past generations produced Lewis and Clark, Charles Lindbergh, and Neil Armstrong. Foes respected American fearlessness, but it’s no small matter that now they see us running for cover from the kind of air quality that was still far better on Wednesday than elsewhere in the world.Imagine you’re sitting at Moscow, Beijing, or Tehran. If a little smoke brings America to its knees, what might a nuclear bomb do? “Weakness,” as a 103-year-old survivor of Pearl Harbor, Lieutenant Jim Downing, told me, “invites aggression.”Today, nobody asks, “Do you remember where you were and what you were doing when the city smelled like pancakes,” and in twenty years, few will recall the orange sky, but our adversaries will remember our overreaction, and wonder if maybe we’ve lost the right stuff and can be beaten if they just blow a little smoke our way.

Americans, Who Walked on the Moon, Cower in the Face of an Orange Sky

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