It began, as these things often do, not with thunder, but with a silence so profound it felt deliberate—a void in which a continent’s lungs slowly began to burn. By late June, Canada’s boreal forests, once called the “lungs of the Earth,” had become pyres. Acres upon acres of ancient trees—some hundreds of years old, older than any nation-state currently pretending to manage them—ignited, combusted, collapsed, and smoldered, while government officials oinked from behind podiums that “the situation is under control.” As of mid-August, more than seven million hectares had been consumed, countless ecosystems displaced, and entire communities evacuated.