Trump wants tariffs over Canada’s wildfire smoke. That’s not how neighbors treat a climate crisis.

I’ll never forget how deeply the wildfires in Australia during the 2019-2020 “Black Summer” affected my son, Nick. Scientists estimate that nearly three billion more-than-human relatives (also known as animals) were killed or displaced. Incomprehensible devastation.

We ordered T-shirts to support the recovery effort. The image was an outline of Australia, one edge consumed by flames, its interior filled with the country’s beloved wildlife.

Ever the 76ers fan, Nick was glad Ben Simmons was raising money and awareness for his native Australia. Nick felt the suffering of other living beings deeply. He loved wearing that T-shirt throughout quarantine while we were home doing virtual school.

» READ MORE: My son, Nick Elizalde, brought people together. We need to follow his example. | Opinion

Nick and I had no firsthand experience with wildfires, living in this area, but for many people, fire season is an inescapable reality that evokes fear and demands respect and attention.

I learned about wildfires while living in Montana. I moved there for graduate school, where many classmates studied fire science. I stared at the constant helicopters flying over Hellgate Canyon, where I lived, on their way to do aerial water drops into burning areas.

I remember the smell. The thick air. Wondering what the inside of my lungs looked like.

Fire was simply part of everyday conversation. People knew the weather, fuel conditions, evacuation routes, and the difference between a prescribed burn and a wildfire. I realized how privileged I had been never to need that knowledge.

Last year, I had the honor to sit in a circle in Lubrecht Experimental Forest with an elder of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe, from the Flathead Reservation, who told my class about his tribe’s traditional fire practices. He explained that prevention is the key, something Indigenous peoples have known since time immemorial.

Sadly, Indigenous fire management was a casualty of colonialism. Their knowledge was forced underground, and generations of fire stewardship were interrupted just as landscapes became increasingly vulnerable to catastrophic fire.

It is well known in climate science that those who do the least damage to Mother Earth suffer the effects of climate change the most. The scientific consensus is clear that climate change is lengthening fire seasons and increasing the conditions that produce larger and more severe wildfires. The threat is real, and it is reaching places that once believed themselves safely outside fire country.

Which is why the recent political response to the Canadian wildfires is so baffling. Rather than asking how two neighboring countries can confront a shared ecological crisis, President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Canada over wildfire smoke. As if punishment were an effective response to an ecological crisis.

Not only is this an abominably foolish threat, but it created a scapegoat in a time of great fear.

Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, responded to the president’s threats by saying that those who share Trump’s opinion that Canada has been “willfully negligent … have a very short memory.”

I remember sitting in school on 9/11 and hearing that first responders from Canada were headed to New York City. Many diverted international flights landed in Atlantic Canada, while the small town of Gander welcomed nearly 7,000 stranded passengers — almost doubling the town’s population. Newfoundlanders welcomed passengers with open arms, rooms, and cupboards.

When your neighbor is in trouble, regardless of the effect on you, pitch in.

And while conducting research in Nova Scotia last fall, I learned about the Halifax Explosion of 1917, which killed almost 2,000 people and injured approximately 9,000. Boston was the first to respond, and Nova Scotia has been sending a Christmas tree to Boston as a token of thanks since 1971.

Learning about all of this propelled me to seek out more examples of cooperation between our northern and southern borders. Read enough of these stories, and nationalism masquerading as patriotism begins to dissolve.

We must seek out what unites us as North Americans and acknowledge our shared history, good and bad, to move through an ever-worsening climate crisis that will require all of us to work together if we wish our future generations to survive.

Maybe all you can do now is buy a T-shirt, like Nick and I did in 2019. Maybe you can start that conversation. Maybe you can volunteer. No act is too small. Make no mistake — you have a dog in this fight. When your neighbor is in trouble, regardless of the effect on you, pitch in.

Nick understood this instinctively. He didn’t know fire science. He simply saw suffering and wanted to help. In an age of climate change, that childlike impulse — to care before we condemn — may be exactly what survival requires.

Natural disasters don’t recognize borders. Neither should our compassion.

Meredith Elizalde is Nick’s mom. A former Philadelphia high school teacher, she is currently a graduate student at the University of Montana.