Fire alarm: Rethinking innovation in an increasingly volatile world

02/13/25 • 25 min

Solve for X: Innovations to Change the World

The wildfire that devastated Fort McMurray in 2016 burned more than 579,000 hectares of land, drove 88,000 people from their homes and caused nearly $10 billion in damages. It’s often seen as an outlier, a freak natural disaster. But extreme wildfires, like those that tore through Los Angeles earlier this year, are becoming more intense and harder to control. “We all saw the smoke, and too many of us have seen the fire,” says John Vaillant, author of Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast. “Weather is different now, and fire is different now.” Hotter, drier weather is turning our forests into kindling, and emergency responders are struggling to handle our new reality: intense, unpredictable fires fuelled by a changing climate. In this special episode, host Manjula Selvarajah sits down with Vaillant to better understand how we got here and to see if there is any way out.

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John Vaillant is a Vancouver-based author and freelance journalist. His latest work, the Pulitzer Prize–nominated Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast, chronicles how the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire turned entire neighbourhoods into firebombs and destroyed 2,400 homes and businesses.

Further reading:

Subscribe to Solve for X: Innovations to Change the World here. And below, find a transcript to “Fire alarm: Rethinking innovation in an increasingly volatile world.” This interview was recorded at MaRS Climate Impact on December 4, 2024.

Solve for X is brought to you by MaRS, North America’s largest urban innovation hub and a registered charity. MaRS supports startups and accelerates the adoption of high-impact solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. For more information, visit marsdd.com.

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Previous Episode

Cracking the code: How generative biology could transform medicine

Can AI unravel the mysteries of human biology? Could it help design specialty treatments and cures for disease? Geoffrey von Maltzahn and his team at Generate:Biomedicines are bullish on both counts. AI has greatly accelerated progress in genome engineering, bioengineering and nanotechnology and they are getting closer to developing tailored therapeutics. “Six years ago, this was a crazy idea,” he says. “We’re now convinced that 100 percent of protein therapeutics are going to get created this way.” In this special episode of Solve for X, host Manula Selvarajah sits down with von Maltzahn to talk about where the science is now and where it is headed.

Featured in this episode:

Geoffrey von Maltzahn, general partner of Flagship Pioneering, is an inventor and entrepreneur who works at the intersection of biology and artificial intelligence, a specialization that makes him a world-renowned leader in generative biology.

Further reading:

Subscribe to Solve for X: Innovations to Change the World here. And below, find a transcript to “Cracking the code: How generative biology could transform medicine.” This interview was recorded at MaRS Impact Health in June 2024.

Next Episode

Waste opportunity: Can we design plastic out of healthcare?

Featured in this episode:

Journalist Susan Freinkel is the author of Plastics: Toxic A Love Story, a book that traces the history of plastics through eight different objects, from the Frisbee to the IV bag, and examines how plastic negatively affects our lives.
Dr. Ted Schettler is a physician and expert on the health risks of plastics and phthalates. He’s the scientific advisor at Health Care Without Harm, an organization that has dedicated more than 30 years to reducing healthcare’s environmental impact, including the removal of mercury from medical devices.
An anesthesiologist for more than 20 years, Dr. Lyndia Dernis has seen first-hand the amount of plastic waste operating rooms produce. Currently practicing at St. Mary’s Hospital Centre in Montreal, Dernis has spearheaded the Anesthesia and Environment Committee, which has drastically reduced and recycled the hospital’s plastic waste since being implemented in 2020.
Rashmi Prakash is the CEO of Aruna Revolution, a Halifax-based startup producing sustainable menstrual products. She’s also an adjunct professor at UBC, where she teaches a course on the impact of biomedical engineering on society, sustainability and environmental stewardship. As a biomedical engineer, Prakash has seen the surplus use of single-use plastic medical devices wrapped in single-use plastics, the layers of which she likens to a Russian doll.
Aditi Sitolay is a masters student of medical device design and entrepreneurship at Imperial College London. She’s also the founder of Synoro Med, a Vancouver-based startup that specializes in designing sterile, reusable medical devices, including an early-prototype IV bag.