Andrew Nikiforuk writes that megafires will be a part of our future. The source of his information is a new book by Edward Struzik, Firestorm: How Wildfire Will Shape Our Future:
Thanks to the way climate change has collided with the growth of industrialized communities in forests, wildfires have got wilder, bolder, hotter, costlier and larger. Megafires are now poised to unsettle much of North America — and anyone who likes fresh air.
Fire and forestry scientists foretold this unfolding horror story long ago. As Struzik documents, it is only politicians who don’t yet appreciate that climate change has ended business as usual in our forests. As a consequence the continent now has passed into a singular hell of megafires from California to Fort McMurray.
Canada is squarely part of the problem. Despite being a boreal nation shaped by northern forests that were “born to burn,” as Struzik puts it, the federal government has made things worse by gutting its ability to respond to wildfires.
Canada was once a leader in fire research, but no more. This year British Columbia could barely stay on top of its record-breaking fire season. In 2015 Alberta cut its wildfire prevention and management budget by almost $15 million just months before being humbled by the “Beast” in Fort McMurray.
It's a story we should be familiar with by now. As the planet warms, governments cut back their fire prevention budgets, claiming the cupboard is bare. And, so, the forest burns:
This summer British Columbians got a smoky taste of the new realities. A record fire season in the Interior displaced 45,000 people, racked up nearly $500 million in firefighting bills and charred almost a million hectares. Meanwhile urban dwellers choked on the smoke and beheld orange-hued landscapes.
The fire science that Canada’s petro-politicians have chosen to ignore isn’t rocket science. A century of successful and aggressive fire suppression has created expanses of ungainly wood piles all ready to go up in smoke.
In addition the undisciplined consumption of fossil fuels has changed the climate and given us warmer temperatures, which in turn have extended the tree-burning season and invited more lightning storms.
Hot air from the Fort McMurray conflagration, Canada’s costliest natural disaster, even formed a pyrocumulonimbus cloud that triggered its own lightning storm. It sparked new firestorms more than 30 kilometres away from the main fire. That dragon-breathing development even shocked and awed seasoned fire scientists.
Fire scientists know where the damage will likely be done:
The Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction lists Vancouver, Victoria and Jasper as likely candidates for purgatory, if not hell itself. Fire experts suspect that Banff National Park, Timmins and Prince George are also at risk. Minnesota, Michigan, Maine and New Jersey are becoming more combustible too.
We can see the train coming. But our political leaders tell us we can't afford to get off the tracks.
Image: The Tyee
16 comments:
As the article points out, boreal forests are "born to burn." Forest fires play an important part in the forest ecosystem and as the article states, our suppression of them "created expanses of ungainly wood piles all ready to go up in smoke."
The solution isn't more money for fire suppression. Instead, we should be spending the money more sensibly. Let remote expanses of forest burn while protecting communities by creating firebreaks and using localized suppression.
Cap
The article points out that Canada's First Nations know something about controlled burns, Cap. The problem is that, as the planet warms, we get wild weather swings and more lightning strikes. Tinder dry forests and lightning make for disaster.
Never has the phrase 'fiddling while Rome burns' been a more apt way to describe the inaction of the Trudeau government on climate change, Owen. While he talks a good game, it is becoming more and more obvious that they signify nothing.
The evidence, like the fire in the picture, is all around us, Lorne. Yet our leaders continue to ignore it. It's another example of sheer folly.
at least the oil sands will be utilized naturally
How so, Steve? What do you mean?
the fires will burn the tar:)
Leave it to prime minister Nero that is if he can spare some time from pimping bitumen. No matter how much his faithful adore him, Trudeau is in the arms of Morpheus when it comes to doing something concrete, significant and effective on climate change.
Any way you to try to deal with it, Steve, the tar is a source of pollution. The planet will be better off if it stays in the ground.
Knowing what's coming and not doing something about it is cowardly, Mound.
Owen, I'm not convinced the PM knows what's coming. He speaks a good line but does he really know it? He reminds me of Ted Baxter from the old Mary Tyler Moore show, great voice and presentation but not very bright. It works as long as he keeps to the script.
I have often thought of Ronald Reagan as the ideal politician from the Machiavellian point of view, cheerful, smiley, likable, the best guest at any party, could stick to the script but ultimately easily manipulated by his handlers. Few in the public noticed but I'm sure political power brokers did. Trudeau seems to be like Reagan.
Sadly, the voting public seems to like celebrity but doesn't notice dumb until it's too late.
As an actor, Reagan spent most of his adult life preparing to be president, Toby. Trudeau is a pretty good actor.
Most people just don't want to think about the possible effects of climate change and if one tries to gently nudge the topic into conversation, one becomes unpopular quite fast. Most people don't want to pay more taxes, even a nominal amount that would affect their lifestyle in no way whatsoever. Civic pride is an alien concept as is any form of communal action. Left to this bunch, we would still be collecting water in buckets from Lake Ontario.
I suspect there may be a major sudden shift in public opinion on climate change, one of those critical mass things. But I am not sure that this would necessarily have good results. I can see the powers that be deciding that poor people don't need electricity or running water while the better off just continue as usual.
There's been a long history of the poor simply being ignored, ffd. The latest iteration of that is in Puerto Rico.
Owen Gray said, "Trudeau is a pretty good actor."
That's exactly what he looks like to me, Owen, an actor.
As I recall, Toby, he used to teacher drama.
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