From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
Roger Pielke Jr’s take on the Canada wildfires:
Wildfire, common to many healthy ecosystems, is a particularly challenging problem for society because of its impacts on property and health. It is also challenging because people like to locate themselves in fire-prone places and do things that ignite fires. We have learned through hard experience that complete suppression of wildfire is not the best policy — despite what Smokey Bear says — as it can actually lead to even greater and more harmful wildfire events. These dynamics together make wildfire a challenging issue for policy.
This week, wildfire smoke from fires in Canada have drifted south along the eastern seaboard of the United States, affecting New York City and Washington, DC, and correspondingly capturing a lot of media attention. The event should offer a teachable moment on the complexities of climate and the challenges of adapting to a volatile world.
With this post I discuss some of the aspects of wildfires that I see as missing in the public discussion. I start with what the Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says about wildfire, discuss readily available data on wildfire trends and conclude with the complexities of policy in the face of interconnected human-environment dynamics.
As we have come to expect from Roger, this is another thorough, well researched and objective analysis. He makes the following points:
- The IPCC has not detected or attributed fire occurrence or area burned to human-caused climate change
- Globally, emissions from wildfires has decreased globally over recent decades, as well as in many regions
- Canada wildfire trends show no increase in recent decades
- Wildfires used to be much more extensive in past centuries
- Wildfires are a part of the natural eco-system.
You can read the full analysis here.
Blaming “Climate change” for wildfires avoids dealing with the management actually done with wildlands. As the greens have a major revulsion towards loggers, and do not want pollution from controlled burns, doing nothing is the real policy.
Or I should say, having fire suppression being the real policy, with nothing done to prevent those fires. And green doubting their inherent, ineffable goodness is nearly impossible.
Much of the Canadian Northern forest is impenetrable for fire fighting vehicles and personnel. A D9 Dozer will get you about 3 miles closer to the fire every day.
That could be a pretty inconsequential amount compared to the speed the fire is moving towards the dozer.
“”thorough, well researched and objective analysis””
Is perfectly in order just so long as it supports the narrative. Either it accords with the gospels and the teaching or it’s heresy
An official report on the cause of the Marshall wildfire in Colorado just came out. Of course, climate change had to be mentioned as a contributing factor. There was no mention of government negligence on fire prevention however.
https://www.cpr.org/2023/06/08/marshall-fire-announcement-boulder/#:~:text=Authorities%20ended%20their%20year%2Dand,other%20from%20arcing%20power%20lines.
Of course “climate change” would have to get thrown in there. It’s obligatory now. Obviously, strong winds have never happened in Colorado before. /s
-Johne
Yes.
This year has been cool and wet so far but now that it’s warming up, it’s as green as it gets. The areas that burned are now covered with lush growth. It inevitably dries out in late summer and there will be an abundance of fuel.
If you examine megafires they have on thing in common; wind. Every megafire (over 100,000 acres) I examined had winds above 40 mph. The Marshall fire had sustained winds of 90 mph and gust to 100 mph.
And since temperature differentials are reduced from tropics to high latitudes/poles AND from day to night in a warmer climate, “climate change” aka global warming should REDUCE so-called “megafires,” NOT increase them.
What are they panicking about, again?!
Roger needs to add another point.
The number of arsonists has increased over the years.
Some are just plain sickos that like to see things burn but some are trying to aid the green energy movement and create chaos – a completely different species of sicko.
_______________________________________
What the Media Won’t Tell you About … Sea Level Rise
What the Media Won’t Tell you About … Coral Reefs
What the Media Won’t Tell you About … Polar Bears
What the Media Won’t Tell you About … Hurricanes
What the Media Won’t Tell you About … Greenland
What the Media Won’t Tell you About … Tornados
What the Media Won’t Tell you About … Droughts
What the Media Won’t Tell you About … Methane
What the Media Won’t Tell you About …
What the Media Won’t Tell you About … the complete dumbing down of the media and lack of basic skills in reporting.
Using CO2 emissions and uptake data to show how woefully neglectful our wildland management is.
https://twitter.com/aaronshem/status/1667650617081208834
This may be in no small part due to a global insensitive structure change at the end of the 90s. https://mobile.twitter.com/aaronshem/status/1613898225638834176
First of all, it is trivially true that global warming increases potential fire weather. All else equal, with higher temps there would be more drying of vegetation, yet there’s been no actual fire increase.
So let’s take a look at what really matters for wildfire risk and climate change.
1.The human-wildland interface is growing.
Note the blue line on the graph. This is carbon released by the expansion of human activity. This has two big implications.
One, there is increasingly less wildland area & more human managed land (with less potential fuel).
Two, there is increasingly more human activity at the bounds of wildland at risk of fire.
So there’s slightly less area to burn, but a lot more people & property at risk.
2.CO2 reduces evaporation from plants. Plants & soil capture & retain more moisture.
Note the green line. This is biosphere growth, the vast majority of which takes place on wildlands. Despite wild lands making up less area globally, they have grown tremendously.
There is much more fuel on wildlands than there has been in the past & especially much more per acre.
This alone should increase the amount or wildfire substantially even without an increase potential fire weather.
So, with vastly more fuel & slightly more potential fire weather, why do we not see an increase in fire?
One reason is CO2 reduces evaporation from plants. Plants & soil capture & retain more moisture with higher CO2. All that growth holds substantially more water, which evaporates much less readily from plants & healthy soil than from the surface or bodies of water.
So, this means fire is less frequent even when there is slightly more arid conditions. But less fire mean more fuel growth for when a major fire inevitably happens.
We need to be doing much, much more to manage fire risk!
Too rational. It’s obvious you are a denier.
The climate crisis self-fulfilling prophecy requires that some greentards identify as arsonists.
Very nice work Roger.
That could be a pretty inconsequential amount compared to the speed the fire is moving towards the dozer.
“The IPCC has not detected or attributed fire occurrence or area burned to human-caused climate change”
Yet.
Near the end of his analysis, Pielke notes the June 8 report on the Marshall Fire.