Fires and climate change

[Frisk]

https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-story-234605-3-.htm#234605

Justin Trudeau's twin objectives to reduce Canada's carbon emissions and build a pipeline to carry oilsands bitumen to the coast are colliding in a province ravaged by wildfires that the prime minister's own government attributes to climate change.

Several hundred pot-banging, whistle-blowing pipeline protesters have gathered outside the Vancouver Island Conference Centre in Nanaimo, where Trudeau and his ministers are holed up for a cabinet retreat amid the acrid smell of smoke from the hundreds of wildfires burning across British Columbia.

I really don't know what side to take on this. I'd be interested in hearing others opinions though.

[CapitalB]

Moving oil by pipe has a lower carbon cost than moving it by rail. That should be the end of the issue. Its also my understanding that the existing pipeline will be inspected and upgraded during the building process of the new line. Sounds like a good thing.

I mean in an ideal world it sure would be nice to just go cold turkey on fossil fuels. Thats not even a slim possibility though and people really pushing for that is not helping 'the cause' its just creating more division and giving people on the other side of the fence more ammo.

[tsayta]

Are the fires mainly due to climate change? Or is it the years of fire suppression building up unnatural fuel loads. At the end of the last ice age, the younger dryas, some scientists say North America experienced continent wide fires. The warming being experienced now may pale in comparison to what has been experienced over millennia

[Eyeswideopen]

Look, if you don't want pipelines sell your car and walk/bike year round. If that is not an option than pipelines are necessary. It's pretty simple. Stop trying to blame the people approving/building them. It is demand and supply.

[seewood]

Look, if you don't want pipelines sell your car and walk/bike year round. If that is not an option than pipelines are necessary. It's pretty simple. Stop trying to blame the people approving/building them. It is demand and supply.

Not to mention shut down ALL power generation facilities in the WORLD that use coal, oil or natural gas. Shut down all steel manufacturing that still use coking coal.

[Eyeswideopen]

Isn't it ironic that the majority of people travel on gas burning cars to pipeline protests.

But, there is a solution now. Spend twice as much on a fully electric car. Problem solved. You're welcome.

[Glacier]

Are the fires mainly due to climate change? Or is it the years of fire suppression building up unnatural fuel loads. At the end of the last ice age, the younger dryas, some scientists say North America experienced continent wide fires. The warming being experienced now may pale in comparison to what has been experienced over millennia

The truth is that fire activity had been in decline since as far back as records go. The 1980s and 90s were the wettest decades on record, and thus even without fire suppression, there was not going to be a lot of land burned. So after 30 years with very little fire activity, the world's only lodgepole pine forest in the central interior was mature and ripe for disease. The pine beetle did its thing, leaving vast quantities of dead trees in its wake.

Mother nature in 15 years has done her thing by removing a significant percentage of the dead wood. I do not see us having fire season like this year or last for at least another 30 years.

[Catsumi]

Are the fires mainly due to climate change? Or is it the years of fire suppression building up unnatural fuel loads. At the end of the last ice age, the younger dryas, some scientists say North America experienced continent wide fires. The warming being experienced now may pale in comparison to what has been experienced over millennia

The truth is that fire activity had been in decline since as far back as records go. The 1980s and 90s were the wettest decades on record, and thus even without fire suppression, there was not going to be a lot of land burned. So after 30 years with very little fire activity, the world's only lodgepole pine forest in the central interior was mature and ripe for disease. The pine beetle did its thing, leaving vast quantities of dead trees in its wake.

Mother nature in 15 years has done thing by removing a significant percentage of the dead wood. I do not see us having fire season like this year or last for at least another 30 years.

We all hope you are correct, Glacier. Had enough of it.

[voice of reason]

when we get a forest fire in december i will accept it is because of climate change

[Glacier]

when we get a forest fire in december i will accept it is because of climate change

We have had forest fires every single month of the year. The last time we had a December fire was 2002.

[Silverstarqueen]

If and when they come up with a viable, affordable alternative to the current ones, everyone will happily hop on board. At this point solar panels are not going to cut it for all our energy needs.
Reports of serious wild fire seasons seem to refer to 1958 or earlier. Canada's climate was far warmer in previous periods (trees growing in the arctic). I am curious tho why people are plying the federal gov't about what they are going to do about it. even Trudeau can't change the climate, we are going to have to figure this one out for ourselves. Each town is going to need a plan of what kind of equipment and person-power they want to have on standby in summer. Instead of complaining that the provincial gov't isn't doing their bit, communities need to figure out what sized fund they want to set aside every year.

[Glacier]

Last year over 1,000,000 hectares of forest burned in the Cariboo. This year only 40,000 hectares has burned. On the other hand, only 270 hectares burned in the Northwest Fire Centre last year versus 430,000 hectares burning this year.

[youjustcomplain]

Isn't it ironic that the majority of people travel on gas burning cars to pipeline protests.

But, there is a solution now. Spend twice as much on a fully electric car. Problem solved. You're welcome.

Even if they don't drive a car to the pipeline protests, they went from point A to point B, and in doing so, they touched a road which requires fossil fuels to build. They wore cloths built in factories that rely on plastics and consume fossil fuels indirectly for electricity. The food they eat, is shipped by fossil fuel burning vehicles. Any way that anyone slices it, nobody lives without contributing to the problem.

Electric cars still have rubber tires that drive on paved roads. The body and interior of the car is covered in plastics which are from fossil fuels. Short of horse and buggy in a strict Amish community, I don't see any of us moving around without indirectly supporting the constant burning of fossil fuels.

All of that aside, it was said above... We need fossil fuels. Transporting fossil fuels by any means other than pipeline incurs MORE risk. Lets be smart and chose the least risky method of doing what we have to do. That is what we do in every other aspect of our lives.

[Drip_Torch]

Are the fires mainly due to climate change? Or is it the years of fire suppression building up unnatural fuel loads. At the end of the last ice age, the younger dryas, some scientists say North America experienced continent wide fires. The warming being experienced now may pale in comparison to what has been experienced over millennia

The truth is that fire activity had been in decline since as far back as records go. The 1980s and 90s were the wettest decades on record, and thus even without fire suppression, there was not going to be a lot of land burned. So after 30 years with very little fire activity, the world's only lodgepole pine forest in the central interior was mature and ripe for disease. The pine beetle did its thing, leaving vast quantities of dead trees in its wake.

Mother nature in 15 years has done her thing by removing a significant percentage of the dead wood. I do not see us having fire season like this year or last for at least another 30 years.

I'd have to view BC in isolation to wholeheartedly agree with your post. Not that I disagree with the factual basis, but it's a very dynamic situation that seems, (at least in my view) to have as much to do with climate variability, as it does climate change. My days on the west coast logging in first growth suggest to me that it’s not simply a matter of fire suppression leading to fuel loading – we’ve also eliminated much of the diversity that would have tended to moderate fires in the past. We’ve created vast homogenous stands of merchantable timber that all become ripe for pestilence/conflagration at the same time.

Of course, having stated the broad, we can look to the specific. Tweedsmuir, that’s a park not a timber supply area. It’s like I’ve been saying for a while now, it’s dynamic and there’s more than a few things going on here. The confluence of many factors, some environmental, some climate related, some anthropologically driven.

… and to the OP’s - I’m not touching that with a 10 foot pole, except to say I’ve always been concerned the pipeline with cost taxpayers a lot of money and Burnaby’s concerns will be overlooked and ignored. Now that all of that is behind us…

[Glacier]

Back in the early 90s I took a two week trip down the Dean River on horseback to an old abandoned native village at Gatcho Lake. From there we headed west through the Rainbow Mountains along the Alexander MacKenzie Heritage Trail, and then to highway 20. Amazing trip, but the land has been forever changed this week. the 200,000 hectare fire is now reported to be burning the village buildings as history goes up in smoke. The fires are drawn in pencil on this map.