Harper Denies Global Warming

Don't worry. Herr Harper has reassured us that global warming isn't a problem. So I'm sure it isn't. Lets see what he said on the topic:

"We’re gearing up for the biggest struggle our party has faced since you entrusted me with the leadership. I’m talking about the “battle of Kyoto” — our campaign to block the job-killing, economy-destroying Kyoto Accord."

"It would take more than one letter to explain what’s wrong with Kyoto, but here are a few facts about this so-called “Accord”:"

1. It’s based on tentative and contradictory scientific evidence about climate trends.

2. It focuses on carbon dioxide, which is essential to life, rather than upon pollutants.

3.Canada is the only country in the world required to make significant cuts in emissions. Third World countries are exempt, the Europeans get credit for shutting down inefficient Soviet-era industries, and no country in the Western hemisphere except Canada is signing.

4. Implementing Kyoto will cripple the oil and gas industry, which is essential to the economies of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

5. As the effects trickle through other industries, workers and consumers everywhere in Canada will lose. THERE ARE NO CANADIAN WINNERS UNDER THE KYOTO ACCORD.

6. The only winners will be countries such as Russia, India, and China, from which Canada will have to buy “emissions credits.” Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.

7. On top of all this, Kyoto will not even reduce greenhouse gases. By encouraging transfer of industrial production to Third World countries where emissions standards are more relaxed, it will almost certainly increase emissions on a global scale

climate change

We should not confuse weather and climate. To determine if climate is changing one needs much more time than a five day forecast.

It is clear from the article that the number of fires over a 50 year period have increased dramatically.

There is no doubt that seasonal temperatures have changed. When northern temperatures in the Spring are hotter than southern Canada one needs to take note.

It is true that additional detritus ("fuel") in the forest aids in hotter and more extensive fires but it only becomes a factor if the forest is dry. The article indicates that it would take many more rainfalls in the north to prevent these types of forest fire storms.

Criminal behaviour

Imagine if you went to a doctor, a trained medical scientist,to get tested for cancer and the tests came back positive. But the doctor tells you not to worry because you really don't have cancer. All the medical research by scientists from years gone by, all the doctor's training, all the experiences others have gone through point to the fact that you have cancer. You then don't seek treatment and later die from the cancer. Is that doctor criminally responsible for your death?

Harper, Stelmach, the oil executives and their propaganda machines deny there is no problem from climate change so they won't act accordingly to help prevent the problems associated with climate change. Quite the contrary. They are heading full steam ahead with actions that increase climate change so they can make money. There are many others around the world doing this as well but for now lets just use them as examples. They say we don't need to listen to the thousands of scientists from around the world who have spent decades studying the problem and say climate change is real. The predictions they made regarding the effects of climate change are now happening yet Harper and the rest of his climate change deniers are telling it's not happening. Is this criminal behavior? Are they responsible, at least in part, for what's going on in our environment across Canada?

I know one thing for sure. Our kids and grandkids are going to hate us. History will reflect the lack of action by our leaders and the general population as a huge part of the reason for the collapse in our environment.

@firefox007

Let me respectfully suggest, firefox007, that you re-read the article and its background evidence, and then reflect on your post.

First, you begin with an utterly false straw-man: This article does not suggest that "all forest-fire activity is due to global warming." Neither Andrew Nikiforuk, nor any of the scientists he cites made any such claim at all... yet you claim that: "The author just states this without adequate proof." You are simply wrong.

Second, given your personal experience fighting fires, you will know that warming significantly affects fuel-load, ignition variables, and then the behaviour of fires. Given the indisputable evidence, not just of warming but of the subsequent effects in all of those variables (well documented in the article), there is no question that climate change IS, and will continue to affect forest fires. (Please note that this is a far cry from any claim that it is "causing" all of them.)

Third, warming clearly affects both the number and intensity of weather events, including phenomena like lightning. (This is being documented from the Yukon http://yukon.taiga.net/swyukon/lightning.cfm to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE). Moreover, there is no question regarding either the theory or empirical evidence: more, and more-intense weather events are occurring because of climate change. (note that there are some other interesting factors like sun spots that may play a role, but they do not negate the effects of climate change)

Thus the conclusions attributed to Flannigan are valid, well-founded, and very reasonable:

<< "Given the realities of warming temperatures in northern forests, the fire forecast will also be challenging, adds Flannigan, one of the country's top fire experts and a professor at the University of Alberta. The fire seasons will be longer; the area burned will be greater; fires will burn more intently; and the effectiveness of fire suppression will be uncertain.

"Fire management agencies may become overwhelmed with respect to climate-change-altered fire regimes," says Flannigan." >>

All well-documented and reasonably stated. Nikiforuk is to be commended!

Memo to the AGW deniers: no one cares what you think

Note: AGW is an abbreviation for Anthropogenic Global Warming.

And it doesn't matter whether there is adequate scientific proof that humans are causing global warming or not. The warming is an undeniable reality.

The fact that AGW was predicted in 1973 and forecasted by the Canadian federal government in 1983 in the State of the Environment Reports is enough for me.

The speed of the mountain pine beetle infestation was never predicted (although I would welcome proof to the contrary) by anyone.

Forest fires were predicted and I have a map that shows how the boreal forest will disappear on the western prairies, so that the prairie grasslands will morph into the Taiga with no intervening trees.

Denial is pointless. It doesn't matter what we think, how we feel or what we say on this issue. The facts speak for themselves.

The weather is changing and so is the climate. I don't know why Albertans feel so passionate about denying the truth; it is they who will be hit the hardest.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear an Albertan claiming that CFC's are good for the atmosphere because they give the ozone layer a workout. I lived in Alberta for 15 years, back when it was worth living in, and I just wish they held elections there and not stampedes to conform.

Ahhh, but they're carbon neutral fires.

"More and More, the Boreal Will Burn"

Revisit the movie: "The Day the Earth Caught Fire"

Starring Leo McKern, Janet Munro and Edward Judd. It is eerily familiar. Just watch it.

Last year we drove through St Paul, Alberta and saw the smoke from the BC forest fires. That was a genuinely frightening scene. The smoke from the BC fires reached Boston, Mass.

Please tell me the last time this happened, otherwise I will continue to believe that this was the first time in history.

Adjectives fail to describe the thick smoke in St Paul last year. Yes, we could barely see across the road and yes, we drove through the cloud for 100 miles, but you had to see it to believe it.

That said, what can we do about it? I think the die is cast.

there's more

Good article Andrew. Not much to argue with there. All these problems are exasperated by the lack of dealing with AGW and the fact that the govt's of Alberta and BC have gutted their forests service budgets. No one is on the ground identifying potential problems. Wait till the shit hits the fan. But I guess this is what we wanted cause we keep voting the assholes back in. BTW, the pine beetles got a ride to Alberta. After changes to the TFL which no longer required logs to be processed where they're cut, they were trucked over the Pine Pass.

ODB

Maybe Andrew's text:
"Thanks to climate change the mountain pine beetle in B.C. expanded beyond its historic ranges, flew over the Rockies and colonized virgin lodgepole territory in north central Alberta. The insect has also established itself in jack pine, a conifer that extends across the country and that is perhaps Canada's most iconic tree."
refers to a report that clouds of pine beetle or bark beetle were so massive they registered on weather radar some years ago. Yup, they were going east from B.C.
'Course some probably went on rubber as you note.

What the Science Says...

@Firefox007: Lightning is surprisingly unimportant in determining area burned. Lightning is a necessary but not sufficient condition for increased area burned. If you've spent any time on the fire line, you know that the abundance, continuity and moisture content of fine fuels is what determines the intensity of the flaming front. Humidity and winds control fire spread.

And if you want to see the scientific evidence for the effect of climatic change on wildfire frequency, intensity and severity see the work of Mike Flannigan, Werner Kurz, Nathan Gillett, Tony Westerling, or actually anyone who's worked in the field...

Well, I suppose Harper & Stelmach consider this a good thing

Once the forests have burned over, they will no longer be a threat to the "life-giving" oil production. Just mother nature's way of adding to the moonscape.......

Climate change and forest fires

It's been established that we have managed our forests into a serious hazard by interfering with the natural order of things, i.e. fires are put out before they would otherwise burn out. What does not appear to have been done is to factor this into any speculation on the consequences on climate change.

The pine beetle is always dragged into the discussion but it's population may have never exploded if fires had been allowed to burn out naturally. How would that have affected the AGW arguments if the changes caused by the beetle were no longer evident?

There have always been fires in the boreal forest, some quite large, no doubt but where is the evidence, sans interference from man, that the forest is not replacing itself?

The evidence certainly should be out there but that information never seems to get presented. Is it not the low hanging fruit of forest fires and pine beetles?

So tired of the debate...

about global climate change.

To suppose that every weather or fire event is directly linked to global warming is obviously a mistake.

But to suppose that exponential growth in human population can merely continue without a corresponding increase in impact upon non-human nature is simply dumb. And as more of the conflicts in the world are directly tied to resource competition, the implications of growth-at-all-cost economics are direct.

Significant action to help with this situation is not on the Canadian government's agenda. Such action is local, ad hoc, literally at the grass roots, fast-paced, exciting.

Climate Change & Forest Fires

My comment is going to provide the science linking global warming and forest fires so you can see it.

The world is literally blind to the temperatures related to manmade global warming. We calculate for it with great accuracy but don't get to see what is happening.

Environment Canada contributes regional climatic data for building code across the country to ensure we build within regional temperature extremes. Codes tell us to watch out for solar radiation but at the end of the day buildings are signed off as compliant without verification. Here is what we missed in the calculator.

Cause of urban heat islands has been found and the massive energy used responding to them is a waste reacting to symptoms of solar radiation. Take a look at this link and the time-lapsed infrared video so you can see how fast buildings are radiated in the morning. http://www.thermoguy.com/blog/index.php?itemid=56

Fire Fighters Blind By Smoke in Forest Fires

Smoke is a real challenge and infrared is used in a very limited capacity. There is so much more that could be done at the front end of the fire.

Slave Lake was no different, here is what an interface looks like when you are smoked in. http://www.thermoguy.com/blog/index.php?itemid=39