Climate change has been a key factor in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires in North America. Wildfire risk depends on temperature, soil moisture, and the presence of potential fuels. These factors have strong direct or indirect ties to climate variability and climate change.
Summer of 2023 was Earth’s hottest since global records began in 1880, according to scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) in New York.
2023 is the worst ever year for areas burned by wildfires in British Columbia, Alberta and the entire nation of Canada. For years before 2023, despite huge public investments in firefighting responses, areas burned were trending upward.
Warm, dry conditions in Canada could ignite new wildfires in September and it is possible that some of the blazes could remain active through the winter season…
Reuters: Warm, dry conditions in Canada could ignite new wildfires in September and it is possible that some of the blazes could remain active through the winter season
University of California Berkeley reports that burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of current climate change, altering the Earth’s ecosystems and causing human and environmental health problems. Research shows that changes in climate create warmer, drier conditions. Increased drought, and a longer fire season are boosting these increases in wildfire risk.
The Guardian’s Environment Editor Damian Carrington wrote:
Particularly concerning are tipping points, where a small rise in global temperature results in a big change in the climate, such as huge carbon emissions from an Amazon rainforest suffering major droughts and fires. Tipping points could trigger others in a cascade and some remained little studied, they said, such as the abrupt loss of stratocumulus cloud decks that could cause an additional 8C of global warming.
The researchers warn that climate breakdown could exacerbate or trigger other catastrophic risks, such as international wars or infectious disease pandemics, and worsen existing vulnerabilities such as poverty, crop failures and lack of water. The analysis suggests superpowers may one day fight over geoengineering plans to reflect sunlight or the right to emit carbon.
Climate endgame: risk of human extinction ‘dangerously underexplored’
So what is the response by Canada’s federal and western provincial governments to the warnings of climate scientists? They are choosing to spend tens of billions of dollars to subsidize increased production of fossil fuels. Those public subsidies enable record level profits by oil and gas companies but leave consumers paying record level prices for the products of those politically connected corporations.
Does tens of billions seem an exaggeration? Well, count $40 billion for the federal government to buy and expand the Trans Mountain Pipeline, $15-$20 billion for Coastal GasLink pipeline, billions for BC Hydro to add transmission facilities to deliver electricity to foreign owned LNG companies, billions in losses by BC Hydro selling electricity to those companies at less than half the cost of new energy from Site C, and billions of dollars in annual subsidies BC is giving to fossil gas producers.
“Canada’s plans for fossil fuel expansion (are) the second largest in the world … So Canada is really one of the worst culprits in putting forward plans for this industry that are really out of step with our commitments in the Paris Agreement.”
National Observer quoting Catherine Abreu, founder of Destination Zero and a member of Canada’s Net-Zero Advisory Body.
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Categories: Climate Change
in-sights.ca 
There was a full-house attendance at last night’s “Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency” presentation by Seth Klein in Salmon Arm, BC.
Please see: https://www.climateemergencyunit.ca/
(note the excellent intro. 6 min. video)
Furthermore, the irresponsible mixed messaging from governments (we can promote the fossil fuel industry, while fighting the climate crisis), as pointed out in Norm’s current article, is doing nothing to help Canadians collectively mobilize for the infinitely more important climate emergency.
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Thank you Alex. I added the video to the article.
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Alex
That is fine and dandy but what is the solution? Under the current ideology of neoliberalism there is not anything that can be done. A read of all the controversial topics Norm has written about what has changed? Voting, rallies, waving signs etc, etc has no impact. The journalism profession and media are owned by the corporations and institutions of power.
I continually ask the question. What is the answer to get the fox out of the hen house? The answer so far is crickets.
We are no longer a functioning society operating for the common good for all. We have become a digitized tribal society pursuing our self serving desires at the expense of everyone else. We seem to think we are the masters of our destiny and we are finding out that is not the case now and never will be. We are a cog in a wheel, not a separate wheel.
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