We Didn’t Start the Fire
By
Of global warming and forest fires:
The near-destruction of a Canadian city last week by a fire that sent almost 90,000 people fleeing for their lives is grim proof that the threat to these vast stands of spruce and other resinous trees, collectively known as the boreal forest, is real. And scientists say a large-scale loss of the forest could have profound consequences for efforts to limit the damage from climate change.
In retrospect, it is clear that Fort McMurray, in northern Alberta, was particularly vulnerable as one of the largest human outposts in the boreal forest. But the destruction of patches of this forest by fire, as well as invasions by insects surviving warmer winters, has occurred throughout the hemisphere.
[…]
Global warming is suspected as a prime culprit in the rise of these fires. The warming is hitting northern regions especially hard: Temperatures are climbing faster there than for the Earth as a whole, snow cover is melting prematurely, and forests are drying out earlier than in the past. The excess heat may even be causing an increase in lightning, which often sets off the most devastating wildfires.
There’s more of course, and it all amounts to whatever roaches evolve in to concluding that we were a bunch of dumb muthas and Eroach von Däniken will argue that Homo Stompus must have had extraterrestrial help or we never would have learned to use fire.
In addition, winds are sometimes carrying soot from the northern fires onto the immense sheet of ice covering Greenland, darkening the surface and causing it to absorb more of the sun’s heat. In 2012, such soot contributed to melting the surface of virtually the entire Greenland ice sheet, the first time that had happened since 1889.
I’d say we need to haul out those WWII “Is this trip really necessary?” signs, but I also know that every science-denying flathead go on a long drive every just to piss off the strawliberals, so I’ll just listen to Steel Pulse instead.
