No surprise: anti-science alarmists say climate change caused the Canadian wildfires
Ya sure. Global warming is causing everything bad
As sure as day follows night, the always-wise environmental fringe on the left has leaped into Defcon 4 to proclaim, once again, that the end is near.
Don’t they ever get tired of blaming everything on global warming?*
The Guardian—the reliably far left British publication—was among the alarmists, warning:
“Canada’s wildfires are part of our new climate reality, experts and officials say.
“Canada is on track to experience its most severe wildfire season on record, and it’s part of a trend experts say will intensify.”
Greenpeace Canada noted the irony that June 7 is Canada’s Clean Air Day, while reporting that “officials” say, “the fires were a warning about climate change.”
Oh, dear.
One benefit of having been in the news business for so long, I have witnessed a mile-long warning of catastrophes ahead. I started the job in the 1960s and witnessed wave after wave of reporters filling the pages with countless articles of doom:
We’d run out of oil in ten years, was the ballyhooed prediction in the 1960s. Also disappearing would be all kinds of special and rare materials, essential for the continuation of civilization
When oil didn’t run out in the ‘70s, the calamity of choice was the prediction of a new Ice Age—now conveniently forgotten by the end-of-timers and their media acolytes.
With a new decade, the ‘80s, came a new convulsion: Acid rain. No more forests will be left, don’t ya know.
Then came the disappearing ozone layer in the 1990. Radon would fry everyone in their homes, creating a new multi-billion-dollar industry of manufactures of test gizmos everyone had to install in their basements.
Enter a new century and global warming became the popular doomsday scenario. Cities will be flooded. Polar bears will starve. People will die in the heat.
I’m not here to say that climate change involving the Earth’s warming isn’t happening. The climate is always changing and always has. The debate is over how much our activity is changing it and (this doesn’t get as much attention) whether we are smart enough to set the climate thermostat at a steady optimum temperature.
But every time a wildfire breaks out, a flood inundates, a hurricane blows in, a drought shows up, you can always count on someone who knows with religious-like certainty that, yes, this is further proof that we’ve got to change our ways or we’re doomed. I’m sick of it.
Even the hard left Guardian pointed out that climate change can’t explain every event:
Scientists have not linked this summer’s fires to climate change, but experts and officials say global warming will exacerbate Canadian wildfires in general.
And:
In eastern Canada, where fires are also blazing, there hasn’t been as much of demonstrable link to climate change historically, but that may be starting to shift, a [climate scientist] said.
Still, the Guardian couldn’t restrain itself; it ran extensive quotes from sources who believe global warming is a sure thing. While not giving voice to the scientists on the other side.
I wish there was more reporting on the cause of this serious outbreak of wildfires. Or on the history of wildfires. Go here to read about the much bigger and more devastating fires in North America dating back to the 1800s.
Among them was the most devastating one, the Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin and Michigan. It burned more than 3.7 million acres and killed an estimated 1,200 to 1,500 people. It started on Oct. 8, 1871, the same time as the Great Chicago Fire, which has led to a theory that both were started by meteor that broke into several fiery pieces as it entered the atmosphere. But that’s a story for another time.
*Notice how the alarmists no longer use the term “global warming.” “Climate change” sounds more serious and all-encompassing.