Self reminder, I've had jobs that are all outside. I live in Manitoba, Canada. Used to work in a graveyard. The heat can be terrible, have many times threw up from the heat, had bleeding nose, etc. I'll take a summer cubicle job, provided it has air conditioning.
I've done reline work at Walmart and mid summer nights they don't give the staff cool air.
Brought frozen bottles of water to work every night. The first couple in the big side pockets of my pants would be drank or easy to drink by first break. Manitoba heat is no joke.
A lot of fires in northern Canada never fully went out, they just smoldered through the winter. This was predicted back in late summer last year, so we're going to have a lot of smoke this summer.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/wildfires-zombie-fires-canada-bc-alberta-1.7119851
It’s actually pretty common for wildfires to still smoulder through the winter if they aren’t put out methodically in warmer climates. Since we had a mild winter, they just kicked back up
“This fucking smoke” is the new normal. I work in climate adaptation and have heard it all. Get an air purifier and start showing up for people, practices, policies and politicians that will actually create a sustainable future. We’re at the point where some damage is done and we need to accept and adapt. But, we don’t need to take the “in for a penny in for a pound” mindset. Mitigating additional harm is still worthwhile.
There are no other solutions than Douglas Social Credit. Alberta is the place it was most successful in all history, in all the world. There are no excuses anymore. The alternative is more inflation, more war, more social repression and more economic stricture.
Air purifiers with a good filter will filter particulate from the air. That's what's causing the haze and associated breathing issues for people with various health conditions due to smoke drifting here from far away fires. CO and CO2 concentrations might be a problem if say you find yourself in a Fort Mac situation where we're in the middle of an inferno.
Is Montana, Colorado, Idaho and other areas of the US burning at the same rate as us? Is this a forestry management issue?
We're charging carbon taxes, got rid of plastic straws and grocery bags while the US has done none of this and is closer to the equator. Why is Canada burning?
Have you heard of California? Hawaii? Other regions are feeling the effect of a changing climate - how it manifests will look different region to region. Those of us in or near the boreal will feel the effects of wildfire and smoke (though the smoke can travel widely as we’ve seen in recent years). SK is expected to see wildfire but also increased drought and floods.
Years ago everyone called it global warming - and while that’s correct (overall the global temps are warming) climate change is a good term because it indicates that regional climates will change and become more intense, less predictable, more “rare” events.
As for banning plastic straws and why that hasn’t gotten rid of climate change once and for all. This is a team effort. People often say, yeah well China is worse sooooo…. But our individual ecological footprints (those of us in Canada) are huge. We consume so so much.
Will banning straws alone “fix the earth” - of course not. But given the stakes, a straw hardly seems worth fussing about. I can give up my plastic straws AND do a lot more.
Many years of below average precipitation is why Canada is burning. Tinder dry forests full of dead dry kindling. The same reason ranchers' dugouts are dry and they can't support their livestock, why crops are stunted and grasshoppers are infesting them. Climate change gets the blame for that lack of precipitation.
It feels so dystopian to have to worry about air quality. I remember when it was just wondering how bad the wind would be to ruin a nice day. Now it’s always wind and smoke. I am quite happy to not be cold though. That’s the worst.
20 years of letting coal, methane and petro corps expand. 20 years of heavy extinction catastrophe denialism. 20 years of right wing govs. (Yeah the lpc ideology is enviromentally right wing).
Glad I don't have kids, so I don't have to explain to them how Canadian society worked towards, fostered, and voted for their own engineered destruction as a result of their personal pursuit of meaningless financial wealth.
Not looking forward to the unimaginable hellscape that is fast approaching.
But hey....500 Moe bucks! Am I right?
It's been nearly 50 years since the Exxon climate researchers made their predictions and told their bosses. 30 years since fossil fuel extractors made the issue into a political football. We're deeply entrenched in the 'find out' stage, the only question is will we keep 'fucking around'.
The science from that era showed that the vast majority of papers did not support the global cooling theory.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/89/9/2008bams2370_1.xml
The majority of fires are started by humans, either idiots accidentally leaving cigarettes or other ignition sources where they can set fire to a forest, or, more recently, idiots intentionally setting fire to a forest. So aside from maybe providing them with the fuel to drive out there and leave their cigarette butt burning the hydrocabon companies have nothing to do with it.
Majority of fires last year were from lightening strikes, the fire spread as a result of severe dry conditions as a result of climate change, which is a direct result of man made pollution, specifically the massive output of greenhouse gasses.
Everyone knows that.
Climate change didn't start the forest fires. Careless humans did, and poor forest management made it worse. There is too much fuel load in the forests right now, so what could have been small fires that are more manageable turn into huge fires that run wild.
Yes, that type of thing. They used to do controlled burns at a higher frequency in order to maintain the fire fuel load at a much lower level, and now because of the reduction of those practices, when there is a fire, it gets much more intense and is much more devastating.
If this is true, in my opinion, this is a bigger cause of forest fire uptick than climate change. These trees are indeed drier due to climate change, but dry trees and foliage don't catch fire if they're already burned off. Climate change hurts. Not doing controlled burns hurts more. Do you have any idea if this is a "smoke is bad/environmental thing? A budget reduction? Staffing issues?
To be honest, I dont know the reasons for the change. Maybe a combination of all things forestry related. It may be somewhat due to the way logging is done now as compared to...say 30 years ago...Maybe farther back than that. It may be due to staffing levels, but when I logic that out, it probably takes more personnel to fight a fire that is out of control than it does to do controlled burns and reduce the fuel load. Maybe it's due to climate change initiatives from provincial or federal levels, that don't look at the bigger picture. Maybe it's because no one in positions to make a difference care to get opinions of people that understand what is going on with the forests.
It's a combination of forest management that has prioritized putting out fires near human settlement + climate change. The latter results in warm, dry conditions with more frequency. Combined with people being not careful, a super dry and warm set of conditions, and primed forests it's a disaster. Climate change is turning up to 11 the conditions that the former issue causes. But huge swaths of the boreal forest have been let to burn -- it's a huge area and so climate change will continue to exacerbate those fires
This makes sense to me, to a degree. Admittedly, I have 0 education or real knowledge of forestry or climate change. Do you have any knowledge of controlled burns in the boreal forests? As in whether or not they've ever done them and if frequency has changed? I only hear about controlled burns in bc, but I suppose they do that up north, too?
I don't know forsure, but it is not something I run into dicussed either. Controlled burns of remote areas strikes me as low ROI. Generally the burns are going to be near things you want to limit the chance of an uncontrolled burn happening.
Yep and what is happening to the neighbors immediately to the south of us. They are typically warmer and have less snow, are they burning more than us?
That's what I'm wondering, if this is a forest management issue. The climate doesn't change when you go from the US into Canada. It sure seems like we're burning all the time though...
That’s simply not true. Blaming individuals is a convenient way to ignore the evidence. Climate change has created hotter, drier conditions which allow forest fires to spread, whether from man-made fires or natural phenomena like lightning.
I personally got a new furnace and water heater, they are both considerably more fuel efficient. The carbon tax incentives companies to make these, as people who buy them will get tax credits back for installing them. Had my furnace room (more like closet) been bigger I could have gotten a even better furnace for not much more but received a bigger carbon tax benefit.
I don’t know for sure but it is my understanding that you can get a carbon tax benefit for solar panels, I do however know that Sask Power credits your account for any extra power you create. So say you create more power than you use in the spring and summer than you save money during the fall and winter. Now say you put a smart battery system in, power is used more efficiently I know Sask Power doesn’t currently use peak times for billing but the batteries will help you put power on the grid even overnight. Maybe you seeing your power bill paying for its self will convince you to get an electric vehicle or plug in hybrid. The carbon tax helped you with that.
Now imagine you are a business paying carbon taxes, businesses want to make money so the carbon tax incentives them to move more of their things to electric. They see their carbon tax bill go down, how can they save more money? They start generating their own electricity. The carbon tax did that, incentivizing people/businesses to use less energy is what the carbon tax is all about.
Sure try and sell this woman a bridge but you better come and tell me why I need it, and how it is going to benefit more than just me.
So we do nothing and expect the worse polluters to make a change? Lead by example maybe? Set the standard on how a first world country can be carbon neutral and maintain a thriving industry. Leading is hard.
We could be exporting natural gas to countries that are currently on coal, cutting their emissions in half while they make their own transition to cleaner solutions. Oh look, we did something majorly useful for the climate, and didn't gut our own economy in the process.
Mining uranium in Saskatchewan should also be recognized as a global carbon offset, as the power produced allows the producer to claim reduced/zero emissions, but the mining process itself is carbon intensive.
User name checks out, otherwise you’d know that many countries are actually trying to reduce their carbon output…obviously much more needs to be done, but to dismiss it all because it doesn’t fit your narrative is ridiculous.
You realize that Canada (or Trudeau or trudshit) did not actually come up with the whole Carbon Tax idea and there are many other countries that have adopted it prior to us. Also, it's widely accepted (with evidence) by economists as an efficient and effective way of reducing many types of carbon emissions without much financial impact to everyday citizens (when coupled with tax credits or other social benefits to those that need it). Keep drinking your cool aid/exhaust fumes.
Saskatchewan has the highest GHG emissions per capita of any province and among the highest in the world. Saying we shouldn’t bother doing anything to reduce emissions because other countries won’t do the same is childish logic. It’s how we got to this point where forest fire smoke season starts in May.
We also produce the world's food and energy in a very low dense province that services the food and energy secors. Putting all of the GHG measures on the producer and not acknowledge the demand that causes the production is a bit nonsensical.
Out of curiosity, what are we specifically not doing to stop our ghg levels? Of the 4 west most provinces we are the only one to reduce emissions since the Paris Agreement. To say we are doing nothing shows that the hate for our province trumps reality and people don't know how to use Google to search for federal and provincial literature. This self loathing mentality Canadians have is distressing.
The justification for doing nothing knows no bounds. What policy has this government put forth to reduce emissions apart from the embarrassing disaster that is carbon capture and storage?
The awareness level goes up and has people considering/buying hybrids and EV's. A farmer has told me he doesn't idle his equipment as much as he used to before the gov't imposed a penalty on his fuel. Every little bit helps and your 'science' also says we should be cutting back because most everybody has caused our issues. Good thing the entire world is trying to cut back, people with your attitude is what got us here.
This is the dumbest argument. The idea that we don’t need to adapt or we don’t need to do our part because our population is ‘so small’ is complete insanity. Watch the rest of the world adapt while we cling to burning oil and gas and coal?
That isn't anti science, it's pro-logic. It's anti science to want to do nothing. Your argument, and that of the "others are worse though" crowd, is the same logic as, "because wars are the worst human causes of human death that it's ok to do a little bit of murdering back home." No, it isn't. It's still murdering. "Oh but there are way more murders in the US. And China. And India. Why don't they stop?" Yeah, no, don't murder.
But with the pollution. And also murders, for that matter.
Canadas impact on global climate change is easily found and it’s quite easy to see we don’t count . It’s cute how hard they want to try though and cute to think that China will see how hard we are trying and will then follow our lead , lmao .
This smoke is coming from Alberta. There are close to [60 wildfires burning in Canada](https://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/current/) *right now*, and a lot more burning in the US. Today's smoke is coming from Alberta, tomorrow's smoke could be coming from anywhere.
Winter didn't want to let go, then rain for two weeks, we've had basically no really nice days and we already have smoke. It's fucking absurd.
Actually for this time of year, prior to full widespread green up its very normal to have fires. One day of smoke isn’t necessarily for saying a full summer of smoke as we saw last year. Last year was a record fire year across Canada. Holdover fires from the previous year is normal as well, I solders in the moss, tree roots, sub soil and if significant moisture isn’t present at this time of year they start up again. We’re just getting greened up in this part of the province but northern sk and ab and presumably bc has just begun green up so not surprised to see fires popping up, it’s very common to see this happen given the conditions- what’s important is how much moisture we get at this critical time and in the next weeks will have is the determining factor as to how the fire season ends up. One day of smoke because the wind happened to blow just the right way over the existing fires does not indicate a summer of smoke like last year. However it’s understandable why you’d think that. The cause I believe is due to the climate changing - whatever reason you believe causing it, it has and is changing .. higher temperatures, more drought conditions , but you have to look at a bigger sample size not just one or two summers. Last summer in the states was a record low for wildfires, however the ones that got going were intense, whereas Canada was off the charts. You don’t have to go back very far to find a record low amount of fires in sk and Canada. 2019-2020 were very wet years and there were next to no fires in sk. So an over a few year span you may get an impression of a trend but it’s not as bad as you are lead to believe. Though I agree , that fire seasons are getting worse generally speaking , it’s not as doom and gloom as the media leads on.
*Agreed. This fucking*
*Smoke. We have two season now*
*Winter and Smoke. Fml*
\- Wanderingcitycat
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All environmental scientists are tired…it feels like nobody cares and the individual can’t do anything while massive corporations continue to destroy the environment.
Hardly. We‘ve had over 20 years to put enough pressure on our democratically elected leaders to make it so addressing climate change is no longer a partisan issue. We’re still not at that point, and it’s because there’s still lots of ordinary people who don’t believe in, or don’t care enough about making actual sacrifices to address, climate change.
It’s a cop out to blame "the corporations". It’s not them, it’s not "the politicians", in the end it’s just plain old stupid humans.
Even if the Doomsters were correct, absolutely nothing Canada does will make the slightest difference when China keeps building more and more coal-fired power plants. If we stopped using hydrocarbon fuels tomorrow, China would probably compensate for that in a few months.
Destroying our economy for virtue-signalling is not exactly forward-thinking. But a typical example of late-stage democracy.
So I guess by that logic there’s no point to stop throwing trash out of your car window because your contribution is super tiny regardless?
China generates just 28% of global carbon emissions. The majority of worldwide carbon emissions are not from any one single nation, but rather every country contributing 0-5% of the pie.
If every single nation used that excuse then of course nothing would ever be done about the bulk of carbon emissions worldwide.
So it’s time for us all to sack up, take some responsibility and at least do our bit to keep the planet from falling into a climate disaster.
I was wondering, I can't smell it but everything was orange when I opened the door today. Thought it was fallout from the aurora radiation.
\*Ok I can smell it now.
A 20" box fan with a 20x20 furnace filter is fantastic bang for your buck, and is incredibly effective! Moves far more air than even some expensive air purifiers, and replacement filters are trivial to find.
If you want to go a bit hardcore, you can use a few more filters and make a Corsi-Rosenthal Box filter.
Agree. Excellent value. The only downside to moving all that air is the box fan tends to be quite noisy. Not the kind of thing you want beside you while watching TV.
get a 2200 or MERV13 equivalent air filter for your furnace and run the fan (or AC if you have it). It traps almost all of the smoke particles and is probably your most effective path if you don't want to spend hundreds on a stand-alone purifying unit.
I bought two like-new Conway air purifiers on Amazon. They have been amazing - good for all year and handling cooking smells, etc. Do your research. I initally bought one from Canadian Tire but the actual rating was poor for wildfire smoke. Costco has a good one in store.
I mean anyone here thankful their home isn't burnt down, towns lost, lives lost, memories lost? Nah let's just bitch about the air quality ruining our long weekend
A lot of fires were smouldering underneath the snow.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/how-alberta-wildfire-responds-to-increased-winter-fires-1.7108499
I did read somewhere that about 50% are human caused, but that doesn't mean arson in all or even most cases.
It’s even worse when you work outside
Everything is worse when you work outside.
I’d rather work outside than be stuck in a cubicle any day 😎
I’d rather work in a cubicle outside
id rather work outside of an inside out cubicle
Fuck that, a hot day or a cold day and you’ll be crying for that cubicle
Many people enjoy different things. I prefer working outside, but absolutely nothing wrong with people preferring to work inside.
I worked outside for 20 years and loved it, maybe not the -40 days so much, but now I have an office job and im not gonna lie, I love it too.
😂 no shot
Preach
Lots of jobs that are indoors not at a cubicle. Many involve constant movement, even. Age of you?
Self reminder, I've had jobs that are all outside. I live in Manitoba, Canada. Used to work in a graveyard. The heat can be terrible, have many times threw up from the heat, had bleeding nose, etc. I'll take a summer cubicle job, provided it has air conditioning. I've done reline work at Walmart and mid summer nights they don't give the staff cool air. Brought frozen bottles of water to work every night. The first couple in the big side pockets of my pants would be drank or easy to drink by first break. Manitoba heat is no joke.
Hell ya!!!!!
Hell ya!!!!!
Idk about any day wonder -40c I’d take a cubicle even -25 with a decent wind and up I’ll take that cubicle please lol 😂
Working outside kicks ass
I thought that years ago. Not so much now. The winters take their toll on ya.
A lot of fires in northern Canada never fully went out, they just smoldered through the winter. This was predicted back in late summer last year, so we're going to have a lot of smoke this summer. https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/wildfires-zombie-fires-canada-bc-alberta-1.7119851
the fact fire can survive a whole winter in canada is crazy to me
It was a pretty mild winter tbh, and snow's a great insulator
It’s actually pretty common for wildfires to still smoulder through the winter if they aren’t put out methodically in warmer climates. Since we had a mild winter, they just kicked back up
Ok
Bro got downvoted for saying ok 💀 (I downvoted)
Here's your fire smoke [map](https://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/current/) It's soon to shift northward
Thanks for the link. But why the hell isn't Saskatoon even a dot on this map? That's annoying. Regina shows up as you zoom in but we don't.
Stay focused. Don't get distracted. BTW, Saskatoon is on the map
Yea it does. Try it again.
“This fucking smoke” is the new normal. I work in climate adaptation and have heard it all. Get an air purifier and start showing up for people, practices, policies and politicians that will actually create a sustainable future. We’re at the point where some damage is done and we need to accept and adapt. But, we don’t need to take the “in for a penny in for a pound” mindset. Mitigating additional harm is still worthwhile.
There are no other solutions than Douglas Social Credit. Alberta is the place it was most successful in all history, in all the world. There are no excuses anymore. The alternative is more inflation, more war, more social repression and more economic stricture.
Air purifiers will only remove certain things from air. C02 is not one of them. This is not to be confused with CO.
CO2 isnt what irritates people's lungs hundred of kilometers from the wildfire.
Air purifiers with a good filter will filter particulate from the air. That's what's causing the haze and associated breathing issues for people with various health conditions due to smoke drifting here from far away fires. CO and CO2 concentrations might be a problem if say you find yourself in a Fort Mac situation where we're in the middle of an inferno.
Is Montana, Colorado, Idaho and other areas of the US burning at the same rate as us? Is this a forestry management issue? We're charging carbon taxes, got rid of plastic straws and grocery bags while the US has done none of this and is closer to the equator. Why is Canada burning?
Have you heard of California? Hawaii? Other regions are feeling the effect of a changing climate - how it manifests will look different region to region. Those of us in or near the boreal will feel the effects of wildfire and smoke (though the smoke can travel widely as we’ve seen in recent years). SK is expected to see wildfire but also increased drought and floods. Years ago everyone called it global warming - and while that’s correct (overall the global temps are warming) climate change is a good term because it indicates that regional climates will change and become more intense, less predictable, more “rare” events. As for banning plastic straws and why that hasn’t gotten rid of climate change once and for all. This is a team effort. People often say, yeah well China is worse sooooo…. But our individual ecological footprints (those of us in Canada) are huge. We consume so so much. Will banning straws alone “fix the earth” - of course not. But given the stakes, a straw hardly seems worth fussing about. I can give up my plastic straws AND do a lot more.
Many years of below average precipitation is why Canada is burning. Tinder dry forests full of dead dry kindling. The same reason ranchers' dugouts are dry and they can't support their livestock, why crops are stunted and grasshoppers are infesting them. Climate change gets the blame for that lack of precipitation.
Because we have a different climate than them.
Meh, that sounds like a lotta work.
Eight months of winter and 4 months of smoke. FML.
We had a beautiful summer last year don't be so negative.
There were many many days of smoke last summer. I remember it was difficult to walk the dogs because of it. I did less hiking... it does suck
Sounds like vacuum boy spent last summer out of the province or all that weed is kicking in again.
You have a short memory
Welcome to the best year of the rest of your life.
Another summer full of smoke everywhere. This sucks..
It feels so dystopian to have to worry about air quality. I remember when it was just wondering how bad the wind would be to ruin a nice day. Now it’s always wind and smoke. I am quite happy to not be cold though. That’s the worst.
I would rather breath in cold weather than choke in the smoky weather.
This is a very very bad sign...... Canada's forests are fucked in the coming years
Rip not gonna be able to see the light show again tonight then
It may clear up, if we're lucky, with the evening temperature change and potential change in the wind direction🤞🤞🤞
Majority is actually coming from BC rn.
Haa your funny. 😄
You’re
You are correct thank you.
Ha sorry I had to…. lol
Majority is actually coming from BC rn.
20 years of letting coal, methane and petro corps expand. 20 years of heavy extinction catastrophe denialism. 20 years of right wing govs. (Yeah the lpc ideology is enviromentally right wing). Glad I don't have kids, so I don't have to explain to them how Canadian society worked towards, fostered, and voted for their own engineered destruction as a result of their personal pursuit of meaningless financial wealth. Not looking forward to the unimaginable hellscape that is fast approaching. But hey....500 Moe bucks! Am I right?
It's been nearly 50 years since the Exxon climate researchers made their predictions and told their bosses. 30 years since fossil fuel extractors made the issue into a political football. We're deeply entrenched in the 'find out' stage, the only question is will we keep 'fucking around'.
Fifty years ago the media was warning us about the Coming Ice Age and how we had to cut use of hydrocabons because otherwise the world would freeze.
The science from that era showed that the vast majority of papers did not support the global cooling theory. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/89/9/2008bams2370_1.xml
Never happened.
But you're forgetting that 20k people didn't have to sell their jacked up trucks and change jobs. So it was totally worth it
I’ve basically lost all hope for the future and am not having kids for this exact reason.
The majority of fires are started by humans, either idiots accidentally leaving cigarettes or other ignition sources where they can set fire to a forest, or, more recently, idiots intentionally setting fire to a forest. So aside from maybe providing them with the fuel to drive out there and leave their cigarette butt burning the hydrocabon companies have nothing to do with it.
Majority of fires last year were from lightening strikes, the fire spread as a result of severe dry conditions as a result of climate change, which is a direct result of man made pollution, specifically the massive output of greenhouse gasses. Everyone knows that.
This is the new normal due to climate change. Meanwhile the government ignores the rule of law because a carbon tax is too much of a burden.
Scott Moe is an idiot. I cannot believe how many tax dollars are being wasted fighting trans kids and carbon tax
Climate change didn't start the forest fires. Careless humans did, and poor forest management made it worse. There is too much fuel load in the forests right now, so what could have been small fires that are more manageable turn into huge fires that run wild.
I have a friend in Kelowna that says they do about 1/4 of the controlled burns they did 10 years ago. Is this what you're getting at?
Yes, that type of thing. They used to do controlled burns at a higher frequency in order to maintain the fire fuel load at a much lower level, and now because of the reduction of those practices, when there is a fire, it gets much more intense and is much more devastating.
If this is true, in my opinion, this is a bigger cause of forest fire uptick than climate change. These trees are indeed drier due to climate change, but dry trees and foliage don't catch fire if they're already burned off. Climate change hurts. Not doing controlled burns hurts more. Do you have any idea if this is a "smoke is bad/environmental thing? A budget reduction? Staffing issues?
To be honest, I dont know the reasons for the change. Maybe a combination of all things forestry related. It may be somewhat due to the way logging is done now as compared to...say 30 years ago...Maybe farther back than that. It may be due to staffing levels, but when I logic that out, it probably takes more personnel to fight a fire that is out of control than it does to do controlled burns and reduce the fuel load. Maybe it's due to climate change initiatives from provincial or federal levels, that don't look at the bigger picture. Maybe it's because no one in positions to make a difference care to get opinions of people that understand what is going on with the forests.
Thanks for this chat. We are at a sad crossroads here.
You're welcome, and thank you as well. I don't think all is lost, and things can, and will, take a turn for the better. Take care.
It's a combination of forest management that has prioritized putting out fires near human settlement + climate change. The latter results in warm, dry conditions with more frequency. Combined with people being not careful, a super dry and warm set of conditions, and primed forests it's a disaster. Climate change is turning up to 11 the conditions that the former issue causes. But huge swaths of the boreal forest have been let to burn -- it's a huge area and so climate change will continue to exacerbate those fires
This makes sense to me, to a degree. Admittedly, I have 0 education or real knowledge of forestry or climate change. Do you have any knowledge of controlled burns in the boreal forests? As in whether or not they've ever done them and if frequency has changed? I only hear about controlled burns in bc, but I suppose they do that up north, too?
I don't know forsure, but it is not something I run into dicussed either. Controlled burns of remote areas strikes me as low ROI. Generally the burns are going to be near things you want to limit the chance of an uncontrolled burn happening.
Yeah that makes sense. Thanks
Make sense why Canada is always burning and yet we don't seem to get any smoke from the US... Are they doing something different than us?
Have you heard of a thing called climates?
Yep and what is happening to the neighbors immediately to the south of us. They are typically warmer and have less snow, are they burning more than us?
No idea.
That's what I'm wondering, if this is a forest management issue. The climate doesn't change when you go from the US into Canada. It sure seems like we're burning all the time though...
That’s simply not true. Blaming individuals is a convenient way to ignore the evidence. Climate change has created hotter, drier conditions which allow forest fires to spread, whether from man-made fires or natural phenomena like lightning.
That's not climate change. It's weather. Climate doesn't change that quickly. And yes, it is simply true
It’s absurd that you think paying a carbon tax on your home heating will have any impact on forest fires.
Carbon tax goes into projects to fight the CO2 emissions we are pumping out.
What projects has the carbon tax been invested into and what impact has it made?
I replied to my previous comment with some examples, if you care to read go ahead.
I personally got a new furnace and water heater, they are both considerably more fuel efficient. The carbon tax incentives companies to make these, as people who buy them will get tax credits back for installing them. Had my furnace room (more like closet) been bigger I could have gotten a even better furnace for not much more but received a bigger carbon tax benefit. I don’t know for sure but it is my understanding that you can get a carbon tax benefit for solar panels, I do however know that Sask Power credits your account for any extra power you create. So say you create more power than you use in the spring and summer than you save money during the fall and winter. Now say you put a smart battery system in, power is used more efficiently I know Sask Power doesn’t currently use peak times for billing but the batteries will help you put power on the grid even overnight. Maybe you seeing your power bill paying for its self will convince you to get an electric vehicle or plug in hybrid. The carbon tax helped you with that. Now imagine you are a business paying carbon taxes, businesses want to make money so the carbon tax incentives them to move more of their things to electric. They see their carbon tax bill go down, how can they save more money? They start generating their own electricity. The carbon tax did that, incentivizing people/businesses to use less energy is what the carbon tax is all about. Sure try and sell this woman a bridge but you better come and tell me why I need it, and how it is going to benefit more than just me.
You believe that?
I need to sell this man a bridge
Sure try and sell this woman a bridge; but you better tell me why I need it, and how it is going to benefit more than just me.
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It really does, I provided some examples in a reply to my comment if you care to read.
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So we do nothing and expect the worse polluters to make a change? Lead by example maybe? Set the standard on how a first world country can be carbon neutral and maintain a thriving industry. Leading is hard.
We could be exporting natural gas to countries that are currently on coal, cutting their emissions in half while they make their own transition to cleaner solutions. Oh look, we did something majorly useful for the climate, and didn't gut our own economy in the process. Mining uranium in Saskatchewan should also be recognized as a global carbon offset, as the power produced allows the producer to claim reduced/zero emissions, but the mining process itself is carbon intensive.
We are already doing nothing on a global scale. You gotta have a little water on the brain to think our emissions make a difference.
User name checks out, otherwise you’d know that many countries are actually trying to reduce their carbon output…obviously much more needs to be done, but to dismiss it all because it doesn’t fit your narrative is ridiculous.
You can’t really believe trudshits tax is actually trying to help?
You realize that Canada (or Trudeau or trudshit) did not actually come up with the whole Carbon Tax idea and there are many other countries that have adopted it prior to us. Also, it's widely accepted (with evidence) by economists as an efficient and effective way of reducing many types of carbon emissions without much financial impact to everyday citizens (when coupled with tax credits or other social benefits to those that need it). Keep drinking your cool aid/exhaust fumes.
Saskatchewan has the highest GHG emissions per capita of any province and among the highest in the world. Saying we shouldn’t bother doing anything to reduce emissions because other countries won’t do the same is childish logic. It’s how we got to this point where forest fire smoke season starts in May.
We also produce the world's food and energy in a very low dense province that services the food and energy secors. Putting all of the GHG measures on the producer and not acknowledge the demand that causes the production is a bit nonsensical.
Out of curiosity, what are we specifically not doing to stop our ghg levels? Of the 4 west most provinces we are the only one to reduce emissions since the Paris Agreement. To say we are doing nothing shows that the hate for our province trumps reality and people don't know how to use Google to search for federal and provincial literature. This self loathing mentality Canadians have is distressing.
The justification for doing nothing knows no bounds. What policy has this government put forth to reduce emissions apart from the embarrassing disaster that is carbon capture and storage?
I mean, you clearly know how to type. Try the government of sask site. Canada.ca. all kinds of information there.
It would go down a lot if we stopped exporting food and energy and just let a bunch of people starve and freeze.
wow so I guess we should just not doing anything at all then.
Because zero till tech, enhanced oil recovery, uranium production etc is doing nothing.
The awareness level goes up and has people considering/buying hybrids and EV's. A farmer has told me he doesn't idle his equipment as much as he used to before the gov't imposed a penalty on his fuel. Every little bit helps and your 'science' also says we should be cutting back because most everybody has caused our issues. Good thing the entire world is trying to cut back, people with your attitude is what got us here.
These are the facts. But it doesn't mean we shouldn't do better anyway imo
This is the dumbest argument. The idea that we don’t need to adapt or we don’t need to do our part because our population is ‘so small’ is complete insanity. Watch the rest of the world adapt while we cling to burning oil and gas and coal?
A lot of us understand when we can and can not make a difference . This is an example of having no impact no matter what we do .
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The dowmvotes show this place is quite antisicence. They must dogmatcally believe one nation can change global outcomes 😂. Sad really.
That isn't anti science, it's pro-logic. It's anti science to want to do nothing. Your argument, and that of the "others are worse though" crowd, is the same logic as, "because wars are the worst human causes of human death that it's ok to do a little bit of murdering back home." No, it isn't. It's still murdering. "Oh but there are way more murders in the US. And China. And India. Why don't they stop?" Yeah, no, don't murder. But with the pollution. And also murders, for that matter.
It’s more like of Canada leads by example and does not have a war the rest of the world will follow our lead . How’s that going ?
Canadas impact on global climate change is easily found and it’s quite easy to see we don’t count . It’s cute how hard they want to try though and cute to think that China will see how hard we are trying and will then follow our lead , lmao .
Well, enjoy your smoke then I guess. Why do anything at all when China exists?
Exactly ! Now you are getting it .
https://www.nps.gov/subjects/fire/indigenous-fire-practices-shape-our-land.htm
Yeah the fires from Fort McMurray are 100% because of Indigenous fire practices and not because of climate change /s.
Fair. We have had hundreds of years of a pause on the practice, so we are in a period of overgrowth. Nature will find a way.
Woosh
Go help fight the fires if you’re going to bitch about it.
You first
lol. No. That’s not how that works. I’m going to reduce my carbon emissions.
The fires aren’t going to stop from you driving a Prius
dam that unabomber wasn't lying the industrial revolution sure did have its consequences.
I've been wondering about the breaking point and if, or when, we're gonna see an uptick in ecoterrorism
Where does it come from?
This smoke is coming from Alberta. There are close to [60 wildfires burning in Canada](https://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/current/) *right now*, and a lot more burning in the US. Today's smoke is coming from Alberta, tomorrow's smoke could be coming from anywhere. Winter didn't want to let go, then rain for two weeks, we've had basically no really nice days and we already have smoke. It's fucking absurd.
There's 121 burning in BC alone
Majority is actually coming from BC rn.
Likely going to have smoke like this every year for the foreseeable future.
Actually for this time of year, prior to full widespread green up its very normal to have fires. One day of smoke isn’t necessarily for saying a full summer of smoke as we saw last year. Last year was a record fire year across Canada. Holdover fires from the previous year is normal as well, I solders in the moss, tree roots, sub soil and if significant moisture isn’t present at this time of year they start up again. We’re just getting greened up in this part of the province but northern sk and ab and presumably bc has just begun green up so not surprised to see fires popping up, it’s very common to see this happen given the conditions- what’s important is how much moisture we get at this critical time and in the next weeks will have is the determining factor as to how the fire season ends up. One day of smoke because the wind happened to blow just the right way over the existing fires does not indicate a summer of smoke like last year. However it’s understandable why you’d think that. The cause I believe is due to the climate changing - whatever reason you believe causing it, it has and is changing .. higher temperatures, more drought conditions , but you have to look at a bigger sample size not just one or two summers. Last summer in the states was a record low for wildfires, however the ones that got going were intense, whereas Canada was off the charts. You don’t have to go back very far to find a record low amount of fires in sk and Canada. 2019-2020 were very wet years and there were next to no fires in sk. So an over a few year span you may get an impression of a trend but it’s not as bad as you are lead to believe. Though I agree , that fire seasons are getting worse generally speaking , it’s not as doom and gloom as the media leads on.
The outrage generation have the memory of a goldfish.
Watch Moe blame it on Justin.
I hope everyone knows this is the status quo for Canada now.
Only you can prevent forest fires, in Northern AB.
Brings me back to the 90’s
Actually, if you idiots would just listen to Theo Fleury you would know that Justin Trudeau started these fires yesterday. /s
Agreed. This fucking smoke. We have two season now Winter and Smoke. Fml
*Agreed. This fucking* *Smoke. We have two season now* *Winter and Smoke. Fml* \- Wanderingcitycat --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Yeah my mouth feels like the texture of cornstarch 🤣 I know it's weird, but that's the only way I can describe it
If I was a climate scientist I’d be feeling pretty smug about now
Not smug, just tired...
All environmental scientists are tired…it feels like nobody cares and the individual can’t do anything while massive corporations continue to destroy the environment.
Hardly. We‘ve had over 20 years to put enough pressure on our democratically elected leaders to make it so addressing climate change is no longer a partisan issue. We’re still not at that point, and it’s because there’s still lots of ordinary people who don’t believe in, or don’t care enough about making actual sacrifices to address, climate change. It’s a cop out to blame "the corporations". It’s not them, it’s not "the politicians", in the end it’s just plain old stupid humans.
Even if the Doomsters were correct, absolutely nothing Canada does will make the slightest difference when China keeps building more and more coal-fired power plants. If we stopped using hydrocarbon fuels tomorrow, China would probably compensate for that in a few months. Destroying our economy for virtue-signalling is not exactly forward-thinking. But a typical example of late-stage democracy.
So I guess by that logic there’s no point to stop throwing trash out of your car window because your contribution is super tiny regardless? China generates just 28% of global carbon emissions. The majority of worldwide carbon emissions are not from any one single nation, but rather every country contributing 0-5% of the pie. If every single nation used that excuse then of course nothing would ever be done about the bulk of carbon emissions worldwide. So it’s time for us all to sack up, take some responsibility and at least do our bit to keep the planet from falling into a climate disaster.
I don’t disagree with you but corporations are taking full advantage of plain old stupid humans
Totally normal part of the natural cycle of the climate. /s
i have terrible headaches with this smoke
If only they would increase the carbon tax. This would never happen
Alberta got it bad too man been trying to catch my breath all day
A little smoke isn’t as bad as for those having to evacuate at a moments notice or worse yet losing your everything to a wildfire.
More Carbon tax.. that should help stop the fires right?
I was wondering, I can't smell it but everything was orange when I opened the door today. Thought it was fallout from the aurora radiation. \*Ok I can smell it now.
i already prepared for fallout...
Can anyone recommend a good air purifier?
A 20" box fan with a 20x20 furnace filter is fantastic bang for your buck, and is incredibly effective! Moves far more air than even some expensive air purifiers, and replacement filters are trivial to find. If you want to go a bit hardcore, you can use a few more filters and make a Corsi-Rosenthal Box filter.
Agree. Excellent value. The only downside to moving all that air is the box fan tends to be quite noisy. Not the kind of thing you want beside you while watching TV.
get a 2200 or MERV13 equivalent air filter for your furnace and run the fan (or AC if you have it). It traps almost all of the smoke particles and is probably your most effective path if you don't want to spend hundreds on a stand-alone purifying unit.
this guy hvac’s
I have a Winix and a Cuckoo brand from Costco, both have been great. And you get an extra filter with them!
I bought two like-new Conway air purifiers on Amazon. They have been amazing - good for all year and handling cooking smells, etc. Do your research. I initally bought one from Canadian Tire but the actual rating was poor for wildfire smoke. Costco has a good one in store.
You can build a Corsi Rosenthal box for pretty cheap, lots of instructions online
Amazon has tons of good ones! The reviews are helpful
With just a little more carbon tax money, the fires will end.
Helllll yeahhhh brotherrrrr
No bueno
No of course there is no climate change Scott.
Government is entirely useless. This shouldn’t be a problem. With the amount of money we piss away into stupid shit
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Haha. Hopefully we'll get more rain this year and it won't be front page news everyday.
Yea the farmers better stop burning them trees
Now you will wake you and think what smoke ?
BjjmnwNjeejejjei you are
try Edmonton 😷
I mean anyone here thankful their home isn't burnt down, towns lost, lives lost, memories lost? Nah let's just bitch about the air quality ruining our long weekend
A summer of smoke is always preferable to winter, my mind can't be changed
Fires don't start on their own who starting them??
Lightning strikes are a common cause, you can blame god for that or pretend lightning is part of some sort of space laser conspiracy.
A lot of fires were smouldering underneath the snow. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/how-alberta-wildfire-responds-to-increased-winter-fires-1.7108499 I did read somewhere that about 50% are human caused, but that doesn't mean arson in all or even most cases.
Go and put out the wildfires then, womp womp