Mike Luckovich for June 09, 2023

Hypocrite!

It’s now the turn of the folks on the East Coast to wake up and smell the “climate change,” or maybe it’s more like the climate cancer…

Smokey cant do anything all he can to do is point fingers

So smokey’s a republican?

All this hate from the east coast that decades ago dealt with Acid Rain and actually turned things around with legislation and regulations that worked no matter how hard the fossil fuel industry peed themselves and whined and whinged. How soon they forget. The northeast corner of America has been warning and working on getting folks to understand the difference between weather and climate as well as the impact industries are having upon the entire planet and not just somebody’s backyard and sensitive nose. Big hint folks – it is a global problem that is not nipping at your heels but taking a large bite outta your backside right this very minute. Time to stop this BS squabbling and demand change. Time done run the f out and this latest effect is what you get to look forward to in your very not so distant future. Wake up! This is no “woke” cult fear mongering BS. It is real quite obviously and who is going to be dumb enough to demand more proof than what we already have right now?

During TFG’s reign of arrogance and ignorance (remember the dullard blowhard scoffing and suggesting handing out rakes in California just like he tossed out rolls of paper towels to folks suffering after hurricanes!?) Smokey Bear appeared on t-shirts that read “Only YOU can prevent forest fires. Seriously, we have been Defunded” Just 1 more sign that the GQP Chicken Cult that denies science and facts will scoff at suffering right until something bad drops in at their doorstep and then all of a sudden they need help from agencies they have slashed and made fun of and especially called sOcIaLiSm!!!

Meanwhile the sane part of the entire world has been saying change your ways before it is too late. Whoopsie folks. This is what you get for not listening. The orange skies at dawn and the fine soot on everything including the inside and especially the bottom of your lungs (where it is not going to work its way out) are just the beginning of a future that is roaring down on you like that freight train that turns out to be the light at the end of that tunnel

Say it, Smokey! And don’t forget the dumbbutt campers that don’t put out their fires.

Yeah like clearing some brush. You know what they haven’t also done in California. Will Canada pay for damages?

Natural cycles of reoccurring fires kept fuel levels low until the “Only you can prevent forest fires” mentality started. Smokey, the ursine bore, is largely responsible for the catastrophic fires we’re having now. Add in climate change and it’s multiplied.

The effects of climate change are being expressed in numerous detrimental ways. Ice caps melting and seas levels rising, putting coastal cities at risk. Numerous species put to the brink of extinction. Forests, which are already being poorly managed, much more susceptible to devasting wildfires. Nero is rwadhing the crescendo of his fiddling.

June 9th and so far we’ve had 2 days of rain in northern Alberta this summer. Forests are as dry as tinder and my throat hurts.

So a week of haze means we need to spend trillions on social climate change programs.

And after the wind shifts and we get a week of clean air, can we forget about it and maybe focus on good forest management policies?

Thinkers everywhere, globally, understood the truth a long time ago. It is the portfolio over people bunch, in the U.S. pretty much 100% Republican, who actually know the truth but deny it. I hope they have to explain to their children and grand children what was not done when there was still a chance.

You know, I heard forests never burned before we started driving cars.

Out here in the West, this is an annual event. We call it Fire Season. All of a sudden it’s big news in the East?

I feel for the wildlife that’s going through this.

There have been wildfires for billions of years. They will continue for billions of years. Humans have been around only three or four hundred thousand years. You are giving humans way too much credit.

Pity the folks with asthma.

We need to send Canada more rakes. That worked so well for California, right? /s

Smokey must be talking to anti science, anti climate change republican liars.

Blaming, accusing, denying and pointing fingers is NOT going to solve any problems. Somewhere along the line there has to be a facing of issues and a solution looked into. Continuing as we are is foolish.

That’s an interesting take on Smokey the Bear. But, remember, Smokey was promoting the curtailing of all forest fires, including the small fires that would just remove the understory of the forest and help prevent the massive wildfires that we have now. Perhaps, using Smokey wasn’t the best symbol for promoting climate change adjustments. Maybe, Pogo and his famous quote, “We met the enemy, and it was us” would be more suitable.

All of us “morons” are not willing to pay the price to appreciably reduce our pollution.. if, our pollution is even causing an accelerating climate fluctuation.

Our “climate” has been drifting (with ups and downs) towards warm.. since the end of the last ice age. Conditions that would increase glaciers, increase the depth of permafrost, reduce the mean temperature of the oceans are long gone.. and were long gone well before our “pollution” may have been a factor.

As posted elsewhere (hence the reference to Kelley):

“Back during the Dust Bowl days there were hearings in Congress to discuss the situation. One of these hearings was (intentionally?) scheduled to coincide with one of the worst storm’s arrival in Washington, in April 1935, I think. Day turned to night during the discussions and the dramatic effect motivated an intensified government response which resulted in legislation which sought to address the man-made causes of the catastrophe (such as farming practices) and provide some relief for victims. This smoke event is sort of like Dust Bowl Light by comparison. Although climate change portends a much greater world-wide catastrophe, and these wildfires are like the canary in the coal mine, folks who think like Kelley will merely seek respite until they can’t do so any longer.”

Only YOU can prevent creating more fools for fossil fuels!

The longer it stays dry here, there will be more roadside fires caused by careless smokers throwing their cigarette butts out the car/truck window.

If only they’d raked their billions of acres of pristine Boreal Forests………………..

Can you say that in Canadian?

If unmanaged old growth forest burns from lighting let it burnout. Frankly there is really no choice.

Only you can prevent acting like an idiot.

I know, I know, but “only you can prevent forest fires” was long ago invalidated as a thesis, when it was definitively shown that most forest fires are started by lightning. And now, power lines (though I don’t quite get how that works).

Too right. Grr.

We Humans are very poor stewards of this earth. The Dinosaurs did better!

Clearing the undergrowth is the WORST thing you can do in a climax forest. Leaf litter holds moisture and allows percolation of water into the soil.

Humidity is kept high even between rain events and a moist forest does not catch fire easily.

Clearing a forest floor increases air circulation and dries out a forest quickly. Humidity levels are low and fires are easier to start and propagate.

The problem lately is that rainfall events are spaced much further apart, and while they may be intense, the water runs off and drains away without being absorbed.

Even untouched forests dry out and can burn now.

Pretty much ALL the forests burned in eastern Australia in the summer of 2019/20

I’ve lived through several over the years. Policy used to be to leave fires to burn out on their own in wilderness areas, and burn firebreaks in the cooler months to reduce fire intensity near populated areas.

But now winters are too hot and dry to safely do the level of backburning needed. The summer fires are too intense to safely fight at ground level, the only solutions left are evacuation and waterbombing with fire retardants to protect properties.

It used to be that Australia and the US could send fire-fighters and equipment to help each other during fire seasons.

But the seasons can be year round now and that is becoming less possible.

Good morning Mike, Alex and thank you, for yet another warning to the Lost In Space republicans and others that have their heads in the sand about climate change and vaccinations.