Area Of Canada Burned By This Year's Wildfires Size Of Missouri, Growing; Smoke In Greenland, Miami

[hatrack]

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Mathiew Leiser and Genevieve Norman write in Barons about what the wildfires have done to the wildlife of Canada. Wildlife always seems to get the short end of the stick regarding climate impact reporting. Their suffering and deaths are ignored by most of us. No droppings, tracks, nests or other traces of wildlife—Canada's boreal forests were devastated by record wildfires this year.

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The biologist notes that certain species can quickly become trapped because they do not have the capacity to fly or run fast enough and over long distances in the face of very intense and rapidly advancing fires. And in certain regions, the fires struck very early in the season, therefore shortly after gestation, leaving no chance for hatchlings or sucklings to escape. The consequences are severe also for aquatic fauna. In addition to ash that blankets lakes and rivers, soil erosion caused by the loss of vegetation alters water quality.

"Lakes with clear, clear water in the Canadian Shield will fill with algae which will suck the oxygen from the water, so there will be less for the animals," Langlois explains, referring to a large area of exposed rock.

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In Quebec, hard hit and less accustomed than the west to very large fires, the shock is immense. No more leaves on the branches, trunks blackened and roots charred: in the spruce forest of Abitibi-Temiscamingue,only a few tufts of moss managed to resist the onslaught of blazes that started in June. As far as the eye can see, there is the same desolate landscape. "There is little chance that this forest will be able to regenerate. The trees are too young to have had time to form cones which ensure the next generation," says Maxence Martin, a professor of forest ecology at the University of Quebec in Abitibi-Temiscamingue.

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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/4/2197304/-Dampening-the-forest-floors-the-Deep-South-is-enveloped-in-smoke-and-wildlife-devastation-in-Canada?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

[MOMFUDSKI]

1. We were hazy/smoky here in

St. Petersburg, FL yesterday. All gone today.

[orthoclad]

2. Earlier, in the summer,

figures showed that about 2% of the Canadian boreal forest had burned by then.

Anyone know what that percentage is now? 4%?

Losing the boreal forest will be a major blow, comparable to losing the Amazon (which is in progress).

[hatrack]

4. Two billion tons of CO2 released from Canada's fires so far this year . . .

That's more than 5% of annual average anthropogenic CO2 (about 37 billion tons), and it took place in the space of four months.

[orthoclad]

5. The boreal forest is/was a major carbon sink

We're losing the capacity to absorb any more of our GHG pollution. Not only do the fires release carbon, the removal funcrtion is going away.

Drill, baby, drill.

[Think. Again.]

3. We know that...

..this planet's life-sustaining ecology is one large, inter-connected and interdependent system.

The scale of damage being done to any one part of that immensely complex system will have re-sounding effects on all of the other working components.

As with any system, there is a limit to the amount of immediate change that can be absorbed by the system as a whole, before full collapse is triggered.

[orthoclad]

6. But the oiligarchs think

that they will succeed in transitioning to warlords, with serfs and artisans, plus private armies guarding their compunds, and immortality tech. They can't comprehend how comprehensive the breakdown they are causing will be. Drill, baby, drill. Money trumps life.