There is so much wrong with this popular notion that wildfires are caused/worsened by using fossil fuels and that they are destined to get worse unless we abandon using them.
▪️First, wildfires aren’t becoming worse or more numerous, either in Canada or globally. I’ll post a few charts in the comments showing this. However, more people and property are near wildfires today, and we see it more with social media.
▪️Most people are ignorant of the history of wildfires, as they are with all history. Wildfires were always horrific and burned unchecked prior to industrialization, frequently wiping out entire towns and killing thousands at a time.
▪️Here’s a brief history of Canadian fires in the 1800s and early 1900s. In 1825, the Great Miramichi fire destroyed 1/5 of New Brunswick in 2 days, burning 3M acres! Many other fires wreaked havoc, Ottawa would have burned to the ground if not for opening a dam and flooding the streets.
https://theconversation.com/despite-its-long-history-of-wildfires-canada-still-doesnt-know-how-to-live-with-them-190213
▪️The history of US wildfires is similar, this essay recounts in the 1800s “Fire was nearly everywhere, some places more vigorously than others. The amount of burning was, by today's standards, staggering.”
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nattrans/ntuseland/essays/fire.htm
▪️Prior to European settlers, it’s estimated over 4M acres burned annually in CA, far more than even the worst years today. In the 17-1800s there were many accounts of smoke drifting East with apocalyptic sights, people sometimes thought judgement day was upon them.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2020/09/10/why-environmental-alarmism-makes-forest-fires-worse/?sh=2aadad813712
▪️This recent Twitter post shows a photo of a baseball game at Fenway Park in 1950 that had to turn on their lights for an afternoon game because of thick smoke from a Canadian wildfire.
https://twitter.com/otbaseballphoto/status/1666577623856697344?s=61&t=wYS_HEkyKg4NfAC06jGdAg
▪️Today, most wildfires are caused by humans, not “climate.” Studies show that 84% of wildfires in the US are human ignited, and 97% of all those that threaten homes.
https://www.science.org/content/article/human-sparked-wildfires-are-more-destructive-those-caused-nature
▪️Of all the threats climate change poses, wildfires are one of the easiest to solve. For centuries, even primitive societies had ways to manage forests to control burns. With modern machinery and knowledge (powered by fossil fuels) we are more capable than ever to mitigate fire risk.
▪️However, this involves impacting nature, which environmentalists vigorously oppose. Which is why many areas in CA and Canada aren’t managed properly and are ripe for destructive fires, as they’ve let too much fuel build up.
▪️Thus, when fires inevitably happen, they blame climate change and fossil fuels, do nothing to actually prevent and manage future fires, but pretend that building more windmills and electric cars are the solution. It really is madness.
So many of these right wing accounts are just whiners now, this is a diatribe about automatic sinks and towels, the horror! As I explained in a prior post, most of the newer terminals have great bathrooms, some now have completely private stalls and plenty of them. The worst and most crowded airport bathrooms are invariably found in aging terminals that are decades old. It’s a reminder that airports were usually drab and uncomfortable.
I think the heyday of the air hand-dryers was like 15-20 years ago, where often you couldn’t find real towels. Now you can at least usually get real paper towels in airport bathrooms. Remember those old cloth roller towels that would go in a loop and somehow “clean” themselves? Yuck! Public bathrooms have always been gross, it seems some are deliberately having selective memories.
Airport food and drinks were always expensive, but now practically everyone brings those huge cooler flasks with them and fills them up. So not sure what he means that ...
I first critiqued this terrible take by looking at how food has actually improved substantially. Even though I said the same could be done in every category, people said “you’re only doing food.” So let’s do air travel and see why it’s not gotten better, not worse.
▪️Aircraft have greatly improved. Just 15-20 years ago, many domestic routes (~15%) were flown by turboprops like the Brasilia, Dash 8 or Saab. Now, almost everything is in jets, and most aircraft have WiFi. Some even have Starlink, where you probably have faster WiFi than your home. Most major airlines offer dozens or hundreds of movies and shows to watch.
▪️Newer designs like the 787 have lower cabin altitudes and improved humidity, which make a huge difference in passenger comfort on long haul flights. The first/business class international market has gotten very competitive globally, with many carriers offering excellent service and amenities. Pods, suites, showers, etc. Coach still sucks but is dramatically cheaper ...
This is the complete opposite of an empirical fact. The right has now joined the left in being pessimistic about the modern world and completely unappreciative of the amazing abundance we now have. I’ll just focus on food here, but you could do it for almost every category.
▪️Fresh produce used to be available only in season. In the winter it was canned or frozen. People used to send fruit for Christmas gifts, it was that much of a luxury good. Now, you can get giant, sweet berries year around in every grocery store. Corn on the cob in February. Not to mention once rare items like dragon fruit, heirloom tomatoes or baby bok choy.
▪️If you didn’t live on the coast, seafood was either not available, frozen, or extremely expensive. If you lived in the Midwest and traveled to coastal locales you would quite literally be able to eat food you had never seen. Salmon has become much more abundant and accessible. You can get fresh ahi at Walmart today. Sushi and oyster bars exist everywhere ...
