The entire capital city of Canada's Northwest Territories has been ordered to evacuate as hundreds of wildfires scorch the region, officials say

alphacyberranger@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 697 points –
The entire capital city of Canada's Northwest Territories has been ordered to evacuate as hundreds of wildfires scorch the region, officials say | CNN
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And as we enter the "Entire cities burning down" part of climate change the world will do... Absolutely nothing.

Because to fix it, what they have to change is everything. The way things are powered, produced, financed and probably also governed. Nobody will vote for that. They'll keep trying to patch things up until it really starts to falls apart and people take the pieces to put them together differently.

Effective prevention of climate change is and has been politically impossible, like you said.

Maybe I'm just depressed about it all but I've moved on to the unfortunate "resilience" (or acceptance) phase. It's coming and it's not slowing down. So what are we going to do about? The answers differ depending on where you live. Some places just aren't going to survive. The ones that do are going to have strained resources to withstand extreme climate effects while simultaneously having a refugee problem.

So what are we going to do about?

Yes, some will fail but like evolution in living creatures, better adapted regions and ideas will survive and flourish. It's the usual way in history. I figure it's our job to start adaption where possible.

Are you an idiot? Answer: Yes.

Canada is already 80%+ green. Far higher than any other country its size.

Uhh… I don’t think the atmosphere is capable of saying “oh, this country polluted less, let’s throw the wildfires at a different one”

They claimed a direct relation to how things are powered to the wildfires.

…because the way things are powered in the entire world influences temperature in the entire world? If everyone around me is shitting on the floor and I’m not, the smell is still going to be awful.

Canada is already 80%+ green. Far higher than any other country its size.

And has still one of the highest emissions per capita worldwide, if we ignore insignificant countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita

Yes, some provinces are almost completely green (if we only consider electricity, disregarding primary energy for transportation and heating), but apparently Canada more than makes up for this with other provinces, emitting so much that overall it still comes out as a top polluter for it's weight.

Disingenuous source. Maybe take the time to read it next time.

Are you joking? Pick any source you want, the numbers don't change much.

Both https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?locations=CA and https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/canada#per-capita-how-much-co2-does-the-average-person-emit see Canada at around 16 tons/year/capita, in line with Wikipedia.

The Canadian government itself puts an even higher number on it:

In 2019, Canada was the highest GHG emitting country per capita among the top 10 emitting countries with 19.6 t CO2 eq

https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/environmental-indicators/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions.html

If you want to argue with this, can you support your opinion with any source?

But Canada is doing it's part - they claim credit for all those forests as part of the climate change goal! (disclaimer: only when the trees are growing, not when they're burning)

Man that's pretty disheartening. Guess I'll just go to bed now.

The problem is that the typical Republican does not believe this is related to climate change. When I suggested that my father-in-law laughed at me saying "yeah, everything is related to climate change huh?"

I have to admit I’m kind of with the conservatives on this. I mean, of course it’s an issues and humanitarian crisis and yet one more example why climate change is so important but …..

There’s already too much hyperbole here that makes me immediately want to discount this. Yeah, 20,000 is a lot of people to be affected but when you’re phrasing this as “entire cities” and “the capital city of the territory”, but the entire territory has fewer people than my “small suburb” ….

Edit to add: my university had a larger population than this “entire cities”. Can’t we talk about this serious issue without counter-productive hyperbole?

I don't even know what to say to this. It's not hyperbole, it is the entire population of the capitol city. I'm sorry that 20,000 is under the threshold for caring.

Just one of those fires is 600 square miles in size. I can't even begin to comprehend what that must be like, and I've been in a wildfire situation before

If it were a rectangle, it would take you 2 hours to drive around it at 70mph

To me that’s the standout statistic here. I’m a little less sympathetic to “entire cities” with less population than anything I’m familiar with but holy crap …. My small suburb has way over the population of the entire territory but the size of that fire is 46 times the area! Damn

Actually, I live near Boston and that fire is over 6 times the area of the city.

Looking farther afield, that fire is twice the area of New York City

As an Australian watching the northern hemisphere lately it's scary to think our fire season is almost here and we've had the right conditions for lots of fuel to grow and die off.

For the first time in my life I'm terrified of what this summer has the potential to be like this year. I'm in QLD and summer is always tough but I'm really worried about how high the temperatures might rise this year.

European here. A friend of mine bought a house in Cairns a while back. Is it an area that's known to have problems with wildfires? I realised this is a vague question but she was asking me about whether or not she should sell the house based on the global financial situation, but she never mentioned wildfires. I assume she's factoring it in based on the insane wildfires you guys had a couple of years back but you can never be sure

My family live near Cairns. Typically it would be pretty low risk for fires because it's very tropical and wet. It will likely get more humid and hot though as temperatures continue to increase. Tell her to go see the reef before that's gone if she hasn't already.

She's a native of Port Douglas originally so she's been up to her ears in reef stuff for a while. Thanks for the response, seems like it's a good spot for now

Cairns is pretty tropical so it doesn't get many bushfires. It's the areas south of there which are drier and tend to burn.

As others mentioned, fire risk is low, but there is a non zero chance she will just up and die because cairns summers are hot AF.

No Cairns is not a high risk area for bush fires (what we call wildfires). The heat this year might be horrible but fires shouldn't be an issue that far into the tropics on the coastline

As an Australian-Canadian, I've given up on my dream of moving back to Australia. That country is done. And I say this as someone currently living in Canada.

🤔 So countries like that need some kind of mass irrigation systems to water the forests and fields in the summer to stop wildfires from happening

This is the best summary I could come up with:


About 20,000 residents in Yellowknife are being urged to get out of the way of fast-moving flames as more than 230 fires char the territory and smoke creeps south, impacting air quality in the United States.

One of the wildfires burning west of Yellowknife is approximately 165,000 hectares, more than 600 square miles, and inching closer to the community and main highway, according to Mike Gibbins, who manages communications for Municipal Affairs Minister Shane Thompson’s office.

Thompson declared an emergency for the entire territory on Tuesday, which will allow officials “to access and deploy resources so that we can continue our work to protect residents and communities in a more efficient manner,” he said.

Sensitive groups, such as people with lung or heart disease, the elderly and children are urged to avoid prolonged or heavy exertion and the general public is being told to limit outdoor activity.

In Canada, the Minister of National Defense Bill Blair on Tuesday mobilized the Canadian Armed Forces to provide firefighting personnel, airlift resources, and logistical support to the Northwest Territories.

“We stand with the people of the Northwest Territories as they experience their worst fire season on record, and I am confident that our military personnel will do their utmost to assist their fellow Canadians,” Blair said in a statement.


I'm a bot and I'm open source!

No one will do anything until we start hunting them. Entire cites are burning down. Peace is not an option.

Honestly, it is probably too late for a revolution to be meaningful. Climate collapse will take decades to resolve itself even if we halted all carbon usage today.

Leaving the planet might actually be a more realistic option, especially to preserve what's left of nature.

I'm not saying don't eat the rich though. Just that it won't stop what's already started.

Damn. Thoughts and prayers to all caught in that. On a side note, just played through firewatch today, fun experience game.

Oh, this is such a shit thread to have this conversation, but nevertheless...

I played Firewatch for a while a couple of years ago and LOVED it. Didn't finish, not sure what happened but I just never got back to it. I think I've forgotten enough of it now that I can go back and start again and have a fresh experience. I've recommended this game to a few people and everyone has loved it. Some excellent twists and turns and fun little bits of mystery. Great writing!

Maaaan dont finish it...... just get to day 77 and leave it. The mystery is so much better left unknown. I loved the game, but didnt care for the realistic ending. Idc that there is a secret ending that didnt scratch any itch.

Oh! Huh. Okay, good to know. Thanks for the tip!

Just bought this for 75% off and I'm super keen to get into it.

Its such a great game. The conversations feel a lot like something i wouldve had with friends. I played it since it went on gamepass, i dont know how id feel about paying for a 6 hour game, but regardless of its few flaws it is such a joy to play.

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I think this is a bigger climate change issue than vast areas of dry brush or woods mire likely to burn ….

-- Forest fires are not new to the area but the increased risk and size are

-- who the f expects wildfires in Hawaii? How does it get dry enough for that to happen?

-- meanwhile I’m sitting here in the Northeast US with so much rain that even with way above average temperatures, my grass is still green and growing like Spring. Usually it goes dormant sometime in July and you don’t have to cut it much anymore (unless you water it) but I’m still more than once per week