CANADIAN SMOKE

The real smoke is the politicization of “Climate Change” which you know you’ll be subjected to if you read much further in the above tweet.

First of all, the climate always changes. Always has and always will.

Second of all, there often isn’t a thing we can do about it beyond pray and prepare, which is much like the old motto from the battlefield, “Pray and pass the ammunition.”

Currently the climate is undergoing several “changes” we need to study. One is what happens when the AMO swings from a “warm” phase to a “cold” phase. A second is what happens at the peak of a sunspot cycle when the sunspot cycles are in a “Quiet Sun” phase. A third is how an El Nino behaves when influenced by the first two variables. We have never seen this before, and should be taking notes, not pretending we know why it is happening.

I like how the above tweet ends with the word “unprecedente…” Right there gongs and sirens should go off, for the word has been so overused even the dogs are barfing. It has the effect of violins in a bad movie, or a drum roll before a joke that flies like a lead balloon.

My fingerprints are unprecedented. Do I rate a drum roll? Why not?

The fact is there is something in every day that is fresh and new. Our Creator had no desire to bore us. I think He wants to pique our interest, and lure us in the right direction; not scare our socks off. But Climate Alarmists seemingly live in an ecstasy of dread, and are titillated by shuddering, and relish walking with knocking knees. “We are doomed” they cackle, smacking their lips, “for this has never been seen before.” Then they get mad at me because I suggest maybe it is good that things are fresh and new.

The current fresh and new storm track was utterly unexpected by Alarmists, who seem to score worse than even TV weathermen when it comes to making accurate forecasts.

How can I say such a thing? Because Alarmists were, only eleven months ago, in spasms of joy over the doom of a mega-drought which was about to ruin the American Southwest. In my opinion the people of the Southwest need to be more thoughtful about how they allocate their water-resources, but they were draining Lake Mead in a drought and it was reaching such low levels that (among other things) a body gangsters had disposed-of in waters over a hundred feet deep was exposed.

Alarmists stated the falling water levels were unprecedented, and proof of Climate Change, and we should therefore obey them, but almost a soon as they said this the drought ended, and lake Mead began rising, and rising, and rising, until even in May and June, when history tells us Lake Mead almost always falls, it is still rising. It is rising because water is pouring into it from upstream, and also rising because there is less demand to drain it. Why drain Lake Mead to water a lawn or golf course when it is raining on the lawn or golf course? And just today, (June 7), a swirl of rain fell west of Los Angeles to Nevada, where it simply isn’t suppose to rain in June. It is unprecedented!

Why are not the Alarmists focusing on the unprecedented end to the “mega-drought”? Last time I looked, Lake Powell had risen nearly fifty feet, despite the fact all the reservoirs (34 are tracked) upstream have been holding back waters and are now more than 80% full. And the snow-melt which feeds this replenishing has far to go, and in fact today it was not melting, but snowing, on the higher peaks. The unusual swirl of rain I mentioned moved east of LA, watering lawns and golf greens, and also wetting crops which usually require irrigation that usually drains Lake Mead. But do Alarmists so much as squeak about this climate change?

Why not? I suppose it is too hard to make beneficent rains sound like “we are doomed.” Also they might be asked to explain why their forecasted mega-drought busted. In any case, they changed the subject.

If this new and interesting storm track brings the moisture south, to the north it likely will be drier, and drier forests are more likely to experience fires. Fire! This lit the Alarmists’ eyes up.

And of course there was the usual talk about whether the fires were unprecedented and due to Climate Change.

Well, of course they are due to Climate Change, because the climate is always changing. However it is the subject of whether they are “Unprecedented”, or not, that involves some study of history. Oddly, Alarmists are not eager to look back too far or dig too deeply.

Careful examination of records discovers a somewhat brutal truth. All forests experience fires. Even rain forests. After fires, a fascinating process called “succession” occurs where the ecosystem seeks to revert to a “Climax Forest”, (wherein the forest can get back to behaving as if fires never happened). The swings between Climax Forest and the smoldering start of “succession”, and the various steps “succession” goes through, as it returns to being a Climax Forest, involves various plants and animals which exploit the environment when they can and dwindle away when they can’t, but apparently they never completely disappear, for they are there waiting, the next time the cycle occurs.

Certain people, who love how amazing nature is, like to study how this succession-system works, and become aware of further variables. These other variables involve how much of the forest is reduced to ashes: Just a few acres, or the entire forest? Also, how often do such fires occur. Often, or once every thousand years?

If you love such study, and want funding, then you must find a way to make the amazing adaptability of forests sound frail and able to be ruined by “Climate Change.” In other words, make it sound like a forest is healthy if it has a fire every hundred years, but Climate Change will make fires more frequent. Then you may get funding to study places where they had two fires in thirty years. The interrupted succession of such ecosystems is wonderful stuff to look at and contemplate, and happens due to sheer coincidence, but because you made it look like it had to do with Global Warming, you are granted the money to study the subject you adore.

In fact such variability has nothing to do with funding or politics. It has more to due with “luck”. For example, at a casino a person playing slot machines is bound to lose more than they win, but may experience a time of “good luck” where they win more than they lose. Should that lucky person ascribe outside influences to the fact they won? Were they nice that day to a little old lady? Did they go to church the prior Sunday? Or was it just dumb luck?

Or…..is winning at a casino caused by Global Warming?

Actually I personally don’t believe there is such a thing as dumb luck. Creation is a magnificently crafted balance of actions and reactions. Also there is power in prayer, even the prayers of a gambler, though God alone knows how the prayers will be answered; one church may be praying for rain on the corn, as the church next door prays for sun on the Sunday School picnic; if God answers both prayers the clash between the two weathers would create a tornado that would blow both churches down; for this reason I leave such things up to God, and am glad I’m not in His shoes.

However, even if you simplify things down to a level of dumb luck, “unprecedented” things are surprisingly common. If a station has kept records a hundred years, there is a one-in-a-hundred chance any given day will be the record high or record low. If you have five hundred stations across a continent, one-in-a-hundred odds means that five stations should set a record high every day, even under most humdrum conditions. That is five unprecedented events every day, for headlines to screech about.

The fires in Canada seem like a new thing, for we are used to Canadian air being pristine, and refreshingly cool. It seems only yesterday the United States was the culprit, sending acid rain north. Now we have mended our ways, with scrubbers in our smoke stacks, and it is Canada sending us the dirty air. This is the third event in a month where Canada has turned our skies brown. First it was due to fires in the Canadian Rockies a month ago, and then last week it was fires Raging in Nova Scotia.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/30/weather/nova-scotia-wildfires-smoke-spreads-to-northeast/index.html

Perhaps someone prayed well, for a weak storm zipping out to sea stalled off Nova Scotia, and intensified, and rains drenched the Nova Scotia fires. However further west the same storm’s backside brought down bone-dry arctic air on strong winds, and fires in Quebec were whipped out of control. Perhaps the praying has continued, for, for after a single smokey day the storm retrograded further west, bringing us clean Atlantic air even as smoke funneled down the Hudson River Valley, and my son in NYC could smell smoke even within his apartment.

Note in the image below how clean and green the air is over New Hampshire, even as NYC gets the worst.

The storm, though weakening, has now retrograded so far west that sprinkles of rain are falling in Quebec, slowing the fires and, more importantly, washing the air. While the air is still listed as “hazardous” in NYC, the “air quality index” has dropped to 168, a third of what it was.

There is some discussion about how hazardous the smoke actually is. One side is in a tizzy about “fine particulate matter”, but it should be noted we are not talking about the fumes from diesel buses. Also these are the same people who want to ban gas stoves, and also wood stoves. But man has been breathing wood smoke since before the Neanderthal; Homo Erectus played with fire, perhaps as much as two million years ago.

Considering people used to be exposed to wood smoke 365 days a year and there was never any great movement to quit smoking, I doubt a few days will kill us. However as a former smoker with compromised lungs I will confess I now avoid the downwind side of campfires.

But, in terms of the smoke being “unprecedented”, I suggest a study of colonial history. Without any to fight forest fires in those days, some fires became gigantic, and the “dark days” they caused downwind were noted in colonial records, especially as, rather than Global Warming or Climate Change, people tended to leap to the conclusion “The Day Of Judgment” was at hand, and some would drop their axes or hoes and hustle off to church, as others made a beeline to the closest tavern.

One such dark day in 1780 occurred right around this time of year, on May 19. There was an east wind, as we now experience. It was noticed as far south as New Jersey, where George Washington noted it in his diary as he directed the Revolutionary War, but that day was darkest in New England. The sunrise was a lurid crimson, and then a darkness rose in the west and the sun vanished. The sky didn’t merely turn brown; it grew black, and people needed lanterns outside.

As this eerie darkness grew the Connecticut legislature was in session, and some of the members grew uneasy. It was wartime, and they were all guilty of treason in the eyes of the English government, so I would think they would be used to feeling nervous, but this growing darkness was a bit too much for some, who said it might be the Day of Judgement and at any moment trumpets could blare from the heavens, and they should adjourn the session. Then, to his everlasting credit, Abraham Davenport gave this wonderful 44 word speech:

“I am against adjournment. The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for an adjournment; if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought.”

We could use some minds like that in modern legislatures, when faced with the fearful mindset that wants to take any fresh and new event and generate a panic, which they then use to strip men of their God-given liberties.

Do not fear the smoke and mirrors.