East Coast Smoke Shroud Lingers; Nova Scotia Fires May-June 2023 Bigger Than Last 10 Years Combined

[hatrack]

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The smoke plaguing the Eastern United States has been sparked by devastating blazes that have upended life from coast to coast in Canada, swallowing homes and other structures, and forcing more than 100,000 people in nine of the country’s 13 provinces and territories from their homes since early May, according to officials from Natural Resources Canada.

As of Wednesday, more than 2,200 wildfires had burned so far this year, according to Canadian officials. In the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia, unusually intense blazes this year have already scorched more land than has been burned in the last 10 years combined. “This is a scary time for a lot of people,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters at a news conference on Monday, promising to do “whatever it takes to keep people safe.”

If fire activity continues at the current pace, Canadian officials said this week, scientific modeling shows that Canada is on track to experience the worst wildfire season in its recorded history. “People have said, ‘Well, it’s a new normal.’ No, there is no such thing as a new normal,” said Werner Kurz, senior research scientist with Natural Resources Canada. “The only thing that’s normal right now is that with climate change the situation is going to get progressively worse.”

The Canadian fires have also spawned some of the smokiest conditions in cities such as New York, Detroit and elsewhere that have been seen over the past two decades, said Marshall Burke, an associate professor in the Department of Earth System Science at Stanford University. Scientists have detailed how a warming world can fuel more — and more intense — fires. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of some of the planet’s foremost researchers, has said that unless humans drastically reduce the burning of fossil fuels, wildfire seasons are likely to grow longer and that more area will burn.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/06/07/wildfire-smoke-health-impact-climate-change/

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Would have made reliable and renewable bio-fuel instead of petro-based fuels

But bio-mass fuels never developed much other than wood stoves.