Parts of Northern Virginia and the D.C. area are now under a Code Red air-quality alert due to smoke circulating from Canadian wildfires.
The air is unhealthy for people with heart or lung disease, older adults, children and teens. Avoid outdoor activities wherever possible.
Smoke was heavy through the D.C. region on Wednesday morning, with poor air quality conditions expected to continue through Friday.
More than 150 forest fires were burning in the Northern Quebec province on Tuesday, "including more than 110 deemed out of control," the Associated Press reported.
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The internet rumor mill is saying these fires were purposely set. I haven't heard any "official" call on that. Some news sites are saying the fires are unprecedented. Perhaps, but that part of Canada had huge fires in the late 19th and early 20th Century that sent tons of smoke into the US.
If we banned all the gas stoves in the world these fires would more than offset any environmental benefit of that stupid action.
One thing that many people don't know is that researchers have discovered that North American peoples, before European settlement, purposely burned annually more land than wildfires burn today annually. They did it to manage grazing lands for the habitat of their favorite (tastiest and most nutritious) plant and animal species. I bet they had some smoky skies too.
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Wrong again.
Here is reality and what actual research looks like.
Noss, et al. 2014 -“Despite ample evidence that lightning fire was a primary ecological driver in the NACP [North American Coastal Plain], the myth persists that most fires before the arrival of Europeans were set by Native Americans. For example, Mann (2005; 361) provides a map that shows essentially the entire pre-Columbian NACP, including the lightning-riddled Gulf Coast and Florida peninsula, as ‘dominated by anthropogenic fire’ or with ‘widespread forest clearing for agriculture’. No evidence is offered to support these claims.”
Noss, Reed F.; William J. Platt; Bruce A. Sorrie; Alan S. Weakley; D. Bruce Means; Jennifer Costanza; and Robert K. Peet. 2014. How Global Biodiversity Hotspots May Go Unrecognized: Lessons from the North American Coastal Plain. Diversity and Distributions, (Diversity Distrib.) (2015) 21, 236–244
So, are one of those hockey stick nut jobs?
There is plenty of evidence to support cultural burning in North America, and actually South America too, before the arrival of Europeans. We see it in the soil, in species diversity, archaeological discoveries, etc. The gate keepers of information in climate research have their tentacles all over the place. They are a small but powerful bunch. They know how to spin data better than most, like the hockey puck. They claim data that counters their agenda is a regional anomaly when it suites their needs, and when regional data supports their agenda, they claim it is global. My experience is in the western US, so I am not as familiar with the NACP, but I have read about significant cultural impact in the eastern US. The verbiage used in the paper you reference suggests to me they have political motives and that makes me question its validity. On top of that, that journal has commie ties.
"The gate keepers of information in climate research have their tentacles all over the place. They are a small but powerful bunch. They know how to spin data better than most, like the hockey puck. They claim data that counters their agenda is a regional anomaly when it suites their needs, and when regional data supports their agenda, they claim it is global."
Exactly, but.you can't tell that to Dutko/Mill/Educated/Deca/Terry Ann. Because you're a fascist conspiracy right wing psycho-babbler if you do!
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The "Gate Keepers" are called the professionals. The people trained in research methods who understand the science and the statistics.
That journal is top tiered.
An opinion is only as good as the education and experience of the person making it. Clearly you have neither. You are clearly not qualified to question anyone's validity. Especially a published scientist.
Social media promotes the lie that everyone's opinion matters.
And of course the Eastern US "dominates our culture." Just like NoVA dominates Virginia.
Educated Patriot, your superiority complex is betraying you. If you think that stating "The Gate Keepers are called professionals" is an argument in your favor, then you know nothing about science. Theoretically that should be true, but no honest scientist actually believes that, and it is not a new development related just to climate change. From the beginning of science in nearly every field it has been dominated by group think and controlled by politically connected individuals. Read some books about Black scientists sometime, like George Washington Carver. Almost every major development in science was made by someone who challenged established science. In reality, Gate Keepers tend to hinder science more than help it.
professional indeed, meaning paid, meaning their very livelihood depends on people being scared of silly nonsense like climate catastrophe.
When you have an insanely cushy job like climate professional, the only thing you really spend you time doing is making sure you still have a job for years to come long after your job has become irrelevant.
See SPLC for a perfect example of this phenomenon.
You wanna know who is paying attention to these "experts"?
Insurance companies.
Climate Change affects their bottom dollar.
Thanks for the History lesson.
Were the environmental conditions the same in the pre-Industrial era?
Has there been any significant scientific progress since that time you talked about? What about the the methodologies used by scientists from that period to the present day?
"Were the environmental conditions the same in the pre-Industrial era?"
Research shows that for several days in February and March 2021, atmospheric CO2 levels exceeded 417 parts per million (ppm).
Pre-industrial levels were about 278ppm.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/03/met-office-atmospheric-co2-industrial-levels-environment-climate-change/
Sadly this will be here for a few days. Check out this Canadian website for the projections;
https://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/current/
It's not that bad....
Other countries air quality is far worse daily for months at a time.
This is actually where an n95 would be "useful" if needed.
Ironically I was just in Sprouts in Manassas and about 45% of the people were in fact wearing mask.
I was just comparing this particulate matter/possible increased ozone to what the people of East Palestine, OH are and continuing to go through. It doesn't even compare. With this incidentz , distance matters so around here I characterized it as "not that bad," compared to other parts of the U.S. and Canada, obviously.
Biden for Sleep Number '24
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In Sprouts they are probably still afraid of getting COVID for the 5th time.
I had to travel to swamp land today and it seems pretty bad up here. Then again I have never lived in California or a 3rd world country...yet... so I have nothing to compare it to.
Swamp Land = The place you can't afford filled with federal agencies where you are not qualified to work.
other states have worse air quality.
there are entire regions of the US that have such an odd climate that burning anything in the wrong conditions causes massive amounts of heavy particulate matter to hang around at ground level for weeks on end. You can literally see the air you are breathing sometimes.
similar to what ends up happening in Mexico city.
Leave it up to the feckless Biden administration and the fascist national socialists at the EPA to get us to a point where we need to check the firesmoke forecast in the morning now. Canada is just America's hat anyway. Is the media going to start questioning Biden on how to fix this yet? Jared and Nolans AC can only filter so much.
Too bad Trump cut the EPA budget twice and removed over 125 rules and regulations. Some of them had direct impacts, like the train derailment in Ohio.
But you don't care enough to look up that stuff.
Wrong! The regulations you think applied would not have been applicable to that train in Ohio under BHO either: https://www.factcheck.org/2023/02/ntsb-chair-contradicts-posts-that-wrongly-claim-trump-to-blame-for-ohio-train-wreck/
@ Paul
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/us/politics/budget-epa-state-department-cuts.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/05/trump-epa-budget-noaa-climate-change/527814/
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/482352-trump-budget-slashes-funding-for-epa-environmental-programs/
I could go on. It is not limited to the Ohio incident.
I like my tap water to have color and flavor.
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