Comments on: Chapter Three Excerpt: Planetary Purgatory

By: hippie with a pistol

hippie with a pistol — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 19:56:30 +0000

Thomas Swetnam has found that the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) has played a major role in determining the scale and intensity of N. American wildfiles.

Do you? Is that discussed in Chapter 3?

Between 1650 and 1750 wildfires extended from Canada to Mexico. I guess N. America was a “Purgatory” a couple of centuries ago. Do you blame those “raging” wildfires on global warming and anthropogenic emissions?

By: CarlD

CarlD — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 17:46:01 +0000

> Mammoth heat waves like the one that
> killed 35,000 Europeans in 2003 would
> occur every other year.

It has been fairly well documented that the reason for most of these deaths was (1) France’s reluctance to use air-conditioning, and (2) the practice of all Frenchmen going on vacation in the month of August instead of tending to their elderly.

Notice that heat waves in the US do not cause such events.

By: Kari

Kari — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 22:07:58 +0000

Thomas Swetnam is certainly a knowledgeable source on wildfires, which is why Chapter 3 opens with an excerpt from him - a quotation in which he singles out the consequences of climate change as one of the factors contributing to wildfires in 2006. He and his research were evidently not neglected sources, even in what little is posted here.

And the point raised on the European heat wave signals to me that we need work on global warming preparedness. The examples raised were also about a failure to respond appropriately, so let’s start by addressing what we can of the problem (what likely intensified the heat wave) and then ask ourselves how we can plan for the outcomes that are unavoidable.