UK
Keir Starmer pledges to end North Sea exploration and let areas profit from clean power


James Cook - Scotland editor
Mon, June 19, 2023 

oil platform near Invergordon

Labour will end new North Sea oil and gas exploration, but help communities profit from clean power projects, Sir Keir Starmer has pledged.

Speaking in Edinburgh, the Labour leader vowed to "cut bills, create jobs and provide energy security".

He also said that a previously announced publicly-owned green energy company will be based in Scotland.

Sir Keir is under pressure from environmentalists and the oil industry over the scale and pace of change.

Climate campaigners have criticised the party for rowing back on a pledge to invest £28bn a year in green industries.

In England, planning rules which effectively ban new onshore wind farm developments will be scrapped if Labour wins the next election.

Sir Keir Starmer says he wants to make Britain a clean energy superpower

Labour has confirmed it would "not grant licences to explore new fields" in the North Sea, a momentous shift for a sector which supports 200,000 UK jobs, including 90,000 in Scotland, according to trade body Offshore Energies UK.

But the party insists it will honour any licences in existence at the time of the next election, which must be held by January 2025. That is likely to include the controversial new Rosebank development west of Shetland.

Sir Keir said: "Labour will deliver lower bills, good jobs, and energy security for Scotland and the whole UK, as Britain leads the world in the fight against climate change."

One of Labour's initiatives will be to provide more incentives for areas to take part in new clean energy projects. Under Labour's plans, GB Energy - the new publicly-owned firm which it says will be based in Scotland at a location yet to be decided - would play a key role in getting that message across.

What does net zero mean and how is the UK doing?

Where does the UK get its energy and electricity?

It would oversee the return of profits from successful projects to local councils. The councils could then use that income to reduce council tax, pay for improved public services or simply provide rebates on energy bills.

Labour says GB Energy could end up providing up to £600m per year to local councils to invest in green infrastructure and a further £400m annually in low interest loans for community projects.

These community loans would be designed to ensure small projects could benefit from the expertise of GB Energy while also generating money for local areas.

Aberdeen harbour

But Offshore Energy UK's chief executive David Whitehouse told the BBC that Labour's plans to move away from the reliance of North Sea oil and gas "would create a cliff edge". deterring investment and heightening the risk of energy shortages.

Mr Whitehouse said 180 of the North Sea's 283 active oil and gas fields were due to close by 2030, and new licences were "essential" or production would "plummet" and "the UK and its skilled workforce will be exposed".

When Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar discussed the proposals on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Sharon Graham, general secretary of the trade union Unite, responded on Twitter by calling his remarks "simply not acceptable," accusing UK Labour of a "total lack of detail", and adding "these throw away comments cost jobs".

But Philip Evans, of Greenpeace UK, said the idea that the plans would "lead to an overnight shutdown of the industry" was nonsense.

Labour's opposition to new exploration licences represented "genuine leadership" he added, and the party was right "to debunk scare stories being peddled by climate delayers".

'No backsliding'

Mike Childs, head of science, policy and research at Friends of the Earth, welcomed Labour's latest ideas but warned "there can be no backsliding on pledges to stop new oil and gas extraction and invest in green growth".

Environmental groups are particularly vocal about their opposition to the proposed Rosebank development in the North Atlantic.

Industry and government sources say the field could be approved by the UK government's North Sea Transition Authority within weeks.

Norwegian state-controlled oil company Equinor said Rosebank could produce almost 70,000 barrels of oil a day at its peak.

Sir Keir has held private talks with senior energy industry figures in the past week and previously gave direct assurances to Equinor that a Labour government would not revoke any licences.

Instead the party says its focus is on delivering "cheaper zero carbon power by 2030" and its "mission" includes plans to attract and incentivise investment "in the UK's industrial heartlands".

The ban against on-shore wind farms will be lifted if Labour wins the election

That is likely to provoke comparisons with the approach taken by the US Democratic president Joe Biden whose Inflation Reduction Act has been described by the UK Conservative government's Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch as "protectionist".

Sir Keir has accused the Conservatives and the SNP of having abysmal records on renewables. "Labour will deliver lower bills, good jobs, and energy security for Scotland and the whole UK, as Britain leads the world in the fight against climate change," he said.

"The route to making Britain a clean energy superpower, slashing energy bills and creating tens of thousands of quality jobs, runs through Scotland," Sir Keir added.

The Scottish Conservatives' energy spokesman Liam Kerr described Labour's plans as "ruinous" for the UK's oil and gas industry, claiming they "would throw up to 90,000 highly skilled workers in the North East under a bus pretty much overnight".

A Scottish government spokesperson said it was committed to "a planned and fair transition" away from fossil fuels that did not imperil jobs, adding: "Simply stopping all future activity overnight is wrong.

"It could threaten energy security while destroying the very skills we need to transition to the new low-carbon economy."

Labour Promises to Make UK a Clean Energy Superpower by 2030

Andrew Atkinson and Joe Mayes
Mon, June 19, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- The UK’s main opposition Labour Party vowed to cut energy bills, create jobs and provide more secure electricity if it wins the next general election, as its leader Keir Starmer tries to attract support ahead of a vote expected next year.

Labour plans to make Britain a “clean energy superpower” by 2030, Starmer told ITV on Monday ahead of a speech he’s due to deliver in Scotland. He said Britain needs to boost its energy independence and spur renewables.

Opposition proposals include lifting a ban on new onshore wind farms within months of taking office and cutting the time taken to complete clean power projects from years to months with “tough new targets.”

The goals reiterate promises that both Labour and Conservative governments alike have made and failed to keep since the turn of the century. Business leaders complain that planning rules and bureaucracy are holding back investment, especially in critical green technologies like wind farms, electric-car battery plants and carbon capture facilities.

Starmer said his party would reform planning rules to stop so-called nimbyism blocking projects. He told BBC radio that he wanted local people to benefit from new projects through cheaper bills and investments by developers in local improvements.

“We have to have a mechanism where we can move forward,” Starmer told the BBC. There can’t be “individual vetoes all across the country,” he said.

Scaling Back

Starmer is seeking to boost confidence in Labour’s commitment to green energy after the party scaled back its plan to invest £140 billion ($180 billion) over five years on a clean energy transition because of cost concerns. It now plans to “ramp up” to £28 billion a year, rather than deliver that figure from the beginning of the next parliamentary term.

The original plan fell victim to Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ efforts to show a more fiscally conservative face to voters ahead of an election polls show they can win next year. Industry leaders says the clean-power goals are all but impossible.

“We’ve got to roll up our sleeves and start building things, run towards the barriers — the planning system, the skills shortages, the investor confidence, the grid,” Starmer said in excerpts released by Labour ahead of his speech.

“If the status quo isn’t good enough, we must find the reforms that can restart our engine. I’m not going to accept a situation where our planning system means it takes 13 years to build an offshore wind farm.”

Britain would run on 100% clean power by 2030 under Labour, Starmer is due to say, cutting £1,400 off household bills and £53 billion off energy bills for businesses. Industry experts say the clean power goal is impossible.

“2030, even with the best will in the world, I would say is impossible,” Phil Thompson, chief executive of clean energy developer Balance Power Group Ltd. said earlier this month. “We have to be super ambitious because the planet isn’t getting any cooler and it’s a case of shoot for the stars, but I think technically it’s not achievable unless someone has got a magic wand.”

Polling Lead

Labour also needs to make sure its backers in the unions are on board with its plans and there have already been signs of disquiet. Unions want to make sure fossil fuel jobs aren’t destroyed before enough new ones are created.

Read more: Labour’s Starmer Defends UK Energy Plan After Union Critique

Under Labour’s plans, a new public body, GB Energy, would be created to build jobs and supply chains, together with a National Wealth Fund to invest alongside the private sector in gigafactories, clean steel plants, renewable-ready ports, green hydrogen and energy storage.

Labour, which has a double-digit lead in opinion polls over Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives, is hoping a strong climate policy will help it win votes at the next election. A vote, due by January 2025, is widely expected to be held next year.

Starmer will deliver his pledge alongside Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, Reeves and Shadow Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. They will seek to show a united front despite internal tensions over the move to row back the scale of investment.

Bloomberg Businessweek

Keir Starmer: I’ll scrap ban on new onshore wind farms

Nick Gutteridge
Sun, June 18, 2023 

Sir Keir Starmer will say in a speech in Scotland: 'We’ve got to roll up our sleeves and start building things,' including new wind turbines - Stefan Rousseau/PA

Sir Keir Starmer will scrap the ban on new onshore wind farms as one of his first acts in Downing Street if Labour wins the next election.

The opposition leader will vow to “throw everything” at his net zero agenda by firing the starting gun on a “race” to build more turbines across the country.

He will unveil plans to tear up planning laws and halve the length of time it takes for projects to be approved from two years to less than 12 months.

During a speech in Scotland on Monday, he will tell voters they would save hundreds of pounds on their bills under his vision to make Britain a “clean energy superpower”.

Labour says it plans to lift the de facto ban on new wind farms in England, introduced by the Tories in 2012, within its “first months” in power.

But he will make the address following more accusations of “flip-flopping” after he watered down plans to end new North Sea oil and gas projects.
‘Race of our lifetime’

“We can cut bills, create jobs and provide energy security for Britain – that’s what a Labour government will deliver,” Sir Keir will tell an audience in Scotland.

“We’ve got to roll up our sleeves and start building things, run towards the barriers – the planning system, the skills shortages, the investor confidence, the grid.

“If the status quo isn’t good enough – we must find the reforms that can restart our engine.

“I’m not going to accept a situation where our planning system means it takes 13 years to build an offshore wind farm.”

He will add: “We’re going to throw everything at this: planning reform, procurement, long-term finance, R&D, a strategic plan for skills and supply chains.

“We’ve got to seize the new opportunities. This is the race of our lifetime and the prize is real.”

Labour’s energy plan, set to be published on Monday, will formally commit to reversing the onshore wind ban within its first year in power.

But a source close to Sir Keir said he plans to go much faster and bring legislation to the House of Commons within months, adding: “We are going to push on with it ASAP.”

Sir Keir has vowed to reduce the planning process for putting up new turbines “from years to months” and to double output from onshore wind by 2030.

The decade-long ban has added £182 per year to the typical family’s bills by making Britain more reliant on expensive imported energy, he will claim.

Labour has pledged to create a net zero electricity grid by 2030.

Sir Keir’s speech will come after he was criticised by the Tories and some within his own party for watering down two of his key green energy pledges.

He has softened his vow to end all new North Sea oil and gas projects after it came under fire from the unions for putting thousands of jobs at risk.

The announcement comes after Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, admitted the party’s flagship Green Prosperity Plan is being delayed.

Labour had pledged to spend £28 billion a year on climate-friendly policies but has now said it will not reach that target until it has been in power for at least two and a half years.

Esther McVey, a former Conservative cabinet minister, said on Twitter:



Sir Keir will also attack the SNP for failing to deliver on its clean energy pledges, saying his plan will ensure there is “British power for British jobs” and bolster the union.

He will announce that GB Energy, a new state-owned energy company which Labour plans to set up, would have its headquarters in Scotland.

Under the proposals, residents of communities that host green energy production such as wind farms will be rewarded with money off their bills.

Councils will also be required to proactively identify areas of land that can be turned over for the generation of renewable electricity.

Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, has confirmed the party will now allow any new oil and gas licences that are approved by the Tories before it takes power to go ahead.

“We cannot shut off oil and gas, and oil and gas will be a significant part of our energy industry for decades to come,” he told Times Radio.

Grant Shapps, the Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary, told The Telegraph: “Time and again Labour have proven they just can’t be trusted with our economy and our energy security.

“By surrendering to Just Stop Oil’s guerrilla tactics, Keir Starmer is admitting that Labour will decimate the economy, put hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk and undermine everything we have done to get bills falling.”

A Conservative Party spokesman added that the proposals would “weaken the UK’s energy security, making us more dependent on Putin”.

Offshore Energies UK, the industry body, has warned Labour’s plan would create 45,000 job losses and lead to a 60 per cent drop in domestic oil and gas production.

The package of reforms being outlined by Sir Keir is seen as vital to making Britain’s electricity grid carbon-free by 2030.

Industry insiders view this goal as extremely challenging, with one boss of a major power generator saying it would be “virtually impossible”.

However, constraints on the planning system and the grid connection queuing process are seen as key bottlenecks.

Under the “first come, first serve” system, developers of solar farms and battery storage projects have been told they may have to wait until the 2030s for their projects to be hooked up to the grid – even though they only take a few years to build.

This has encouraged firms to “pay and spray” applications in different areas to increase their chances of success, clogging up the queue with speculative projects that are going nowhere.

A Labour source said the party would “rip up the queue system” for grid connections, replacing it with a “use it or lose it” process that forces developers to show progress or forfeit their application.

Meanwhile, the current planning process can force companies to carry out a plethora of environmental studies for renewable energy projects, even though other developers have already done similar work for other projects nearby – wasting time and money.

But Labour will pledge to require councils to set aside land for such schemes and investigate ways to allow offshore wind companies to be able to take advantage of existing environmental data to speed up project approvals.

Publicly owned clean energy firm to be based in Scotland, says Starmer

Paul Cargill, PA Scotland
Sun, June 18, 2023 


Thousands of jobs could be created in Scotland under a Labour proposal to create a publicly owned clean energy company and establish its headquarters north of the border, Sir Keir Starmer will say.

The Labour leader set out his proposal to launch Great British Energy (GBN) during his party conference speech in Liverpool last year as part of a strategy to turn the UK into a clean energy superpower.

He told attendees the company would be launched in the first year of a Labour government should the party win the next general election and has now revealed its headquarters would be based in Scotland.

Sir Keir is scheduled to expand on his party’s vision to deliver cheaper zero-carbon energy by 2030 during a joint statement alongside Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar on Monday.

The two leaders are expected to outline how Labour’s Green Prosperity Plan will deliver three key benefits for Scotland: building on Scotland’s energy and industrial history; doubling the number of jobs in low carbon sectors; and creating a clean power system by 2030 saving Scottish households £8.4 billion in that time.

Sir Keir will say: “The route to making Britain a clean energy superpower, slashing energy bills and creating tens of thousands of quality jobs runs through Scotland.

“That is why GB Energy, our publicly owned energy company, will be headquartered in Scotland, the heart of the British energy industry.

“I mean it when I say that our energy plans will be made in Scotland – cutting energy bills for Scottish families and delivering the jobs and investment in Scottish communities that for far too long have been let down by the SNP and Conservatives.

“When it comes to capitalising on Scotland’s energy resources, for 15 years the SNP Government has chased the headlines but not done the work.

“Labour will deliver lower bills, good jobs, and energy security for Scotland and the whole UK, as Britain leads the world in the fight against climate change.”

Mr Sarwar said: “I am determined to leave our children and future generations a better planet than we have now.

“But to do this, we need to sweep out both of our bad governments and deliver urgent action, because we are running out of time.

“What we are announcing today is the boldest energy plan Scotland and the whole UK has seen in generations – delivering a clean energy revolution by 2030.

“It will deliver 50,000 clean power jobs for Scotland and lower bills for working people.

“I’m delighted to announce it will also mean a publicly owned Great British Energy company – headquartered here in Scotland.

“GB Energy – backed by the strength of the UK Treasury – will make strategic investments to maximise our opportunities and bring jobs and prosperity to Scotland.

“A Labour government will unleash Scotland’s massive energy potential by making those strategic investments – that’s the change Scotland needs.”

SNP Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson Alan Brown MP said: “Whether it’s the Tories or the pro-Brexit Labour Party, Westminster politicians have used Scotland as an energy cash cow for decades, so the pretence that they suddenly want to deliver a strategy for Scotland now is laughable.

“In Scotland, the damage of Westminster control is already done. Keir Starmer’s piecemeal proposal is too little, too late – and shows exactly why Scotland needs the full powers of independence.

“It has been decades of Westminster governments failing to properly harness Scotland’s immense energy resources that has left people across Scotland paying the price. Promising a GB Energy HQ doesn’t make up for decades of squandered oil and gas revenues.

“The SNP is serious about the transformative potential of green energy to Scotland’s success as part of a Just Transition – and the ambitious ScotWind project and the Scottish Government’s £500 million Just Transition Fund attest to that. But we want to go further.

“Labour is pro-Brexit, while Scotland is not. That means a UK Labour government will continue to ignore the needs, interests and wishes of people across Scotland and actively pursue policy that harms our interests.

“It could not be clearer that Scotland needs the full powers of independence to properly deliver clean, green and affordable renewable energy for the benefit of people living and working here.”

Pirelli: Italy blocks Chinese control of tyre giant


Peter Hoskins - Business reporter
Mon, June 19, 2023 

Fernando Alonso of Spain driving the BWT Alpine F1 Team A522 Renault E-Tech RE22 during the F1 Rolex Grand Prix of Austria 2022.

Italy has moved to block a Chinese state-owned company from taking control of tyre making giant Pirelli.

The decision is part of measures announced by Italy's government to protect Pirelli's independence.

Beijing-controlled chemical giant Sinochem is Pirelli's biggest shareholder, with a 37% stake in the 151-year-old Milan-based firm.

It comes as tensions between Beijing and the West are in focus as the US secretary of state visits China.

On Sunday, Pirelli said in a statement to investors that the Italian government had ruled that only Camfin - a company controlled by Pirelli's boss Marco Tronchetti Provera - could nominate candidates to be its chief executive.

Pirelli also said the government had decided that any changes to the company's corporate governance should be subject to official scrutiny.

It came after Sinochem told the Italian government in March that it planned to renew and update an existing shareholder pact.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's administration examined the agreement under the so-called "Golden Power Procedure" rules, which are aimed at protecting businesses that are viewed as strategically important to the nation.

In 2015, Pirelli was sold for €7.1bn (£6.1bn; $7.8bn) to a group of investors including ChemChina and Camfin. Six years later ChemChina merged with state-owned Sinochem. The Chinese government's Silk Road investment fund also owns a 9% stake in Pirelli.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Beijing, on his final day of a rare visit to China by such a high-ranking Washington official.

Mr Blinken's trip comes as the relationships between China and many Western nations have deteriorated in recent years over issues including trade, Taiwan and security.

Before his visit officials saw little chance of any breakthrough on the many disputes between the world's two biggest economies, which include Washington's attempts to slow the development of China's computer chip industry.

Living on a Smoke Bomb of a Planet

BY TOM ENGELHARDT

COUNTERPUNCH

 JUNE 16, 2023
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Plants along the lower Columbia River. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

As it turns out, it’s never too late. I mention that only because last week, at nearly 79, I managed to visit Mars for the first time. You know, the red planet, or rather — so it seemed to me — the orange planet. And take my word for it, it was eerie as hell. There was no sun, just a strange orange haze of a kind I had never seen before as I walked the streets of that world (well-masked) on my way to a doctor’s appointment.

Oh, wait, maybe I’m a little mixed up. Maybe I wasn’t on Mars. The strangeness of it all (and perhaps my age) might have left me just a bit confused. My best hunch now, as I try to put recent events in perspective, is that I wasn’t in life as I’d previously known it. Somehow — just a guess — that afternoon I might have become a character in a science-fiction novel. As a matter of fact, I had only recently finished rereading Walter M. Miller,Jr.’s sci-fi classic A Canticle for Leibowitz, last visited in 1961 at age 17. It’s about a world ravaged by humanity (using nukes, as a matter of fact) and, so many years later, still barely in recovery mode.

I must admit that the streets I was traversing certainly looked like they existed on just such a planet. After all, the ambience had a distinctly end-of-the-world (at least as I’d known it) feel to it.

Oh, wait! I checked the news online and it turns out that it was neither Mars, nor a sci-fi novel. It was simply my very own city, New York, engulfed in smoke you could smell, taste, and see, vast clouds of it blown south from Canada where more than 400 wildfires were then burning in an utterly out of control, historically unprecedented fashion across much of that country — as, in fact, all too many of them still are. That massive cloud of smoke swamped my city’s streets and enveloped its most famous buildings, bridges, and statues in a horrifying mist.

That day, New York, where I was born and have lived much of my life, reportedly hadthe worst, most polluted air of any major city on the planet — Philadelphia would take our place the very next day — including an air quality index that hit a previously unimaginable 484. That day, my city was headline-making in a way not seen since September 11, 2001. In fact, you might think of that Wednesday as the climate-change version of 9/11, a terror (or at least terrorizing) attack of the first order.

Put another way, it should have been a signal to us all that we — New Yorkers included — now live on a new, significantly more dangerous planet, and that June 7th may someday be remembered locally as a preview of a horror show for the ages. Unfortunately, you can count on one thing: it’s barely the beginning. On an overheating planet where humanity has yet to bring its release of greenhouse gasses from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas under any sort of reasonable control, where summer sea ice is almost certain to be a thing of the past in a fast-heating Arctic, where sea levels are rising ominously and fires, storms, and droughts are growing more severe by the year, there’s so much worse to come.

In my youth, of course, a Canada that hadn’t even made it to summer when the heat hit record levels and fires began burning out of control from Alberta in the west to Nova Scotia and Quebec in the east would have been unimaginable. I doubt even Walter M. Miller, Jr., could have dreamed up such a future, no less that, as of a week ago, 1,400% of the normal acreage of that country, or more than 8.7 million acres, had already burned (with so much more undoubtedly still to come); nor that Canada, seemingly caught unprepared, without faintly enough firefighters, despite recent all-too-flammable summers — having, in fact, to import them from around the world to help bring those blazes under some sort of control — would be in flames. And yet, for that country, experiencing its fiercest fire season ever, one thing seems guaranteed: that’s only the beginning. After all, United Nations climate experts are now suggesting that, by the end of this century, if climate change isn’t brought under control, the intensity of global wildfires could rise by another 57%. So, be prepared, New Yorkers, orange is undoubtedly the color of our future and we haven’t seen anything like the last of such smoke bombs.

Oh, and that June evening, once I was home again, I turned on the NBC nightly news, which not surprisingly led with the Canadian fires and the smoke disaster in New York in a big-time way — and, hey, in their reporting, no one even bothered to mention climate change. The words went unused. My best guess: maybe they were all on Mars.

Been There, Done That

In fact, you could indeed think of that June 7th smoke-out as the 2023 climate-change equivalent of September 11, 2001. Whoops! Maybe that’s a far too ominous comparison and I’ll tell you why.

On September 11, 2001, at the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, and aboard four hijacked jets, almost 3,000 people died. That was indeed a first-class nightmare, possibly the worst terrorist attack in history. And the U.S. responded by launching a set of invasions, occupations, and conflicts that came to be known as “the global war on terror.” In every sense, however, it actually turned out to be a global war of terror, a 20-plus-year disaster of losing conflicts that involved the killing of staggering numbers of people. The latest estimate from the invaluable Costs of War Project is: almost a million direct deaths and possibly 3.7 millionindirect ones.

Take that in for a moment. And think about this: in the United States, there hasn’t been the slightest penalty for any of that. Just ask yourself: Was the president who so disastrously invaded Afghanistan and then Iraq, while he and his top officials lied through their teeth to the American people, penalized in any way? Yes, I do mean that fellow out in Texas who’s become known for his portrait painting in his old age and who, relatively recently, confused his decision to invade Iraq with Vladimir Putin’s to invade Ukraine.

Or, for that matter, has the U.S. military suffered any penalties for its record in response to 9/11? Just consider this for starters: the last time that military actually won a war was in 1991. I’m thinking of the first Gulf War and that “win” would prove nothing but a prelude to the Iraq disaster to come in this century. Explain this to me then: Why does the military that’s proven incapable of winning a war since that 9/11 terror attack still get more money from Congress than the next — your choice — 9 or 10 militaries on this planet combined, and why, no matter who’s in charge in Washington, including cost-cutting Republicans, does the Pentagon never — no, absolutely never — see a cut in its funding, only yet more taxpayer dollars? (And mind you, this is true on a planet where the real battles of the future are likely to involve fire and smoke.)

There may indeed be a “debt ceiling” in this country, but there seems to be no ceiling at all when it comes to funding that military. In fact, Republican hawks in the Senate only recently demanded yet more money for the Pentagon in the debt-ceiling debate (despite the fact that, amid other cuts, its funding was already guaranteed to rise by 3% or $388 billion). As Senator Lindsey Graham so classically put it about that (to him) pitiful rise, “This budget is a win for China.”

Now, I don’t mean to say that there’s been no pain anywhere. Quite the opposite. American troops sent to Afghanistan, Iraq, and so many other countries came home suffering everything from literal wounds to severe post-traumatic stress syndrome. (In these years, in fact, the suicide rate among veterans has been unnervingly high.)

And did the American people pay? You bet. Through the teeth, in fact, in a moment when inequality in this country was already going through the roof — or, if you’re not one of the ever-greater numbers of billionaires, perhaps the floor would be the more appropriate image. And has the Pentagon paid a cent? No, not for a thing it’s done (and, in too many cases, is still doing).

Consider this the definition of decline in a country that, as Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis continue to make desperately clear, could be heading for a place too strange and disturbing for words, a place both as old as the present president of the United States (should he win again) and as new as anyone can imagine.

Will the Climate Version of 9/11 Become Daily Life?

Throughout history, it’s true that great imperial powers have risen and fallen, but lest you think this is just another typical imperial moment when, as the U.S. declines, China will rise, take a breath — oops, sorry, watch out for that smoke! — and think again. As those Canadian wildfires suggest, we’re no longer on the planet we humans have inhabited these last many thousand years. We’re now living in a new, not terribly recognizable, ever more perilous world. It’s not just this country that’s in decline but Planet Earth itself as a livable place for humanity and for so many other species. Climate change, in other words, is quickly becoming the climate emergency.

And as the reaction to 9/11 shows, faced with a moment of true terror, don’t count on the response of either the United States or the rest of humanity being on target. After all, as that smoke bomb in New York suggests, these days, too many of those of us who matter — whether we’re talking about the climate-change-denying Trumpublican Party or the leaders of the Pentagon — are fighting the wrong wars, while the major companies responsible for so much of the terror to come, the giant fossil-fuel outfits, continue to pull in blockbuster — no, record! — profits for destroying our future. And that simply couldn’t be more dystopian or, potentially, a more dangerously smoky concoction. Consider that a form of terrorism even al-Qaeda couldn’t have imagined. Consider all of that, in fact, a preview of a world in which a horrific version of 9/11 could become daily life.

So, if there is a war to be fought, the Pentagon won’t be able to fight it. After all, it’s not prepared for increasing numbers of smoke bombs, scorching megadroughts, ever more powerful and horrific storms, melting ice, rising sea levels, broiling temperatures, and so much more. And yet, whether you’re American or Chinese, that’s likely to sum up our true enemy in the decades to come. And worse yet, if the Pentagon and its Chinese equivalent find themselves in a war, Ukraine-style or otherwise, over the island of Taiwan, you might as well kiss it all goodbye.

It should be obvious that the two greatest greenhouse gas producers, China and the United States, will rise or fall (as will the rest of us) on the basis of how well (or desperately poorly) they cooperate in the future when it comes to the overheating of this planet. The question is: Can this country, or for that matter the world, respond in some reasonable fashion to what’s clearly going to be climate terror attack after terror attack potentially leading to dystopian vistas that could stretch into the distant future?

Will humanity react to the climate emergency as ineptly as this country did to 9/11? Is there any hope that we’ll act effectively before we find ourselves on a version of Mars or, as Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, and others like them clearly wish, fossil-fuelize ourselves to hell and back? In other words, are we truly fated to live on a smoke bomb of a planet?

This column is distributed by TomDispatch.

Tom Engelhardt is a co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The United States of Fear as well as a history of the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture. He is a fellow of the Nation Institute and runs TomDispatch.com. His latest book is Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.

Canada Wildfires Heat Up Climate Change Pressure on Trudeau


Laura Dhillon Kane, Kendra Pierre-Louis and Kevin Orland
Sat, June 17, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Canada’s enormous wildfires and the acrid haze they’ve spread across North America have widened a schism in the country’s politics.

While politicians in Alberta and Saskatchewan — Canada’s oil-producing heartland — and Conservatives in Ottawa can no longer deny climate change, they continue to stand in the way of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ambitions. That could leave one of the world’s biggest fossil fuel producers without a credible pathway to reduce carbon emissions at the same time that the impacts of climate change send its forests up in smoke.

The fires have burned through more than 13 million acres, an area twice the size of Massachusetts, putting this year on track to be the worst on record. As the blazes force tens of thousands from their homes and cloud the air with toxic smoke, Canada’s opposition leader has called for an end to the country’s carbon tax. Trudeau’s chief rival, the populist Conservative Pierre Poilievre, spoke for hours in Parliament last week in an attempt to stall the ruling Liberal Party’s budget. During his speech, he reiterated one of his signature promises should the Tories regain power: “Technology, not taxes.”

The pledge, which resonates deeply with Poilievre’s base in the Prairie provinces, illustrates the challenges ahead for Trudeau as he attempts to neutralize the country's carbon emissions by mid-century. Canada has the world’s third-largest nationally proven crude reserves, and oil and gas represent as much as 7% of the country’s GDP and a fifth of its goods exports. While the record-breaking wildfires have driven home the costs of climate inaction, politicians are still seizing upon the fears of Canadians about the short-term costs of action.

Because Canada has a very carbon-intensive economy, many voters, carbon-producing industries and the politicians who are allied with them have been resistant to climate policy, said Kathryn Harrison, a political science professor who studies environmental policy at the University of British Columbia.

Trudeau has pledged to cut emissions by 40% to 45% below 2005 levels by the end of this decade and reach net zero by 2050, but Harrison sees two major political barriers to reaching those goals. The first is that she doesn’t see how the targets can plausibly be achieved without a cap on oil and gas production. Trudeau’s government, under intense industry and political pressure, has refused to entertain a production cap. Instead, it has pledged C$12.4 billion ($9.4 billion) in tax credits for building carbon capture systems, even though most efforts to scale up the technology to date have not been successful.

The second challenge is Trudeau’s carbon price. The system imposes fees on major polluters and fossil fuel sales. The federal government then returns 90% of the revenue from the fuel levy to Canadians through rebate checks.

Harrison said that she expects Canadians to become accustomed to the rebate checks and eventually bristle at Poilievre or a future Conservative leader threatening to axe the tax. A recent report from Parliament’s spending watchdog found that most households will get back more than they pay in 2030 even though the levy is slated to rise. But in the meantime, the policy is not well-understood, and many Canadians who are already struggling with inflation recoil at anything that increases the already high cost of gas.

Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said in an interview that Canadians want his government to take action on climate change in a way that is mindful of affordability while creating jobs and economic opportunities for the future.

“It certainly can’t all be about sacrifice,” he said. “But I think Canadians also are cognizant of the fact that the costs associated with climate change are becoming more apparent every day — the costs of the wildfires, the costs of the floods, the emerging costs as we see the glaciers recede. We must address climate change or the costs of climate are going to be enormous and at some point they're going to be undefeatable.”

The Canadian Climate Institute, an environmental policy nonprofit that receives federal funding but does independent research, released a report last year chronicling the economic impact of climate change. It found that GDP could fall by 12% and incomes could drop 18% by century’s end if emissions continue to rapidly rise, among a slew of other dire economic impacts.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been reluctant to tie the fires to climate change. When asked at an event last week whether she accepted that climate change is driving the worse wildfire season, she largely deflected the question and instead spoke about how human carelessness — such as cigarette butts tossed from car windows — has caused many of the province’s fires.

She said she’d work with Trudeau on reducing emissions, but that his current plans, including the goal of a net-zero electrical grid by 2035, are “unachievable.” Alberta’s oil sands represent about 97% of Canada’s oil reserves, producing about 3.25 million barrels of crude a day, more than the output of Kuwait. Current oil-sands production is up about 40% from a decade ago, and though it has fallen from a peak in 2020, it may begin increasing again next year after the completion of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

Smith’s office didn’t respond to a request from Bloomberg to discuss the matter further. Conservative politicians at the federal level declined requests for comment. Yet even some of Smith’s cabinet ministers have acknowledged the role that climate change is playing in the worsening fire season.

“We look at the number and intensity of the fires this year and the widespread fires that we have — it’s something that we haven’t seen before,” Forestry Minister Todd Loewen said in response to a reporter’s question at a briefing in May. When pressed on what’s causing those changes, he added: “Definitely man has had an effect on our environment.”

Lynn Johnston, a forest fire research specialist with Natural Resources Canada, was even more blunt: “This is climate change action.”

Beyond the scope of the fires, perhaps the most shocking hallmark of this year's fire season has been the sheer number of fires happening simultaneously. A study published earlier this year links the expansion of fires in Western Canada, including in British Columbia, to greenhouse gas emissions.

“In the case of Alberta and Nova Scotia, they do typically have a spring fire season,” said Johnston. “However, that fire season is slowly creeping earlier and earlier. And under human-caused climate change, we're predicting that there's going to be a couple more weeks to a month, longer fire seasons in a lot of these areas.”

The blazes have hit during a crucial year for the trajectory of the country’s emissions targets, said Anna Kanduth, a research lead at the Canadian Climate Institute. The country is expected to unveil draft regulations for a number of policies that are a major part of its climate plans, including ones aimed at reducing oil and gas emissions, increasing access to clean electricity and stronger methane rules.

While the wildfires have pushed climate to the top of the agenda right now, momentum could dissipate when the smoke recedes. The University of British Columbia’s Harrison noted that 600 people in her province died during an extreme heat wave in 2021, which also saw wildfires consume the town of Lytton, B.C. But two years later, the national debate about climate policy remains largely where it was.

“Everybody said, ‘This will be the wake-up call.’ And maybe this one will be,” she said. But there's no way to slow climate change without some sacrifice, she added. “I think voters have to have an honest conversation that there is no magic here.”

Bloomberg Businessweek

Canada’s fires are getting fiercer – and rebuilding is becoming a challenge

Leyland Cecco in Toronto

THE GUARDIAN
Sun, June 18, 2023

Mona Crowston had only minutes to gather her belongings before the wildfire which had been burning for days at the edge of her town swept down towards her house. The 84-year-old already had a suitcase packed, just in case.

Related: Burned to the Ground: the Canadian village incinerated by record temperatures

“I made sure to tidy up what I could before we left. The last thing I wanted was to return home and have a messy room,” she said.

She and her husband left on June 30, 2021. Months later, when they finally returned to the site of their home of 47 years, all they found was charred and crumbled foundation.


Most of the Canadian town of Lytton had also been destroyed.

This year’s spring wildfire season has been the worst on record in Canada, with more than 5m hectares of land burned – a figure higher than the entire 2016, 2019, 2020 and 2022 seasons combined.

Already this year, more than 200 homes have been destroyed. And with warmer and drier months are still to come, the experiences of those who saw their lives destroyed in previous wildfires raise larger questions about both Canada’s ability to rebuild after disaster, and its commitment to victims in the months and years after the flames are extinguished.

A wildfire seen from a Canadian forces helicopter surveying the area near Mistissini, Quebec, on 12 June. 

Photograph: Canadian Forces/Reuters

In the days leading up to the Lytton fire, the surrounding region of British Columbia had broken heat records – at one point nearly reaching 50C (122F) – and the arid land was more parched than normal.

“The wind that day was all just tremendous,” said Crowston. “And then there was the heat. Everything was so dry.”

When winds finally whipped the fire into Lytton, it only took 30 minutes for most of it to be destroyed. When residents returned briefly to tour the damage, they found the main commercial strip had been turned to dust. Homes and vehicles had seemingly vaporized.

Nearly two years after the fire, similar conditions have set in across Canada, with typically damp regions left bone-dry. Unseasonably hot weather has shattered records in dozens of communities And areas that typically don’t experience roaring blazes – from Vancouver Island in the West and Quebec in the west – and have been left charred.

JR Adams, a member of the Lytton First Nation, bore witness to the destruction of his own community.

And when he saw the recent news coverage of wildfires in Nova Scotia, painful memories came flooding back.

“My heart dropped. I knew there was nothing I could do at that moment, except just feel for the people who lost their homes. I was there. I know. I know how they’re feeling. And to see it on the news again, oh God.”

Crowston, Adams and scores of others were displaced and homeless for months.

Flight, loss and homelessness exerted a heavy toll on Adas’s mental health.

“For months, I’d wake up in a room that wasn’t my home. It took a lot of time to accept this. It made facing every day difficult. I didn’t know how to sleep. Even today, I’m scared to sleep,” said Adams.

Earlier this year, the Fraser Valley Current reported on the slow efforts to rebuild Lytton. The village “remains a flattened heap of dirt and concrete”, it reported, with much of the space fenced off. Residents complained of bureaucratic delays and a feeling among they had been forgotten. Work crews have found Indigenous artifacts at excavation sites, further slowing the process. As a result, next to nothing has been rebuilt yet.

With hotter and larger fires projected to sweep across the Canada in the coming years, the collective failure to rebuild in Lytton raises questions about the preparedness of governments to respond to large crises.

“I spent 62 years in Lytton. And I was hoping to rebuild. I just wanted to get home and get on with my life. I miss it terribly,” said Crowston.

Related: ‘Like Nagasaki’: devastating wildfires will only get worse, new book warns

A few months before the fire struck, the couple had replaced their bathroom – part of a bigger plan to renovate the property. Just days before the blaze, they had installed a new stained glass front door. “At least we got to enjoy that door for a few days,” she said.

But as the months in temporary accommodation dragged on – one elderly resident died still hoping to return home – Crowston and her husband eventually came to the sad conclusion that there was no going back.

In November, they bought a home in the town of Ashcroft, an hour north of Lytton in a region still within the range of wildfires.

“I’m trying to get settled. But you build your life somewhere. You have community, memories,” said Crowston. “When I looked out the windows of my home in Lytton, you saw mountains. Here, all I see are hedges.”

Glenn McGillivray, the managing director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, said that Canada no longer had systems in place to help speed up rebuilding efforts after natural disasters.

“That’s not happening anymore. We’re getting really big events, costly events, and they’re coming really, really close together. And in some cases, they’re overlapping,” he said.

Canada’s climate means that the country’s construction season is relatively short, and reconstruction is often complicated by the logistical challenges of bringing large crews to isolated communities. Wildfires also pose unique challenges, such as the way vinyl siding and plastics melt into the ground, turning the soil toxic.

In Halifax, where 200 buildings were recently destroyed by wildfires, contractors warn it could take three years to rebuild.

“We just cannot keep this up. Disasters are getting larger and more costly. We’re hitting a point where we’re going to spend more on recovery than we are on building new construction in Canada. That’s the trend and we just can’t keep it up. Something has to happen,” McGillivray said.

While the community of Lytton is under the jurisdiction of the province, the Lytton First Nations reserve is under federal oversight, speeding up elements of the rebuilding process. In September, Adams got word that the modular homes on the Lytton First Nations reserve were ready.

“The moment I got the key, I instantly packed up everything in my room. I left my hotel that night with my car packed with everything. And coming back, it was a rush. I was able to restart my routine again, to be with my family and after a year and a half, to almost feel home,” said Adams. “We’re finally all together, back on our reserves. And I feel like watching the progress happen. It’s like we’re taking our land back. And it’s exciting to watch.”

But widespread news coverage of fires blazing across the country means the looming threat of future wildfires is never far from Adams’ mind.

“I think a lot of people don’t realize how quickly things can change and how it can change your life,” said Adams. “People need to understand how fast Mother Nature can take control.”

‘Unstoppable’: Massive Canadian Blazes Test Foreign Firefighters

Norimitsu Onishi

The New York Times
Sun, June 18, 2023

A team with Quebec’s forest fire control agency train a contingent of firefighters from France at a base in Roberval, Quebec, Canada on June 11, 2023.

 (Renaud Philippe/The New York Times)

OBEDJIWAN, Canada — An out-of-control fire was advancing rapidly toward a logging road on Tuesday afternoon, tearing through Canada’s immense — and highly flammable — boreal forest with a force and intensity bewildering to a team of French firefighters.

Surrounded by thick smoke, a handful of them headed into the forest to search for water. A veteran knelt down and used his right finger to sketch a plan on the gravel road, pressing to attack the fire head-on.

But the commander was not convinced. The fire, he said, was of an immensity unimaginable in France. The conifers of a combustibility they had never encountered. Trying to douse this tiny patch would be “pointless.”

“We’re not back home,” said the commander, Fabrice Mossé, as a plume of fire shot up from a cluster of trees nearby, and as an increasingly nervous Canadian logging supervisor who had led the French to the spot said: “The fire’s going to be here any minute. We can chat, but let’s do it 20 kilometers away.”

Back at the base, Mossé said, “If anybody in New York is wondering why there’s smoke there, it’s because the fires here are unstoppable.”

“Unstoppable,” he repeated.

A group of 109 French firefighters arrived in northern Quebec about a week ago to assist nearly 1,000 Canadian firefighters and soldiers, the first foreign reinforcements to help the province tackle the extraordinary outbreak of forest fires that sent smoke to New York and other cities across North America, forcing millions indoors because of hazardous air quality.

More than 400 wildfires have burned all across Canada. But much of the smoke over New York drifted from Quebec, a province that is unaccustomed to so many enormous fires, and that has already suffered its worst wildfire season on record, with more than two months left to go.

The experience of the French contingent illustrates the challenges of fighting wildfires in Canada as climate change increases the dangers to its boreal forests, the world’s largest intact forest ecosystem and biggest terrestrial carbon vault.

Used to aggressively and quickly attacking much smaller wildfires in France, the French firefighters must adapt to a landspace whose scale has left them in awe: Quebec, a province three times the size of France, is ravaged by fires sometimes a hundred times as large as what they are used to confronting.

There was a “fatalism” in fighting fires in Canada, said one French commander: Fighting them often meant letting them burn, especially in thinly populated areas, and trying to stop them from spreading.

“For us, it’s absolutely impossible to let fires burn,” said Gen. Eric Flores, the leader of the French contingent who is from the Hérault department in southern France, a region with regular wildfires. “In my department, there isn’t a fire that isn’t within 10 kilometers of houses and people. If I let it burn, it will become uncontrollable. That’s why we attack fires very rapidly.”

Initially deployed to three areas in northern Quebec, the French were converging this past week on an area called Obedjiwan — a hot spot about 400 miles north of Montreal by road.

The battle for Obedjiwan was taking place in a typical patch of Canadian boreal forest: It was inhabited by a single community of about 2,000 members of the Atikamekw First Nations in the reserve of Obedjiwan, not far from a critical hydroelectric dam.

Gravel and dirt roads carved out by a Quebec logging company, Barrette-Chapais, crisscross the vast area surrounding Obedjiwan, which is also home to the Indigenous community’s sprawling ancestral hunting grounds.

Until the French arrived, several immense fires north of Obedjiwan had been left alone as Quebec’s wildfire agency focused its efforts on the province’s inhabited areas, especially the largest city, Chibougamau. As fires reached within 13 miles of Obedijwan, hundreds of older residents, children and others were evacuated to the nearest city, about four hours away by road.

Surveying the area by helicopter, Flores saw that the fire closest to Obedjiwan was contained, but two larger fires north were still raging out of control. Smoke blanketed the forest, and hundreds of fire clusters could be seen burning below.

Vast stretches had been incinerated, some just next to still verdant areas. Isolated cabins, belonging to residents of Obedijwan, could be spotted, some burned down, others still intact but very near the flames. No wildfire-related deaths have been reported in Quebec, with damage limited mostly to rural cabins and cottages.

Unable to directly confront fires as they would have back home, the French adopted a defensive posture by suppressing embers in charred areas next to intact ones, in consultation with their liaison to the Quebec wildfire agency, Louis Villeneuve, a veteran of more than two decades.

“It’s the immensity of the boreal forest, the immensity of Canada, and the boreal forest is a fuel,” Villeneuve said.

Conifers contain high levels of sap, which burns quickly and acts as an accelerant for fast-moving wildfires, shooting flames high in the air that can cross roads and other barriers.

Not far from their base — a logging camp that Flores had fortified by quickly cutting down trees along its perimeter — dozens of French firefighters traveled in pickups deep into the forest near a lake. A single cabin, belonging to a member of the Obedjiwan community, stood on its edge, untouched for now.

A helicopter transported small teams deeper still into the forest, dropping them off at hotpoints. There, the French tried to extinguish fires simmering below the surface, dousing the ground with water that they pumped from nearby lakes and streams, in an effort to prevent fires from reigniting and spreading to untouched areas.

It was a long game — fending off fires that could come back to life in the coming summer heat.

“We’re not used to going to areas that already burned,” said Jérôme Schmitt, 37, a French firefighter waiting for the helicopter to pick up his team. “We usually go fight blazes, but we’re adapting.”

The French arrival in Obedjiwan had been delayed by a half-day after the large fire north of the community suddenly crossed a logging road Monday afternoon.

A couple of hours later, Kevin Chachaé, 36, a member of the Obedjiwan community, was driving nearby in his pickup, not far from his cabin on his ancestral hunting ground.

“I feel helpless, worried and sad all at once,” Chachaé said, standing next to his truck as flames burned through bush near the side of the road.

He then continued his drive down a narrow dirt road enveloped in thick, stinging smoke. A mile away, a dozen volunteer firefighters from the Atikamekw group were resting after spending a day fighting blazes to save Chachaé’s cabin.

Some dressed only in T-shirts, jeans and sneakers, the volunteers had drawn water from nearby creeks, using hoses attached to pumps on three pickups. Only one was a professional, full-time firefighter, and the group included three men fighting fires for the first time.

“I was panicking when I saw a big fire over that hill,” said Hubert Petiquay, 31, one of the three.

The volunteers said they had stopped a fire from spreading to Chachaé’s cabin a couple of miles away. They had extinguished the main fire, which ignited smaller ones, nicknaming it “la Mère,” or mother, in French. But they had failed to stop another from crossing the logging road — the one that forced the French to make a long detour — and called it “l’échappé,” or the one that escaped.

“For us, we consider the fire to be a living thing,” said Dave Petiquay, 52.

The day after Flores arrived in the Obedjiwan area, he paid an unannounced visit to the community, which does not have cellphone coverage and is difficult to contact. He found the its leaders holding an emergency meeting in the town hall: Residents were increasingly worried and critical, many of the community council, because of the loss of several cabins.

At the request of Jean-Claude Mequish, the chief of Obedjiwan, Flores was quickly interviewed live on the community radio station to give an assessment of the fires.

“People don’t have information,” Mequish said, “and everybody wants to go fight the fires. I’m against that. Sending somebody with no experience, that’s too dangerous.”

Still, Mequish knew what the cabins meant: life on people’s ancestral lands, an attachment to life and culture in the forest. All of Obedjiwan shut down for two weeks in the spring and autumn, he said, as members went into the forest to reconnect with nature.

“Everything burned down,” Steven Dubé, 46, said in an interview at his kitchen table with his wife, Annick, 45.

With their relatives, they had lost six cabins, tents and canoes on their ancestral lands. There, they used to pick blueberries, hunt moose and partridges, and fish walleyed pike and trout.

“We’ll return there,” he said. “We’ll rebuild in the same place.”

c.2023 The New York Times Company

Wildfire in southern N.S. occurred amid some of driest recorded conditions: scientist

The Canadian Press
Sat, June 17, 2023 



HALIFAX — A federal scientist with the Canadian Forest Service is pointing to the driest conditions since the Second World War as a key factor behind the largest wildfire in Nova Scotia in the past century.

Sylvie Gauthier said in an interview Friday a review of records indicates the 235-square-kilometre fire in Barrington Lake that swept over bogs, fields and woodlands in southern Nova Scotia had the fourth highest rating for dryness of the woods since 1900, and the highest since 1944.

The province's Department of Natural Resources says the fire, which forced 6,000 evacuations and destroyed 60 houses and cottages, was Nova Scotia's largest wildfire since the early 1920s when it began keeping records.

Gauthier said the measurement of the dryness of the fuel in the forests is referred to as a "drought code," and is a component of the Canadian forest fire behaviour system.

"On the date (May 27) when the fire was already ignited, the drought code was the fourth highest since 1900 and it's the highest that was seen since 1944. So, I'll just say that the fuel was really, really dry," she said.

Gauthier said the extreme dryness, along with coastal winds, may have enabled the fire to burn through the roughly 17 per cent of Crown lands rated as "wet" trees, and to burn or move across fields and bogs that make up about a quarter of Crown land in the area.

Anthony Taylor, a forest ecologist at the University of New Brunswick, said in an interview Thursday that up until the recent fires, there had been a downward trend in the Maritimes in wildfires over the past century due to firefighters' growing ability to extinguish such blazes.

But he also cited recent research papers indicating climate change is expected to increase average temperatures by several degrees in the next three decades, creating an increase in the number of days each year when fires are more likely to break out in the eastern forests.

In particular, he references 2018 work by forest fire ecologists, including the University of Alberta's Mike Flannigan, which note the trend over the past 57 years nationally is for the fire season to start "approximately one week earlier and end one week later."

Taylor said more study is needed to definitely show that climate change is directly linked to the size of the Shelburne fire because the biggest variable remains the potential human influence in its cause.

However, he added, "climate change is increasing the number of fire weather days across the country, including in eastern Canada. This means an increase in the number of days each year conducive to supporting fires, and this is projected to get worse."

Gauthier said projections she and other scientists prepared for the frequency of fires in the region, known as the eastern temperate zone, still suggest large fires will be rarer than in other regions of Canada.

But the measurements of the number of years between the fires is falling sharply under scenarios where the world pumps out more carbon emissions. In the more extreme carbon emission scenario studied, the "return interval" of fires goes from about 3,000 years in the 2011-2014 period to 830 years by 2071.

Forest ecologist Donna Crossland has studied the impact of fires and insect disturbances on Nova Scotia forests, and said she is alarmed by the trends.

She said in a recent interview that during the time of European colonialization of the province — before modern firefighting — large fires were more common in the eastern forests. The retired Parks Canada manager points to historical research from diary entries and letters indicating that in the 1700s and 1800s there were extremely large fires in Nova Scotia that have largely been forgotten.

She said the early fires, likely linked to land clearing by settlers, left large amounts of the wilderness with degraded soils and smaller trees with branches closer to the ground, which are better able to "carry the flame."

Crossland said in the pre-settlement woodlands, referred to as the Acadian forest, there was a wider mix of species before widespread burning and heavy harvesting took place. The taller trees created a darker and more shaded environment, she added.

"Fires like the one we just had would have been an extremely infrequent part of our ecosystem (before European settlement), because we had those shady, humid, dark forests for the most part," she said.

She said before the fire, her greatest fear was focused on the overharvesting of forests, but now she worries that harvesting and historic burning have combined to make the Acadian forest more fire prone, while also vulnerable to pests and hurricane damage.

"Life is going to get harder here if we don't maintain our forest cover and allow our forest to become old again, as old as we can get them to be," she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 17, 2023.

Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press

Voters think Trump is a criminal, Biden is too old and DeSantis is a fascist, new poll finds

John Bowden

The Independent
Sun, June 18, 2023



A new poll out from JL Partners underscores major weaknesses for the three men most likely to be sworn in as president on 20 January 2025, with little good news to soften the blow.

With the GOP primary now in full swing, Americans are getting a good look at the alternatives the Republican Party will present to the re-election of President Joe Biden, who was already the oldest president ever to take office when he did so in 2021.

But the top contenders in the GOP, former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, each have debilitating labels to overcome if they have any shot of picking up ground with a general election audience, according to the survey. For Mr Trump, voters were most likely to describe him in one word as a “criminal”; others were even less flattering, such as “disgusting”, “liar”, “evil” and “dangerous” (though “patriot” also made a top-10 appearance).

The Florida governor got off arguably worse. The top two responses from voters describing Mr DeSantis were “fascist” and “unsure”, the latter indicating possible unfamiliarity with his political record or a lack of name recognition.

And while Mr Biden fares better than either of his would-be opponents, the incumbent president nevertheless remains chained to concerns about his age, which dominated the minds of the most voters asked for their one-word summation of him.

Altogether, the poll results signaled that Americans are largely unsatisfied with the options they have for leadership over the next half decade. To be sure, those three men are not the only candidates running, but no other Republican is polling at a numerically significant level at present and Mr Biden’s party is highly unlikely to facilitate a primary challenge against an incumbent president.

The poll, conducted on behalf of the Daily Mail, most likely outlines the kind of attacks that voters can expect to see in a general election scenario; concerns about Mr Biden’s age and supposed feebleness will be front and centre, as will discussion of Mr Trump’s multiple criminal investigations or Mr DeSantis’s record of support for hard-right conservative legislation in his home state of Florida should either of them be the GOP nominee.

JL Partners’ survey included responses from 1,000 likely general election voters between 12-15 June. The margin of error was 3.1 per cent.

US ambassador marches in Warsaw Pride parade, sending message to NATO ally

U.S. Ambassador Mark Brzezinski holds a U.S. flag as he marches in the yearly pride parade in Warsaw, Poland, on Saturday, June 17, 2023. The ambassador was sending a clear message of Washington's opposition to discrimination in a country where LGBTQ+ people are facing an uphill struggle. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

People take part in the yearly pride parade, known as the Equality Parade, in Warsaw, Poland, on Saturday, June 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

VANESSA GERA
Sat, June 17, 2023

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The United States ambassador held a U.S. flag high as he marched in the yearly Pride parade in Warsaw on Saturday, a clear message of Washington's opposition to discrimination in a country where LGBTQ+ people are facing an uphill struggle.

“America embraces equality,” Ambassador Mark Brzezinski said, as he marched with more than 30 other members of the U.S. Embassy and alongside representatives from Canada, Austria and other Western countries in the Equality Parade.

In recent years Western governments have been alarmed as the conservative government in Warsaw depicted gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people as threats to the nation and its children.

The participation of the U.S. ambassador sent a clear message to the government of Poland, a NATO member on the alliance's eastern flank where the United States has increased its military presence since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.

Poland has for decades considered Washington its key guarantor of security, but the importance of U.S. protection has only grown with the war playing out across its border in Ukraine.

The U.S. is also seen as a guarantor of protection to the LGBTQ+ community, which a few years ago was fighting for the right of same-sex union or marriage, but recently has been more concerned about a climate of hostility from the government and Catholic Church.

The colorful and joyful parade was a brief moment of celebration and relief for a community that has been criticized by elected leaders as a threat to nation’s traditional Catholic identity.

LGBTQ+ members have been especially worried because of elections this fall. The conservative nationalist ruling party, Law and Justice, has openly criticized the community ahead of past elections, an attempt to mobilize its conservative base.

Brzezinski told The Associated Press that his embassy “has heard disturbing reports of an organized campaign targeting Poland’s LGBTQI+ community with hate, lies, and slander in an attempt to divide Polish society. These attempts to sow divisions only strengthen the hand of those who seek to weaken democracy.”

“We hope these reports are not true. We hope disagreement does not devolve into discrimination or worse," Brzezinski said. "Words matter. Hate masquerading as morality can play no productive role in our societies.”

Some participants in the parade that numbered many thousands said they were not aware that the ambassador took part. A couple noted that the U.S., which is seeing a backlash against transgender rights in some states, also doesn't have a perfect record. But a handful interviewed said they appreciated the support.

“The fact that he supports basic human rights — that’s a great thing," said Aleksandra Jarmolinska, 33. She added that the ambassador is probably one of the few people able to pressure Polish politicians.

As Polish President Andrzej Duda campaigned for reelection in 2020, he called the promotion of LGBTQ+ rights an “ideology” more destructive than communism. The education minister, who oversees schools, was appointed to that job after saying LGBTQ+ members are not equal to “normal people."

Last summer, the ruling party leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, mocked transgender people, saying “we must protect ourselves from madness.”

And this spring, Poland’s commissioner for children’s rights ordered an inspection of schools that were ranked as the most LGBT-friendly in the country, saying he wanted to make sure principals were checking their employees against a pedophile registry.

Poland LGBT Parade
People take part in the Equality Parade, an LGBT pride parade, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 17, 2023. 

AP Photos/Czarek Sokolowski