Sunday, August 04, 2024

Bernie Sanders and labor leaders set their sights on Gov. Tim Walz for Harris' VP

Hannah Getahun
Sat, 3 August 2024 


Sen. Bernie Sanders said he backed Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as Kamala Harris' VP pick.


Walz is seen as a candidate who understands the working class and can rally rural voters.


Labor leaders have also voiced support for Walz and applauded his support of the 2023 UAW strike.

Among the many men who could join Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign, one person stands out to Sen. Bernie Sanders: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

The democratic socialist, who endorsed Harris for president, told Minnesota Public Radio on Saturday that Walz would be a candidate who "understands the needs of working families."

"I hope very much that the Vice President selects a running mate who will speak up and take on powerful corporate interests, and I think Tim Walz is somebody who could do that," Sanders said of Walz, a former teacher and rural Nebraska native.

Sanders isn't the first to point out Walz's potential to rally working-class voters. As Business Insider's John Dorman reported, Walz could help connect with rural and working-class voters who are unsure about voting blue.

Multiple Minnesota labor leaders have voiced support for Walz in an open letter to Harris, calling him an "essential partner in winning in November."

Walz also received support from United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, who pointed out on CNN Walz's support for the 2023 UAW strike, which ended in October. Walz joined the picket line at a striking Stellantis facility in Plymouth, Minnesota.

The Midwestern Democrat has also taken it upon himself to pit his rural roots against former President Donald Trump's VP pick, JD Vance, who is from Ohio.

"People like JD Vance know nothing about small-town America," Walz said during an appearance on "Morning Joe."

Walz is among several others being considered as a Harris running mate. Other contenders include Govs. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, JB Pritzker of Illinois, and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, as well as Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Rep. Adam Schiff predicted on Saturday that Harris' VP pick will be based on "best running mate that will help her win."

"I think it's going to be less about who does she have the best chemistry with and more about who has the best chance of helping the ticket," he told CNN.

Harris is expected to reveal her choice of running mate as early as Monday, sources told Reuters.

The Harris campaign told Politico that Harris would stage her first rally with her running mate in Philadelphia on Tuesday.

Representatives for Walz, Sanders, and Harris did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some activists step up criticism of Shapiro and Kelly as Harris closes in on naming a running mate

WILL WEISSERT
Updated Sat, 3 August 2024 






 Vice President Kamala Harris waves during a campaign rally, July 30, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats have unified with remarkable speed behind Vice President Kamala Harris as she has taken over the top of the party's ticket heading into the November presidential election.

It may be another story when it comes to a running mate.

As Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly have emerged as among the possible finalists, both have faced criticism from some organizations and activists who might otherwise be supportive of Democratic causes, potentially undermining the party's newfound unity barely two weeks after Harris entered the race.


The vice president's team says she is interviewing six possible choices over the weekend before an announcement expected Monday. The next day, she and her running mate will appear together at a rally in Philadelphia, then visit six more swing states.

In addition to Shapiro and Kelly, Harris is said to be considering Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Walz changed his weekend travel plans, but his office didn’t answer a question Saturday about whether it was for an interview with Harris. “The governor’s schedule has changed, and he is no longer traveling to New Hampshire this weekend,” Walz spokesman Teddy Tschann said.

Some congressional Democrats have promoted Kelly, a former Navy pilot and astronaut whose state has more than 370 miles of border with Mexico. They say his selection could help defuse attacks by the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, who argues that Biden administration's immigration policies are too relaxed.

Shapiro has high-profile supporters, too, including Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker. She caused a stir by posting a video Friday depicting several Philadelphia-area officials and Democrats promoting Harris, but also playing up Shapiro as her running mate — appearing to suggest that the mayor had inside knowledge about Harris’ decision.

But a person with knowledge of the mayor’s thinking said the video was simply a case of Parker showing support for both Harris and the potential that Shapiro, Parker’s friend, would be the vice presidential pick. The person was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Both Kelly and Shapiro have also seen their detractors become more vocal as Harris' closes in on a decision.

While that may not ultimately sway Harris, it is an indication that the honeymoon period for the vice president, where the distinct wings of the Democratic Party coalesced behind her, may be ending in the less than two weeks since President Joe Biden abandoned his reelection bid and endorsed her.

Some labor groups have criticized Kelly, saying he opposes proposed legislation they argue would boost union organizing. The senator's office counters that while he did not co-sponsor the proposed legislation, he has said he would vote for it on the floor.

Still, Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers, said that despite backing Harris for president, his 370,000-member union is not supporting Kelly as a potential running mate. Fain also said the union does not favor Shapiro, who has previously proved willing to join with Republicans in calls to expand voucher programs that allow public tax dollars to flow to private schools.

Fain did single out Beshear, Walz and Pritzker for praise.

“She’s probably got a thousand people telling her the same thing, you know, of what they think,” Fain said in an interview. “And so she’s got to make the decision based off of what she feels is, you know, is best for her.”

The nonprofit Institute for Middle East Understanding has been publicly vocal, saying in a statement that Shapiro “is not the right candidate for the job, and selecting him would be a step in the wrong direction.”

Shapiro, who says he plans to be at Harris' rally Tuesday in Philadelphia, has aggressively confronted what he views as antisemitism cropping up from pro-Palestinian demonstrations and he has professed solidarity with Israel in its drive to eliminate Hamas as it Israel battles the militants in Gaza.

Shapiro called out universities for not acting quickly to tackle antisemitism and he became a prominent critic of the University of Pennsylvania’s president, Liz Magill. She resigned after testifying at a congressional hearing where she was unable to say under repeated questioning that calls on campus for the genocide of Jews would violate the school’s conduct policy.

Shapiro has also criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while suggesting that any end to the Israel-Hamas war requires the removal of Hamas from power.

The governor has been criticized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations for not condemning Israel for the killing of civilians in Gaza or for not calling for Israel to stop the fighting in the territory. Shapiro has countered that he has met with Muslim Americans and understands their pain.

The progressive activist organization RootsAction.org opposes Shapiro’s views on Israel, school vouchers and the environment, among other issues. It says that in considering Shapiro, Harris “has set off alarm bells among young people, racial justice organizers, Arab Americans, Muslims and others whose votes and campaign activism were crucial to defeating Trump four years ago.”

Meanwhile, The Philadelphia Inquirer resurfaced an opinion article Shapiro wrote in 1993 as a 20-year-old college student at the University of Rochester where he said peace “will never come” to the Middle East and that Palestinians were “too battle-minded” to coexist with Israel.

Asked about it, Shapiro responded, “I was 20” adding that he long has supported a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

“It is my hope that we can see a day where peace will reign in the Middle East,” he said.

Also opposing Shapiro are some environmental leaders and residents of the rural town of Dimock, Pennsylvania. They have drafted a letter to Harris urging her not to choose Shapiro and charging that the governor failed to keep his promises to clean up area groundwater contaminated by natural gas production via hydraulic fracturing.

___

Associated Press writers Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, and AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this report.
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Scientist Defends an Audacious Plan to Block Sunlight and Cool the Earth


David Gelles
Updated Sun, 4 August 2024 
NY Times

David Keith believes that by intentionally releasing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, it would be possible to lower temperatures worldwide, blunting global warming.


CHICAGO  David Keith was a graduate student in 1991 when a volcano erupted in the Philippines, sending a cloud of ash toward the edge of space.

Seventeen million tons of sulfur dioxide released from Mount Pinatubo spread across the stratosphere, reflecting some of the sun’s energy away from Earth. The result was a drop in average temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere by roughly one degree Fahrenheit in the year that followed.

Today, Keith cites that event as validation of an idea that has become his life’s work: He believes that by intentionally releasing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, it would be possible to lower temperatures worldwide, blunting global warming.

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Such radical interventions are increasingly being taken seriously as the effects of climate change grow more intense. Global temperatures have hit record highs for 13 months in a row, unleashing violent weather, deadly heat waves and raising sea levels. Scientists expect the heat to keep climbing for decades. The main driver of the warming, the burning of fossil fuels, continues more or less unabated.

Against this backdrop, there is growing interest in efforts to intentionally alter the Earth’s climate, a field known as geoengineering.

Already, major corporations are operating enormous facilities to vacuum up the carbon dioxide that’s heating up the atmosphere and bury it underground. Some scientists are performing experiments designed to brighten clouds, another way to bounce some solar radiation back to space. Others are working on efforts to make oceans and plants absorb more carbon dioxide.

But of all these ideas, it is stratospheric solar geoengineering that elicits the greatest hope and the greatest fear.

Proponents see it as a relatively cheap and fast way to reduce temperatures well before the world has stopped burning fossil fuels. Harvard University has a solar geoengineering program that has received grants from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. It’s being studied by the Environmental Defense Fund along with the World Climate Research Program, an international scientific effort. The European Union last year called for a thorough analysis of the risks of geoengineering and said countries should discuss how to regulate an eventual deployment of the technology.

But many scientists and environmentalists fear that it could result in unpredictable calamities.

Because it would be used in the stratosphere and not limited to a particular area, solar geoengineering could affect the whole world, possibly scrambling natural systems, like creating rain in one arid region while drying out the monsoon season elsewhere. Opponents worry it would distract from the urgent work of transitioning away from fossil fuels. They object to intentionally releasing sulfur dioxide, a pollutant that would eventually move from the stratosphere to ground level, where it can irritate the skin, eyes, nose and throat and can cause respiratory problems. And they fear that once begun, a solar geoengineering program would be difficult to stop.

“The whole notion of spraying sulfur compounds to reflect sunlight is arrogant and simplistic,” Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki said. “There are unintended consequences of powerful technologies like these, and we have no idea what they will be.”

Raymond Pierrehumbert, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Oxford, said he considered solar geoengineering a grave threat to human civilization.

“It’s not only a bad idea in terms of something that would never be safe to deploy,” he said. “But even doing research on it is not just a waste of money, but actively dangerous.”

Shuchi Talati, founder of a nonprofit organization called the Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering, called the technology “a double-edged sword.”

“It could be a way to limit human suffering,” she said. “At the same time, I think it can also exacerbate suffering if used in a bad way.”

In a series of interviews, Keith, a professor in the University of Chicago’s department of geophysical sciences, countered that the risks posed by solar geoengineering are well understood, not as severe as portrayed by critics and dwarfed by the potential benefits.

If the technique slowed the warming of the planet by even just one degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, over the next century, Keith said, it could help prevent millions of heat-related deaths each decade.

A planet transformed by solar geoengineering would not be noticeably dimmer during the daytime, according to his calculations. But it could produce a different kind of twilight, one with an orange hue.

He agrees that nations should stop burning coal, oil and gas, period. But Keith believes in going further.

Lean and athletic at 60, with glacier-blue eyes, Keith has spent his life outside the lab rock climbing, sea kayaking and skiing in the Arctic. He is deeply troubled by the myriad ways climate change is disrupting the natural world.

By lowering global temperatures, solar geoengineering could help restore the planet to its preindustrial state, re-creating conditions that existed before enormous amounts of carbon dioxide were pumped into the atmosphere and began to cook the Earth, he said.

If there were a global referendum tomorrow on whether to begin solar geoengineering, he said he would vote in favor.

“There certainly are risks, and there certainly are uncertainties,” he said. “But there’s really a lot of evidence that the risks are quantitatively small compared to the benefits, and the uncertainties just aren’t that big.”

The only thing more dangerous than his solution, he suggested, might be not using it at all.

—

To understand just how contentious Keith’s work can be, consider what happened when he tried to perform an initial test in preparation for a solar geoengineering experiment known as Scopex.

Then a professor at Harvard, Keith wanted to release a few pounds of mineral dust at an altitude of roughly 20 kilometers and track how the dust behaved as it floated across the sky.

A test was planned in 2018, possibly over Arizona, but Keith couldn’t find a partner to launch a high-altitude balloon. When details of that plan became public, a group of Indigenous people objected and issued a manifesto against geoengineering.

Three years later, Harvard hired the Swedish space corporation to launch a balloon that would carry the equipment for the test. But before it took place, local groups once again rose up in protest.

The Saami Council, an organization representing Indigenous peoples, said it viewed solar geoengineering “to be the direct opposite of the respect we as Indigenous Peoples are taught to treat nature with.”

Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist, joined the chorus. “Nature is doing everything it can,” she said. “It’s screaming at us to back off, to stop — and we are doing the exact opposite.”

Within months, the experiment was called off.

“A lesson I’ve learned from this is that if we do this again, we won’t be open in the same way,” Keith said.

Behind the scenes, the Harvard team and its advisory committee became mired in finger pointing over who was to blame for the collapse of the project. Talati, a member of the Scopex advisory board, said it was “the moment of peak chaos.”

It didn’t help that there were personality conflicts. Several committee members said Keith could be ornery and headstrong, correcting colleagues in casual conversation and belittling those with whom he disagreed.

“I can be abrasive and difficult,” Keith acknowledged. “I am sometimes inappropriately forceful in making my point. I’m intense.”

—

Opponents of solar geoengineering cite several main risks.

They say it could create a “moral hazard,” mistakenly giving people the impression that it is not necessary to rapidly reduce fossil fuel emissions.

“The fundamental problem is that we think we’re so smart that we don’t have to pay attention to nature’s boundaries,” Suzuki said. “But we haven’t dealt with the root cause of the problem, which is us.”

The second main concern has to do with unintended consequences.

“This is a really dangerous path to go down,” said Beatrice Rindevall, the chair of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, which opposed the experiment. “It could shock the climate system, could alter hydrological cycles and could exacerbate extreme weather and climate instability.”

And once solar geoengineering began to cool the planet, stopping the effort abruptly could result in a sudden rise in temperatures, a phenomenon known as “termination shock.” The planet could experience “potentially massive temperature rise in an unprepared world over a matter of five to 10 years, hitting the Earth’s climate with something that it probably hasn’t seen since the dinosaur-killing impactor,” Pierrehumbert said.

On top of all this, there are fears about rogue actors using solar geoengineering and concerns that the technology could be weaponized. Not to mention the fact that sulfur dioxide can harm human health.

Keith is adamant that those fears are overblown. And while there would be some additional air pollution, he claims the risk is negligible compared to the benefits.

“There’s plenty of uncertainty about climate responses,” he said. “But it’s pretty hard to imagine if you do a limited amount of hemispherically balanced solar geo that you don’t reduce temperatures everywhere.”

Last year, after the failure to launch the Scopex experiment in Sweden, Keith made a move that stunned his colleagues. He announced he was closing the door on 13 years at Harvard and taking his ambitions to the University of Chicago, where he would build a new program around climate interventions, including solar geoengineering.

“I don’t know whether that stuff will ever get used,” said Gates, a major investor in climate technology. “I do believe that doing the research and understanding it makes sense.”

—

Keith’s career can be traced to his father, Tony Keith, a wildlife biologist who attended the first global gathering to address threats to nature, the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm.

Dyslexia prevented him from learning to read until late in 4th grade, but when he was finally able to make sense of written words, he became a voracious reader. He also loved camping and, at 17, hiked a stretch of the Appalachian Trail solo.

After graduating from the University of Toronto, he spent months rock climbing. Looking for a way to get paid to live in the wilderness, he got a job studying walruses in the Canadian Arctic.

Keith eventually enrolled in a doctoral program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study experimental physics.

In 1992, he published an academic paper, “A Serious Look at Geoengineering,” that raised the questions that would shape his career: Who should authorize the use of these technologies? Who is liable if something goes wrong?

His academic career took him from Carnegie Mellon University to the University of Calgary, where he began investigating ways to capture and store carbon dioxide. The next stop was Harvard, where he got serious about solar geoengineering.

In 2006, a mutual acquaintance introduced Keith to Gates, who wanted to learn more about technologies that might help fight global warming. The two men discussed climate and technology in a series of meetings over the next 10 years.

Then in 2009, Keith founded Carbon Engineering, a company that developed a process for pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Investors included Gates, Chevron and N. Murray Edwards, who made billions pumping oil from the Canadian oil sands.

Last year Carbon Engineering was acquired by Occidental Petroleum, a major oil and gas producer based in Texas, for $1.1 billion. Keith owned about 4% of the company at the time of the sale, delivering him a personal windfall of about $72 million.

Occidental is now building a series of enormous carbon capture plants. It plans to sell carbon credits to big companies like Amazon and AT&T that want to offset their emissions. Critics say that will only delay the phaseout of fossil fuels while allowing an oil company to profit.

“Of course I’m uncomfortable about it being sold to an oil company, no question,” Keith said, adding that he plans to give away most of his profits from the sale of Carbon Engineering, perhaps to a conservation group.

—

On a summer Monday in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Harvard campus was mostly quiet. But inside one classroom, a standing-room-only crowd listened as experts discussed the merits and risks of solar geoengineering.

Among those featured was Frank Keutsch, Keith’s former collaborator on the Scopex experiment.

Keutsch is less sanguine than Keith when considering its potential risks.

“I compare stratospheric solar geoengineering with opiates,” he said on the panel. “They only treat the symptom and not the actual cause. You can get addicted to it if you don’t actually address the cause. In addition, like any painkiller, you’re going to have side effects. And then there are withdrawal symptoms, and that’s termination shock.”

Keutsch is now investigating whether calcium carbonate or diamond dust might be a better material than sulfur, and pondering issues around how a deployment might one day be governed. There are no current plans for a field experiment.

Academic energy in the field has followed Keith to the University of Chicago, which is allowing him to hire 10 full-time faculty members and build a new program focused on various types of geoengineering. The total cost could reach as much as $100 million.

The move has puzzled some. Pierrehumbert, who recently departed the University of Chicago for Oxford, said he was “flabbergasted” and contended that those research dollars could be better spent investigating ways to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

To celebrate his 60th birthday in October, Keith went hiking in the Canadian Rockies and came across a glacier that had shrunk dramatically in recent years. It was a visual reminder that global warming is upending the natural world, and it confirmed his central, controversial belief: Humans have already altered the planet, heating the climate with greenhouse gases. To repair the climate and return it to a more pristine state, we may need to take even more drastic action and engineer the stratosphere.

“I’m more motivated even now to push on solar geo because the rationalist case for it is looking stronger,” Keith said. “While there are still lots of strong individual voices of opposition, there are a lot of people in serious policy positions that are taking it seriously, and that’s really exciting.”

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RIP
Falling tree fatally injures Alberta firefighter battling Jasper-area wildfire

CBC
Sat, 3 August 2024 


Smoke can be seen rising from a wildfire near Jasper, Alta., on Saturday. (Jasper National Park/Facebook - image credit)


A 24-year-old Calgary man is dead after being injured by a falling tree while fighting a wildfire northeast of Jasper, Alta.

According to the Jasper Wildfire Complex Unified Command, which is comprised of members of both Parks Canada and the municipality of Jasper, it happened around 2 p.m. MT Saturday.

The firefighter's crew provided first aid before Jasper National Park visitor safety specialists and the Alberta Wildfire unit used a wheeled stretcher to bring the 24-year-old firefighter to the nearest helipad, the unified command group said in a statement.

From there, he was flown to the Parks Canada operations compound in Jasper, where STARS air ambulance was waiting.

"Tragically, despite efforts of the first responders and STARS air ambulance team specialists, the injured firefighter did not survive and was pronounced deceased shortly after transfer to STARS," officials said.

The man — whom RCMP say was part of the Rocky Mountain House Fire Base — was among hundreds of firefighters who are in Alberta to fight the massive wildfires affecting the province.

"RCMP wish to express our heartfelt condolences to the family, friends and co-workers of the deceased," said Alberta RCMP in a release issued late on Saturday night.

Crews with Alberta Wildfire held a procession for the 24-year-old Sunday morning, lining up on either side of the road in the Jasper area to pay their respects as emergency vehicles drove by.

"Today we are mourning the loss of one of our own. An Alberta Wildfire crew member was fatally injured yesterday while responding to the wildfire in Jasper. This morning we stood heartbroken with our partners as a procession passed by," the provincial agency said in a social media post.

Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services Mike Ellis said in a statement that the bus tours that were supposed to take place Sunday for Jasper residents to see the destruction in the town have been postponed by 24 hours "out of respect for the family, crew and all those impacted by this tragedy."

He said residents who had signed up for the tours were notified of the cancellation Saturday night.

"We are working to ensure supports are available for all those working in Jasper during this incredibly difficult time," Ellis said.

In a statement to CBC News, Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek expressed her sorrow over the firefighter's death.

"My heart is with the family and friends of the wildland firefighter who tragically lost his life while serving community in the Jasper wildfire. Calgarians grieve with those in the Rocky Mountain House Fire Base," she said.

Alberta's Forestry and Parks Minister Todd Loewen said in a social media post on X that he was devastated by the news.


The province says more than 700 firefighters are battling wildfires in Alberta, including more than 100 firefighters and support staff from Ontario, Quebec, PEI, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

The province says more than 700 firefighters are battling wildfires near Jasper, including more than 100 firefighters and support staff from Ontario, Quebec, P.E.I., New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. (@AlbertaWildfire/X)

"My heart goes out to the family and friends of this front-line hero who had a unwavering commitment to safeguarding our communities," he said.

"Our deepest condolences also go to his fire-line crew, the 700-person strong team working in Jasper and the larger Alberta Wildfire community. I know all of you have been deeply impacted by this loss. On behalf of all Albertans, we grieve this terrible news with you."

"We are profoundly saddened by the tragic loss of an Alberta wildland firefighter who gave their life today to protect our community. This dedicated person travelled to Jasper to help us, to help protect our town and our home," Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland said in a statement.

"Our hearts ache for their family, their loved ones and their comrades," Ireland said.

Premier Danielle Smith said on X Sunday morning she is deeply saddened about the death of the 24-year-old.

"Our hearts go out to their family and friends in this incredibly difficult time. We are forever grateful for the courageous wildland firefighters who risk their lives every day to protect others," she said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also released a statement about the firefighter's death.

"Heartbroken by the news that a firefighter has lost his life while battling the wildfires in Jasper. He served Albertans with unwavering bravery, and his loss is deeply felt," he said.

"I'm keeping his family, friends, and his fellow firefighters in my thoughts."

RCMP say Alberta's Occupational Health and Safety is investigating the death.

Falling trees can be extremely dangerous when battling against wildfires. It's been a year since Devyn Gale was killed by a cedar tree that fell on the 19-year-old while she was fighting a wildfire outside of Revelstoke, B.C.

A dangerous tree is brought down in the Municipality of Jasper on Wednesday, July 31, 2024.

A dangerous tree is brought down in the Municipality of Jasper on Wednesday. (Jasper National Park/Facebook)

The Jasper unified command statement said Saturday's incident highlights the dangerous nature of wildland firefighting and the hazards that crew members encounter every day.

"Every single person responding to the Jasper Wildfire Complex is in mourning today for our friend and colleague. The wildland fire community is small and every loss deeply impacts us all.

"We are eternally grateful for the personal sacrifices first responders offer to protect Canadians and their communities. Our hearts are with their family and friends in this difficult time."

Firefighter, 24, is first victim of huge west Canada blaze

AFP
Sun, 4 August 2024 

This August 3 2024 image obtained from the Jasper National Park in Canada, shows fire activity near Lake Edith (Handout)


A 24-year-old firefighter has died while battling a vast and still uncontrolled wildfire in western Canada, the federal police announced Sunday.

The man, whose name was not immediately released, became the first casualty of a huge fire near the beloved tourist town of Jasper in Alberta province. Last year's historically bad fire season claimed eight lives.

The victim, a Calgary native, suffered a serious injury Saturday afternoon when struck by a falling tree "while fighting an active fire northeast of Jasper," said a statement from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

He was transported, first by helicopter and then by air ambulance, to a hospital but was later declared dead, said Parks Canada, the federal agency that manages the national parks.

"Every single person responding to the Jasper Wildfire Complex is in mourning today for our friend and colleague," said a joint statement from Parks Canada and the town of Jasper posted on Facebook.

"The wildland fire community is small and every loss deeply impacts us all."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was "heartbroken" by the loss, adding on social media platform X that "he served Albertans with unwavering bravery, and his loss is deeply felt."

Several firefighting units paid homage to their fallen comrade Sunday morning in a vigil in the nearby town of Hinton.

Provincial authorities said they were investigating the circumstances surrounding the death.

Some 700 firefighters, including several from other countries, are now fighting the vast wildfire, which has burned some 34,000 hectares (84,000 acres).

Ignited two weeks ago by lightning in a region enduring severe drought, the fire destroyed a substantial part of the tourist city of Jasper, known as the jewel of a naturally beautiful region that draws 2.5 million tourists a year.

Still out of control, it is the largest fire to hit Jasper National Park in 100 years -- and it could burn for months more, the authorities say.

On Friday, the highway serving the city of Jasper was partly reopened to traffic, and authorities allowed evacuated residents traveling on chartered buses to come inspect their homes, conditions permitting.

No date has been announced for a full return to the city.

Last year saw a catastrophic number of wildfires in Canada, with 15 million hectares burned and more than 200,000 people evacuated.

maw/pno/bbk/dw

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 JASPER, ALBERTA


These outdoor guides just lost their homes in a wildfire. They believe in their town’s rebirth

Paula Newton, CNN
Sat, 3 August 2024 

Through gratitude and exhaustion, James Gillese tries to reconcile feelings of shock and resolve as he considers the force of nature now engulfing his home of Jasper, Alberta.

Gratitude is top of mind for him right now as his wife, three children and their dog are all safe after a harrowing journey trying to escape out-of-control fires that still surround Jasper and burn within the largest national park in the Canadian Rockies.

But emotional exhaustion underlies the enormity of what many Jasperites are feeling now as the largest wildfire in Jasper National Park in more than a century continues to upend their lives and the majestic landscape they call home. The Gillese family lost a home that was still under construction.

Gillese, an expedition guide, said he was asked during a trip through the park recently whether he was worried about wildfires.

“Ironically, I said no,” said Gillese. “We’ve got helicopters, we’ve got tons of resources that were dedicated to the park and despite that, the conditions were so prime and with strong winds, lightning strikes close to town, all this, it was just unprecedented.”

James Gillese and his wife, Krista, are pictured with their children on the porch of what would have been their new home. - Courtesy James Gillese

And yet just days later, Gillese, who was away on a days-long river trip in British Columbia when the fire approached Jasper, received the news from his wife, Krista, that they were being evacuated with some urgency as the town was under threat.

“I don’t think anybody really thought that it would be that quick for the town to go from being evacuated to burned in 24 to 48 hours,” said Gillese.

Canadian officials say about a third of the structures in the town of Jasper have been destroyed by fire. Those buildings include single family homes and apartment buildings, as well as HI Jasper, a hostel built in 2019, and other businesses within the booming tourism industry tied closely to Jasper National Park.

The residents and their livelihoods will recover, officials say.

“Jasper is grieving right now,” Tyler Riopel, CEO of Tourism Jasper, wrote in a statement released on July 29, noting the strength of the community.

“Jasperites will be back to rebuild and when they do, one of the best ways to help them in the long-term will be to spend within the town. Eat in our restaurants, stay in our hotels, use our services, explore with our outfitters, rediscover Jasper.”

The blaze tore through the Gillese house that was under construction in Jasper, Alberta. - Parks Canada
‘We’re all together, that’s what matters’

Gillese and his family, now reunited, are staying with relatives in Edmonton, Alberta, and they say they have no idea when they will be allowed to return.

Thankfully, Gillese says, the rental unit they were living in while their new house was being built is standing and that means they still have their personal possessions.

Gillese said his eldest son, Liam, poignantly reminded him of not only the loss their community had suffered, but the good fortune they’ve had: No one lost their lives or was hurt in the fire.

“He said he was thinking a lot about the town and his friends and all his friends that have lost their homes, so that was really quite mature of him, for a 7 year-old, but also said at the same time, ‘That’s OK, we’re all together, that’s what matters,’” said Gillese, with some emotion, as he contemplated all his kids have been through.

Canadian officials say the fire will likely burn for several months more. The town of Jasper remains off limits to most residents, and the national park is closed for the foreseeable future. More than 20,000 people remain evacuated.
A massive threat

Alberta officials say a combination of factors fueled the fire, including weeks of high temperatures, forests that were already dried out, strong winds and then lightning strikes that fueled an already fierce inferno.

“The simple fact is that sometimes there are no tools or resources capable of overcoming a wildfire of the magnitude that we face,” said Ron Hallman with Parks Canada during a news update in late July.

And yet many residents, national park employees and government officials say the town of Jasper and Jasper National Park were as prepared as any place could be for this type of wildfire.

For decades, Parks Canada says, it has been working on mitigation including removing dead trees, thinning the landscape, planting more fire-resistant trees and building up firefighting and monitoring resources.

“Had we not done that, there would be no more Jasper today. This jewel that we have as part of the national parks network would be simply gone,” said Steven Guilbeault, Canada’s environment minister during a news briefing in the province of Alberta earlier this week.

Jasper is ‘being reborn’

Ryan Titchener is thankful for the “jewel” that remains, even though his home has been burned to the ground.

Titchener has lived in Jasper most of his adult life but was unprepared for what he saw outside his window when the evacuation order came.



The only possession Ryan Titchener grabbed from his apartment was his guitar. - Courtesy Ryan Titchener

“I opened up the blinds and then could see this ominous, kind of orange glow in the sky and the ash falling down and then I could see the streets already at that point were jam packed with cars and people just trying to inch their way out of town,” said Titchener during a phone interview this week.

He describes what came next as “organized chaos” as thousands packed what they could and filed out of town.

“I ran back up to the apartment to kind of have a goodbye and a look around, wasn’t expecting never to see it again and the only personal item I grabbed was my guitar. I was playing it last night, I’m pretty glad to have it actually,” Titchener said.

“What has been lost is a lot,” says Titchener, explaining that while a third of structures have been destroyed, many of those were multiple dwelling residential buildings.

“We’d have nothing left if it wasn’t for all that prevention,” he adds.

People involved in the outdoor expedition community have organized GoFundMe campaigns to help Titchener and Gillese recover.

Titchener, a former alpine and rock-climbing guide who suffered a spinal cord injury while climbing several years ago, now works as an interpretive guide, a ski patroller and an operations foreman at a nearby ski hill.

He says he is dedicated to seeing even more travelers, including those with disabilities, experience Jasper in the years to come.

Gillese and Titchener, who are friends and have worked together guiding in the past, expressed their gratitude for the support they’ve received from so many people across Canada and beyond.

They say that support will help them rebuild the town of Jasper and the tourism industry upon which they both rely.

“I have been overwhelmed with the outpouring of support during a very difficult time,” said Gillese.

Titchener echoes his friend’s sentiment and others who say they will rebuild Jasper and the tourism industry that is its lifeblood.

“Jasper wasn’t destroyed, it’s being reborn – and that’s a much different thing. Being destroyed means it will no longer exist, like my possessions,” he says.

“We’re going to see that regrowth, of not just the reconstruction of our town but also the natural process of that forest recovery and it’s going to make it a much more diverse and actually healthier landscape.”

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