Use Your Ashtray!
Postcard 1961: "Ye Olde Manning Park Gallows"
Given the current fire situation in CA & BC, it seemed appropriate to resurrect this previously posted photo.
Comments & Stats on BC Wildfires
In the '60s, this sign and 'gallows' lined the Hope-[to]-Princeton Highway on the way to Manning Park. Perhaps the idea seemed too extreme with time; but given how many people habitually, thought/lessly and seemingly care/lessly toss their cigarettes out their window despite all kinds of media warnings, perhaps it's time we revive such drastic reminders!
It's already summer in BC, folks, so if you smoke & you're in the habit of tossing your cigarettes out your car window in wetter seasons, consider the damage you could do to our beautiful wilderness recreational parks and timber resources (let alone endangering communities and homes, and taxing firefighting resources for all the forest fires already caused by lightning strikes)--all, potentially, if you don't use your ashtray!!!
Human caused wildfires in B.C. can cost tax payers upwards of $57 Million a year. Think of what that money could do for our province!!!
Please, think TWICE & ALWAYS use your ashtray. Thanks!
(End of 'sermon'!)
______________________________________
July 10, 2015
UPDATE on the BC Wildfires situation,
so far costing BC $100,00 this year:
2004-2013: 39%--or nearly 4 out of 10--of BC’s wildfires
were caused by an average of 712 humans per year.
Those human-caused wildfires between cost BC taxpayers $56,745,000/year.
Average hectares affected 2004 - 2013: 115,464.
Over 3x that affected in 2014 alone: 369,169.
So far, up to July 6, 2015, total hectares: 220,364.
- based on bcwildfire.ca/history/average.htm stats
Wildfires can revitalize forests, but how much becomes counterproductive?
Human-caused wildfires not only cost us millions each year, but also divert critical wildfire fighting efforts from massive lightning-strike blazes.
Human-caused wildfires destroy economy-based natural resources, homes, and can even take fire-fighters’ lives, and likely by the end of this fire season and since 2004 will have cost around $6 BILLION dollars! (Taxpayer money that could be better spent on social programs, etc.)
Cigarette butt pollutants also filter into our soil, waters, and fish (e.g.),
www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/science-matters/2013/08/-lets-g...
And yet, people continue to toss cigarettes on the ground.
Time to make it a fine-able criminal offence, I say, which it is if proven it led to a wildfire, but not otherwise.
BC's forestry minister "Thomson said that a range of penalties exists for people found to have started wildfires. That includes fires started by tossed cigarette butts, he said.
"He acknowledged that it can be a “challenge” to determine who was responsible for a fire."
- www.theprovince.com/news/drivers+urged+discard+cigarettes...
And this, in an email from the Premier's office:
"failure to abide by the Wildfire Act, including open burning restrictions, can result in a $345 fine, an administrative penalty of $10,000 or, if convicted in court, a fine of up to $100,000 and/or one year in jail.
"We invite you to please visit the following link: news.gov.bc.ca/stories/province-on-high-alert-with-increa... -- providing you with more up-to-date information on wildfires in B.C."
This costly, dangerous habit of tossing cigarette butts on the ground and out of vehicles needs to be stomped out. 712 people each year need to change their thought-less, care-less actions.
USE YOUR ASHTRAY!!!
And as Surrey's fire media person said today, "If you don't have one, put one in your car and make sure it is deep so that ashes don't fly out the window."
See also: Len Matthews / Flickr: how to start a fire:
www.flickr.com/photos/67953162@N00/6871483223/
_________________
July 11, 2015 UPDATE
A good summary on NPR as well as debate about the role of climate change in the comments:
www.npr.org/2015/07/11/421995880/wildfires-in-canada-and-...
E.g.,
Joe The Pimpernel:
This isn't your mythical "climate change."
This is the result of stopping smaller fires that are a natural part of the ecological cycle in these forested areas and allowing the biomass to build up to catastrophic proportions so that when a fire finally gets out of control it has so much fuel to burn that there is no stopping it.
Lawrence Davis: That's not entirely [true] Joe. You're right, forest fires are natural processes that have existed for hundreds, if not thousands of years, but not like this. By this, I mean, where the fire range HAS LITERALLY EXPANDED over the past 10 years. By this, I mean fire seasons starting in the spring rather than the summer or early fall. By this, I mean forest fires in northern Alaska, a place whose yearlong tundra is supposed to keep the area cool and damp during the warmish summer season instead of dry and hot. Combine that with the fact that the Ar[c]tic Circle is struggling to produce and hold onto ice, you can see this IS something different, something that has not been seen or recorded in human history.
Use Your Ashtray!
Postcard 1961: "Ye Olde Manning Park Gallows"
Given the current fire situation in CA & BC, it seemed appropriate to resurrect this previously posted photo.
Comments & Stats on BC Wildfires
In the '60s, this sign and 'gallows' lined the Hope-[to]-Princeton Highway on the way to Manning Park. Perhaps the idea seemed too extreme with time; but given how many people habitually, thought/lessly and seemingly care/lessly toss their cigarettes out their window despite all kinds of media warnings, perhaps it's time we revive such drastic reminders!
It's already summer in BC, folks, so if you smoke & you're in the habit of tossing your cigarettes out your car window in wetter seasons, consider the damage you could do to our beautiful wilderness recreational parks and timber resources (let alone endangering communities and homes, and taxing firefighting resources for all the forest fires already caused by lightning strikes)--all, potentially, if you don't use your ashtray!!!
Human caused wildfires in B.C. can cost tax payers upwards of $57 Million a year. Think of what that money could do for our province!!!
Please, think TWICE & ALWAYS use your ashtray. Thanks!
(End of 'sermon'!)
______________________________________
July 10, 2015
UPDATE on the BC Wildfires situation,
so far costing BC $100,00 this year:
2004-2013: 39%--or nearly 4 out of 10--of BC’s wildfires
were caused by an average of 712 humans per year.
Those human-caused wildfires between cost BC taxpayers $56,745,000/year.
Average hectares affected 2004 - 2013: 115,464.
Over 3x that affected in 2014 alone: 369,169.
So far, up to July 6, 2015, total hectares: 220,364.
- based on bcwildfire.ca/history/average.htm stats
Wildfires can revitalize forests, but how much becomes counterproductive?
Human-caused wildfires not only cost us millions each year, but also divert critical wildfire fighting efforts from massive lightning-strike blazes.
Human-caused wildfires destroy economy-based natural resources, homes, and can even take fire-fighters’ lives, and likely by the end of this fire season and since 2004 will have cost around $6 BILLION dollars! (Taxpayer money that could be better spent on social programs, etc.)
Cigarette butt pollutants also filter into our soil, waters, and fish (e.g.),
www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/science-matters/2013/08/-lets-g...
And yet, people continue to toss cigarettes on the ground.
Time to make it a fine-able criminal offence, I say, which it is if proven it led to a wildfire, but not otherwise.
BC's forestry minister "Thomson said that a range of penalties exists for people found to have started wildfires. That includes fires started by tossed cigarette butts, he said.
"He acknowledged that it can be a “challenge” to determine who was responsible for a fire."
- www.theprovince.com/news/drivers+urged+discard+cigarettes...
And this, in an email from the Premier's office:
"failure to abide by the Wildfire Act, including open burning restrictions, can result in a $345 fine, an administrative penalty of $10,000 or, if convicted in court, a fine of up to $100,000 and/or one year in jail.
"We invite you to please visit the following link: news.gov.bc.ca/stories/province-on-high-alert-with-increa... -- providing you with more up-to-date information on wildfires in B.C."
This costly, dangerous habit of tossing cigarette butts on the ground and out of vehicles needs to be stomped out. 712 people each year need to change their thought-less, care-less actions.
USE YOUR ASHTRAY!!!
And as Surrey's fire media person said today, "If you don't have one, put one in your car and make sure it is deep so that ashes don't fly out the window."
See also: Len Matthews / Flickr: how to start a fire:
www.flickr.com/photos/67953162@N00/6871483223/
_________________
July 11, 2015 UPDATE
A good summary on NPR as well as debate about the role of climate change in the comments:
www.npr.org/2015/07/11/421995880/wildfires-in-canada-and-...
E.g.,
Joe The Pimpernel:
This isn't your mythical "climate change."
This is the result of stopping smaller fires that are a natural part of the ecological cycle in these forested areas and allowing the biomass to build up to catastrophic proportions so that when a fire finally gets out of control it has so much fuel to burn that there is no stopping it.
Lawrence Davis: That's not entirely [true] Joe. You're right, forest fires are natural processes that have existed for hundreds, if not thousands of years, but not like this. By this, I mean, where the fire range HAS LITERALLY EXPANDED over the past 10 years. By this, I mean fire seasons starting in the spring rather than the summer or early fall. By this, I mean forest fires in northern Alaska, a place whose yearlong tundra is supposed to keep the area cool and damp during the warmish summer season instead of dry and hot. Combine that with the fact that the Ar[c]tic Circle is struggling to produce and hold onto ice, you can see this IS something different, something that has not been seen or recorded in human history.