475 Fires, 1.5 Million Acres Burned By Mid-May & Alberta Politicians Dare Not Say "Global Warming"
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“Climate change is not something that works particularly well as a priority election issue,” said Lori Williams, an associate professor of policy studies at Calgary’s Mount Royal University. “The top two issues in Alberta are affordability and health care. And leadership after that.” Both of Alberta’s main political parties claim they balance economic and environmental policies. “It is just always a delicate balance to talk about energy and the environment,” she said.
“As much as the wildfires are a huge problem for some people in Alberta,” Williams said, “the solution to that problem is not in long-term climate policy, it is disaster management, emergency response and leadership.” Keith Stewart of Greenpeace Canada wonders how balanced this “delicate balance” is when residents across the province couldn’t safely breathe the air earlier this week due to wildfire smoke.
So far this wildfire season, there have been 475 fires with over 615,000 hectares burned. About 16,000 people have been forced to flee, including the residents of entire towns in northern Alberta. Dozens of homes and businesses have been razed, many in Indigenous or Métis settlements. Provincial disaster authorities say, as of Tuesday, there were 89 active fires, 28 of those were out of control.
“You can’t separate the environment and the economy, in a world facing a climate crisis,” Stewart said, noting the 2016 Fort McMurray fire cost an estimated $10 billion. The Insurance Bureau of Canada said it was the most expensive insured natural disaster in Canadian history.
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https://thetyee.ca/News/2023/05/18/Alberta-Politicians-Climate-Change/
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