The wildfires that ravaged Canada’s boreal forests in 2023 produced more planet-warming carbon emissions than the burning of fossil fuels in all but three countries, research published on Wednesday has found.
Only China, the United States and India produced more emissions from fossil fuels than the Canadian fires, according to the study, which was published in the journal Nature.
The wildfires last year call into question how much carbon the forests will absorb in the future, scientists said. That, in turn, may make it necessary to reconsider calculations of how much more greenhouse gas humans can add to the atmosphere without pushing temperatures beyond current global targets.
It’s ridiculous that only a few hundred people protest and work to protect old growth forest with information like this at hand. If you’ve ever been in an old growth stand you’re almost guaranteed to see whole sections of thousand year old trees with burn scars on their trunks from several hundred years ago, several dozen years ago, etc. They were so stout they didn’t burn when the understory did.
You can’t replace that as a “carbon storage” strategy or for any other reason unless everyone agrees to leave a given piece of land be for a thousand years or more. Given the way things are right now it seems like that’ll never fuckin happen again. Ever.
What’s it going to take?
Technically most of the fires in Canada happen up in the north where it’s dense spruce and pine conifer stands which don’t turn into your typical “old growth” type forest that you picture from the movies. Stands that are hundreds of years old will burn almost just as easily as a decades old stand. Forest fires are a natural part of their life cycle.
The typical “old growth” forests that are fairly fire resistant are found in the coastal rainforests which don’t typically see much fires as it’s pretty rare in the damp and humid environment.