Will climate change lead to an island population explosion?
I grew up in Salmon Arm, and my parents have an acreage there. They paid $75,000 for 160 acres in the early 90s, which created a powerful price anchoring effect but that’s another story. My parents chose the Okanagan because the gentle rolling hills reminded them of Bavaria where they had immigrated from. Though the winters were harsh (or at least used to be), the summers were positively lovely, with plenty of crystal clear lakes, proximity to mountains, and beautiful weather, combined with top notch wineries and an abundance of fruit of all kinds. In many ways the Okanagan is as nice or nicer than Victoria, and that hasn’t gone unnoticed with plenty of vacation properties and thousands of Albertans that come every summer.
Growing up we really didn’t experience any fires. Summer skies were a deep blue never marred by smoke, and despite common lightning storms fires were small and easily controlled. That changed in 1998, when the Mount Ida fire was perilously close to town and we were placed on 15 minute evacuation alert, spending a stressful few days clearing brush at top speed around the house, planning evacuation routes, and having ash raining from the sky, covering everything in grey. That fire was listed as a major BC historical wildfire, burning 6000 hectares and 40 buildings, but it was one of only 2 in the 90s worth mentioning.
At the time it was an isolated incident. Harrowing, but seen as a freak event that wouldn’t reoccur anytime soon. “Shoulda logged it before it burnt” my logger friend joked. But it wasn’t an isolated incident. A few years later the Kelowna fires burned 25,600 hectares and destroyed 238 homes. In the last decade we’ve had a catastrophic fire season nearly every other year.
This year’s fire season has been particularly destructive and may be on pace for another record as well as destroying the entire town of Lytton and many other homes around the interior. The increase in fire severity is not solely due to climate change of course, with our misguided forest management also sharing the blame. The combination of causes aside, it’s not a situation that will likely change for the foreseeable future. For those lucky enough to not be near those fires, the secondary effect has been the smoke. Endless choking smoke.
My parents still live on that property in Salmon Arm. It’s tough to manage the property for them as they get older, and the winters are long and trying. Up until recently though, the reward was the idyllic summers filled with gardening, cycling, and lots of time relaxing on the lake. That made the whole thing worthwhile. But now many summers consist of weeks of smoky grey skies, air quality scores off the scale, and advice to stay indoors and not exercise. Attached to the house just like in the winter.
All those wineries, lakes and scenery just aren’t as nice when you can’t see them and the air is making it hard to breathe. Insurance is another concern. You can’t get a new policy if your house is close to a wildfire, and with more property being destroyed and more insurance losses, expect rates to climb, and some areas to become effectively uninsurable in the future.
Source: Ryan_PVP on Reddit.
We aren’t immune to smoke on the island of course. Just last fall we had a week of terrible wildfire smoke and we’ll likely start seeing more fires on the island in the coming years as droughts increase in frequency. But the sea breezes and lack of smoke-trapping valleys means those episodes will remain substantially less frequent. It all potentially adds up to a game changer in what areas will be in demand in the future.
I won’t pretend to predict the impacts of climate change on the pleasantness of each region’s environment. The media loves to describe the current situation as a “new normal” but of course there can be no such thing as a new normal while the temperature keeps increasing. Every year will reflect the increased energy in the system and become less predictable with more extreme weather events for at least the next few decades. However there is some evidence suggesting that the impact on coastal regions may be less than in the interior, nevermind that increasing temperatures are more manageable when it’s cooler to start with.
Population growth rate on the island has varied substantially over past decades. Our current 5 year growth rate is 1.5% which is near the high point for the past 20 years. However back in the late 80s and early 90s, growth was substantially faster, near 3% per year. Even in terms of absolute numbers, BC Stats estimates show that the biggest absolute gains in population came in the early 90s.
Given the uptick in out of town buyer activity, we can be pretty confident that 2021 will show a larger increase, and I suspect we may be in for faster growth moving forward. Without substantial zoning reforms to allow infill, it’s going to get increasingly difficult to grow the population of Victoria in a few years, but the rest of the island faces no medium term limits to growth. With an island the size of Belgium, there are no geographical limits to growth anytime soon.
Does this mean prices are going to the moon?
Not necessarily. Even with increased demand, people still need the income or the wealth to buy the homes. Just because someone no longer wants to live in the interior doesn’t mean they can afford our even higher prices, and that becomes especially true if their prices started dropping in relation to ours. We’ve seen recently that despite continued red hot market conditions that should lead to rapidly rising prices, single family home prices have hit some kind of resistance from strained affordability. Anything reasonable is still being snatched up immediately but it hasn’t been driving up prices in the last few months.
That said, more demand if it does materialize means that there are more potential buyers, and with a relatively fixed stock of single family homes, it could keep inventory from increasing much and prevent what could have been a pullback like we’ve seen in previous cycles. Potentially the bigger impact could be up island. The coast from Ladysmith to Campbell River is unparalleled and most of it is hardly developed. With Nanaimo’s direct connection to Vancouver I expect a lot of growth there as well as Parksville / Qualicum and north.
Isn’t all this just conjecture?
More or less. However I’m writing it because it’s been personally shocking to see the transformation of the interior I grew up in, and I’m beginning to hear more and more anecdotes about people moving away. Anecdotes are not data though, and if this is going to turn into a real trend, then we should start seeing it in the market data at some point. So far no sign of weakness in the interior, with the Okanagan experiencing an extremely active market just like here. Something to watch.
What is increasingly clear is that climate change is another variable in the housing market, making the whole thing even harder to predict. With climate impacts increasingly moving from theories to observable reality, expect the impacts to show up everywhere, and real estate will not be an exception.
Also weekly numbers courtesy of the VREB.
| August 2021 |
Aug
2020
|
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wk 1 | Wk 2 | Wk 3 | Wk 4 | ||
| Sales | 164 | 354 | 979 | ||
| New Listings | 243 | 448 | 1333 | ||
| Active Listings | 1311 | 1289 | 2584 | ||
| Sales to New Listings | 67% | 79% | 73% | ||
| Sales YoY Change | -21% | -21% | |||
| Months of Inventory | 2.6 | ||||
Much the same in the market last week as before, with a small uptick in new listings getting us a bit closer to the normal rate of new listings, but not enough to stop the dwindling inventory numbers. As mentioned, I’ve heard there’s quite a few queued up for September but we’ll have to see whether that is enough to dig us out of our inventory hole.
Prices are roughly unchanged from July, with the median single family house going for 33% over assessed value month to date while the median condo traded hands for 18% over. On the high end, sales over $2M were down year over year for the first time since last May, however that drop still put us at three times the rate in 2018 and 2019. With few sales in that category it will take some more months to see if there’s actually a drop in demand there.
Pandemic, global warming, wildfires, Trump’s not President, now moon wobble, what else can go wrong?
On the other side of the coin, apparently the moon is going to “wobble” in the mid 2030s and cause mass flooding of coastal cities. I wonder if this will have an adverse affect on population as the time gets nearer.
Do you even understand how fighting a forest fire works?
In a forest fire may have “out of control” fronts that even initial attack fire fighters stay out of it way. Initial attack cut fire breaks and try to stop the fires from jumping over the fire breaks, or start a fire to try to burn it out, and they also try to keep infrastructures from catching on fire. The bulk of the fighting is the moping up/second wave where volunteers and fire fighters take out smouldering hot spots. And, even if you have an out of control fire front, the back end have to be cool down to stop it from reignite and start a new fire at the rear from change of wind direction.
If people bought only local goods we wouldn’t have an Amazon warehouse.
Flip side is people complain about their internet/tv package being $150/month and the their cellphone plan $120/month.
I guess you missed the bit about “out of control”. Last place they would send volunteers.
Perhaps, things has changed over the years, but back in the 80s/90s. Forest services do not send out untrained volunteers to initial attack, but they do send volunteers out as secondary/mop up crew.
Often the Wildfire Service professional firefighting crews aren’t too crazy about having a bunch of untrained volunteers running around, particularly when a fire is spreading quickly.
I was helping out on a fire earlier this month when one was sparked near where I was staying. The local volunteers in this case were a hardy bunch well equipped with fire pumps and hand tools, so way above the level of an average volunteer.
The Wildfire Service guys appreciated the local efforts and we did make some difference to the fire, but they had to actively discourage volunteers from some more risky activities and eventually they issued a plea for NO more volunteers to show up
And, what odd is that we can’t find people to volunteers to fight a forest fire that over night went from 50 acres to 173 acres, but have there are plenty when it come to blocking logging roads.
https://tinyurl.com/cs3yynwu — Wildfire burning near Ladysmith, B.C. grows to 70 hectares overnight
https://tinyurl.com/asrncjc8 — Almost 700 arrests since injunction enforced in May, as RCMP continue to dismantle blockades near Port Renfrew
They also sell cheap shitty knock-offs masquerading as the real thing.
I will absolutely never buy electronics, especially any kind of battery or charger from Amazon.
https://househuntvictoria.ca/2021/08/16/will-climate-change-lead-to-an-island-population-explosion/#comment-81757
There is an out of control fire north of Ladysmith today, look at the amount of available tinder on the island, no one is safe from smoke, it only takes a change in the wind.
You shouldn’t be sad.
Amazon also sells Victoria and Canadian made goods, in Canada and around the world. There are thousands of Canadian small and medium businesses selling Canadian products through Amazon around the world. You can read about some Victoria and Canada Amazon success stories here. https://press.aboutamazon.com/static-files/9b3cac17-bd2a-4387-8129-b9930fcff077
In addition their deliveries provide essential services during the pandemic, sourcing and delivering needed food and supplies. I bet you know that, because like the rest of us, you used Amazon during the pandemic… correct?
this whole thing is kinda sad in that we are celebrating the arrival of an Amazon warehouse in town. a distribution centre for foreign made consumer goods. i guess employment is good, but i suspect the new hires will not be paid well enough to be the kind joining the home buying market in Victoria and enjoying the good life.
i can’t recall the last announcement of a private venture that created any sizeable wealth, added value, and provide good paying skilled employment. where the employees could actually envision making a go of it in our expensive little city.
Telus maybe?
A short diversion to play with some Island math:
Suppose you wish to go to Regina to experience the views and cuisine. A round trip ticket from Vancouver is $153. A round trip ticket from Victoria is $605. I make the difference $452.
Make the same comparison for a flight to the UK and the difference is $82.
Anyone? Bueller?
” “A solar system is anticipated to power 15 to 20 per cent of the building. The project was limited by B.C. Hydro rules governing how much solar is permitted, Woolsey said.” ”
I’m not sure that’s strictly true- you can put in as much solar as you want, you just can’t feed it back into the grid and expect BC Hydro to pay retail prices for it. If BC Hydro was forced to pay high prices for electricity at a time they didn’t need it, it would be a terrible subsidy from a public utility to one of the world’s biggest companies.
No one is forced to join the BC Hydro grid.
A good friend of mine moved to Kelowna last year to retire. Last weekend he posted that they had bags packed ready to evacuate. I considered the possibility of moving there instead of the Island, given the recurring fires and smoke, I’ve basically ruled that out. I’m sure lots of people find themselves thinking the same way. I can’t tolerate smoke for any length of time, and I have no underlying respiratory problems. Breathing that air for months would definitely impact your health negatively.
Time to tear this up…
From: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/affordable-housing-2021-election-1.6145799
Lot’s of that great innovative thought like taxing things into making them cheaper with a blend of xenophobia and jingoism that has worked so well so far…lol..
Yes. It seems any exceptional idea must be watered down by local residents to something mediocre to get approved.
For example, Amazon is obviously blazing new ground, and wanted to build a 500k sq foot warehouse in Victoria , and have it solar powered, and have “solar powered” electric vehicles delivering.Wow!
And so we need to have the residents of the 100 homes near the airport complain, and convince the developer to shelve that “exceptional” idea, and water it down to 1/4 of the size, and BC Hydro tell them that no more than 20% of the plant can be solar powered. These are people whose “exceptional” idea in life has been to buy a home near the airport and then fight for it to be kept quiet and traffic free.
Thomas Edison popularized electricity (DC) for the masses, by putting up an outrageous number of overhead electricity cables across New York City streets. Same for Tesla (Westinghouse) and their competing electric towers and power lines. Outrageous and out of scale ideas that have transformed our world for the better. Fortunately they didn’t require our current govt processes to approve all that, or we still might be using kerosene lighting.
Shame on our govt. Hopefully Amazon will find friendlier places to put its state of the art facilities.
Today we treasure those buildings, but if someone proposed something similarly ambitious today they would face fierce opposition. It’s out of scale, it will cast too much shade, Victoria is not Europe, etc. Just look at the opposition to modern landmark buildings.
I wasn’t. I was complaining about those who would put them on a par with the Empress or the Legislature.
It was always going to be that way though?
It’s going to go in cycles, as trees are growing it will be pulling in carbon.
As it burns/decomposes it will do the opposite.
If it burns slower and cooler, you’ll get more charcoal that will stay in the soil for thousands of years, if it burns faster and hotter you get more ash.
We’ve opted for the latter.
The difference for me with buying a (possibly) depreciating asset like a house or car/boat/RV is that this is my first asset debt. Outside of student loans we’ve bought our few vehicles with cash and we don’t finance anything. So owing something outright that is depreciating doesn’t carry the same feel as owning something that you owe x amount on, that could go done in value further than your equity stake.
I know I know, buy to live in it etc. and that’s what we did but if I owe more than it’s worth if I had to sell today that’s going to be a pretty eerie feeling until we’ve paid enough of it down to avoid crossing that line. And because we’re high ratio borrowers it’ll be about of time to build up that equity.
Great to hear theres garden waste drop off in Colwood I wasn’t sure.
patriotz is not talking about the Langford Costco. I recall him saying that he doesn’t live in Victoria.
Isn’t that the new Langford High School going in behind the Costco? I believe the Amazon warehouse is being built out in Luxton.
Too bad. For residential installations you are allowed to produce up to 100% of your usage for the year (you overproduce in the summer and feed it into the grid and draw from the grid in the winter)
If you’re shopping at Costco, you’re hardly in a position to complain about big warehouses.
Yes, like the solar power plans. Apparently the warehouse developer planned more solar power for the Amazon warehouse, but this too was “limited by B.C. Hydro rules governing how much solar is permitted.”
https://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/height-of-distribution-centre-on-airport-land-scaled-back-1.24328781
“A solar system is anticipated to power 15 to 20 per cent of the building. The project was limited by B.C. Hydro rules governing how much solar is permitted, Woolsey said.”
And we think that we having it hard.
When the average salary of a person in HCMC is $4365 CAD a year and their housing is $2495/sqf CAD if they want a row/tube house that face the street instead of some dark alley.
https://tinyurl.com/354j23yv
No city garbage in Colwood, but the CRD does recycling so that is freely available.
One nice thing Colwood offers is free dropoff of garden waste almost every Saturday.
Like it’s going to be increasingly hard to get minimum wage workers in metro Vic?
There is an Amazon warehouse nearing completion behind the Costco where I shop. It is an absolute monstrosity. However it does fit in to the immediate hood, which is an expanse of car dealerships and minimalls near a freeway interchange.
Say what you like about the NIMBYs, but to draw a comparison with Victoria’s heritage buildings is an insult to Rattenbury and all the others who created them.
What’s odd is that the developer cared. My understanding is that the airport authority has no obligation to care about the views of nearby residents.
Maybe it was downsized for other reasons.
Yeah, demand has been amazingly resilient, we are well beyond the length of any superheated market in our history. If you bought for market value you’re very likely fine. I think some people way overpaid and could be in trouble if the market doesn’t catch up their sale, but otherwise there are still more signs pointing up than down.
Or when prices go down 40%, like I did. Never going to happen again, of course.
I dunno, seems like you both have a point. +- the forests is not why we are at 420ppm, but it sure as hell doesn’t help to have them contributing to the problem instead of mitigating it.
From the article…
“Some of the concerns heard by developer York Realty from nearby residents was that the building was too large, and that there would be increased traffic concerns. In June, the project was scaled down from the initial 500,000-square-foot pitch to 115,000 square feet, and its overall height was slightly reduced.”
So the NIMBY residents who live near the airport complained that the Amazon warehouse as planned was too big, and so they chopped it down from 500k square feet to 115k, and now it just a last mile sorting for delivery instead of storing products on site for fast Amazon delivery to Victoria and beyond. Likely the jobs have been chopped down too, proportionately from 500 to 115. Well done NIMBYS.
Imagine if these NIMBYS were around when the Legislature or the Empress hotel were built. We could have scaled them down to non-descript one story ranchers.
One nice thing is that after buying a house, the resale value is unknown. Whether they are right or not, most people assume they got a good deal on what they bought. So if prices drop 10%, they’ll assume they’re “flat”. And since they aren’t selling, it really doesn’t matter.
Yep, you buy a house when you need a house. I have been making offers knowing that I would likely be taken in a hit when it comes off peak and the Covid anomaly. That’s why it comes down to a personal choice based one’s own circumstances. The short term folks (investors, flippers, and property ladder types) are the people that will likely feel the pain in the 1-5 years, whereas the long term purchaser 20 to 25 years can use time to find the balance of cost to life-style gain. It will be be something to see the onset of interest rate shock by some folks when the powers that be try to rangle down the excessive money supply and inflation.
The low inventory is the challenge, when something is family ready and has a few extra desirables, our entire cohort is still after it. My last offer was $135k over ask and of course no conditions, unfortunately, the winning offer was $170k over ask with no conditions..lol.
Glad you found a place that works for you and your family!
That’s because they expect it to. But everyone buying a house expects the resale price to go up, or at the least stay flat.
You are correct no city garbage/recycling service.
Most people goes with Alpine which is now GFL Environmental, however CCR and Sooke Disposal also service Colwood and Langford that perhaps a little cheaper and are local companies.
The 5% tax increase is cheaper than what Alpine/GFL is charging residents at the moment.
https://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/langford-mayor-in-conflict-slate-of-candidates-says-1.1549443
I wouldn’t sweat it because it is unlikely that you bought at peak, and even if you did in 5 years of enjoying the house your home equity would be greater than when you bought.
What I find odd is that people don’t sweat when they buy a car, boat, or RV that lose value the minute they drive it out of the lot, but worries when it come to a house that they spend more time using it than any toys that they bought.
If Amazon isn’t worry about investing in Victoria, then I wouldn’t be worry about buying a home for use in Victoria as well.
Amazon warehouse coming to Victoria International Airport lands
https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/amazon-warehouse-coming-to-victoria-international-airport-lands-1.5551979
Cad: I really doubt that you bought at peak and since you are doing long term just relax and enjoy the new house.
Caddy,
From the sounds of it, you made a great purchase and your timing was fine. I don’t think anyone is suggesting that Victoria prices have fallen at all.
Umm….really?
It would be just my luck to have bought at peak (June) and be down 50k before we even move in at the end of this month. We’re paying CMHC too so that’d put us in almost negative equity territory. Glad I bought a house to live in long term but it’s still terrifying and a risk we had to consider.
Though I’m still on PCS and watching similar and even a few less desirable homes (ie: 3189 Anders, 1 bathroom up, just went for 912k) sell for even more than we paid. Lowww inventory.
Sounds good. Yes, there are seasonal patterns and those lower sales in the summer in the expensive markets (Vancouver, Toronto) might have an effect of lowering average prices. It would be interesting to see how big that factor might be.
What’s with Colwood garbage is anybody out there that could steer me in the right direction? No city garbage pickup? How do you choose which private company to go with, do you get a deal if you go with whoever your neighbours picked?
Seems pretty ridiculous a city on nice and “green” Vancouver Island has garbage trucks from multiple companies picking up only 1/3 of the garbage on a street each on different days of the week. Are the garbage trucks EV’s?
Looks like pretty similar. 14%/65% for both. So fair enough not due to that for those two months even if it is a factor any given month.
The other factor is sales mix between expensive and cheap markets. Would take some more work to figure that one out. Maybe I’ll write an article on it as it is an interesting question.
My point here is that even though there are lots of sales (which normally would make the average more stable as you say), there is also more variability in the underlying sample. End result, we’ve seen month to month shifts in the Canadian average price in the past year of up to $59,076. All the same cautions apply when interpreting this value as the average price for say houses in Victoria.
Planning on it yes.
Leo, help us out.
Leo i can’t remember – do you normally do a run down on the parties housing policy before an election?
The relevant months are March 2021 ($717k) and July 2021 ($662k). What was the mix (condo/SFH) in those months?
Because burning trees and decomposing trees aren’t producing carbon.
There is meaningful variability in the ratio of apartments to detached sales in the national figures. Looking at sales since 2020, the ratio of apartments as a percentage of the total varies from a low of 10% to a high of 17%. The percentage of detached sales varies from a low of 62% to a high of 71%. That is definitely enough range to move the average prices from month to month due to changes in the mix.
Could be, but then we should also find regions where prices are clearly down. I don’t see it here. I haven’t seen any indication from Vancouver either. I’ve heard a few anecdotes about the outskirts of Toronto perhaps being down from peak?
How am I missing the forest for the trees?
Catching up on Victoria news while away, I noticed Trevor Hancock took up this subject in his Sunday column:
If we lose the carbon sinks, we are sunk
https://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/columnists/trevor-hancock-if-we-lose-the-carbon-sinks-we-are-sunk-1.24351066
Yes, for a small sample size like Victoria (600 sales per month). But CREA sales are 100x higher than that (60,000 sales per month). With Victoria a price change could just be noise from some outlier prices like you mentioned. But not for 60,000 sales.
I think Umm really is correct in that crea data shows that Canada home prices have started to fall,. And also Stateside, the USA “housing boom is over” (sales are falling and prices only up 6% YOY) https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/26/housing-boom-is-over-as-new-home-sales-fall-to-pandemic-low.html
Time will tell.
Yes, but any measure of all properties is especially vulnerable to it since $200k condos are mixed in with $2M houses. Usually with averages and medians they are just for one property type. In the national stats it’s a bit harder to pull the types out.
Doesn’t that same disclaimer (“could be just a change in the mix”) apply to all home sales price data, except benchmarks like provided by teranet and vreb that attempt to measure the same type of home? If so, it seems you’re saying that the only valid measurement as to whether prices have dropped would be one of these benchmarks, which I happen to agree with.
The CREA residential average is a mix of all property types. So a change in the mix (for example shift from houses to condos) would bring down the average. I’m not aware of any specific markets where prices have actually dropped.
Not to take away from the zealots on both sides on the climate debate. Some news from CREA today.
From: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/housing-realtor-canada-1.6142201
So, on average in Canada those that bought at peak are already down $50k. Let’s see if those rumors of pile listings coming in September to the Victoria market happen and if the market slows significantly here as well.
There are climate change skeptics walking among us… Here’s a video from local PPC candidate (Saanich-Gulf Islands) explaining “the truth” behind the so-called climate emergency https://fb.watch/7qGdoo_MTm/
Sure?
It’s still missing the forest for the trees.
Climate change is also changing how the insurance industry assesses risk in Canada
https://docdro.id/d0b5SX4
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canadian-insurers-are-updating-risk-models-as-climate-change-driving/?ref=premium
While forests aren’t responsible for 420 ppm, they’re now adding to the problem on a net basis, and they didn’t used to do that.
Where do you think the carbon came from in the first place?
It’s all nonsense anyway. CO2 at 420 ppm isn’t on account of forest fires, or dying trees.
A 25 year old maple will sequester 400 pounds of co2 in that time span. It can’t emit more than that in a forest fire, or by dying and decomposing. An average commuter car will emit that in 2 weeks. That’s what we need to worry about.
Not quite.
https://thenarwhal.ca/canadas-forests-havent-absorbed-more-carbon-than-theyve-released-since-2001/
Right on James. And this is the theme of that excellent TedX talk as well. That forestologist points to a “century of fire suppression” as the main reason we are seeing such huge fires now, especially seen in years with dry and hot weather. More prescribed burning seems like the answer.
Correlation is not causation.
Just because it runs parallel, doesn’t make it so.
In places where they’ve actually let natural fires take their course they don’t have the same issues. Yosemite’s Illilouette Creek Basin changed their policy nearly 50 years ago in 1972. Even through this period, the fires have actually become less intense, and the vegetation actually has better access to water during drought periods despite it actually getting drier over that time.
As soon as you blame this all on climate change, you take a locally solvable problem and make it not solvable locally.
Salmon numbers have also decreased markedly since the mid-1980s to our current day, running in parallel to an increase in global temperature that has raised steadily every year. Of course because of people like Alexandra Morton we know that Salmon farms/hydro dams/over fishing all play a much bigger part than climate change. No one pushes for better forest management practices because “this is climate change”.
That number should be so much smaller because we should be lighting more fires in the wet season to try to clear out a lot of the under brush that we’ve let grow through decades of fire suppression.
Again, we live in a fire ecology. The trees here depend on it. The intensity of the fires is what isn’t normal. The fires themselves are.
Yep I added a note to the article with a link to the video, thanks.
Another way to look at it is population explosion that lead to climate change.
World population was around 0.77 billion at the on start of the industrial age, year 1760.
And, the doubling of population (1.6 billion) lead to resources demand which triggered World War I, 150 years after the beginning of the industrial age.
100 year after WWI we are now closing on 8 billion people that lead to resource war and conflicts all over the world, and we are now facing water scarcity in many developed countries beyond commodities.
The moral to this is that it is not climate change that people move, but more to the liking that people used up the surrounding resources so they are forced to move to greener pastures.
totoro, you should watch the 20 minute TEDxBend video I posted. Climate change is most certainly a huge factor! But spend a minute understanding the forest management practices before refuting things. You will genuinely learn something new.
Just click on the link for a refutation of the assertion that wildfires are primarily caused by poor forest practices.
In BC 60% of forest fires are caused by lightening strikes.
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/wildfire-status/about-bcws/wildfire-response/fire-characteristics/causes
Population growth contributes to wildfire scale indirectly through increased climate change, and directly through an increase in “ignition events” but, “ignition events don’t have a major effect on the scale of the fire… what does affect scale are prevailing climate conditions.
https://www.dw.com/en/how-climate-change-is-increasing-forest-fires-around-the-world/a-19465490
Totoro, the article you quoted just says fires increased at a time where temperatures increased. That’s not causation. US Forestry service says 85% of fires are caused by humans, and the human population has gone way up since the 1980s. Maybe that’s the biggest cause.
https://www.nps.gov/articles/wildfire-causes-and-evaluation.htm
“Nearly 85 percent of wildland fires in the United States are caused by humans. Human-caused fires result from campfires left unattended, the burning of debris, equipment use and malfunctions, negligently discarded cigarettes, and intentional acts of arson.”
Climate change is the biggest factor in the increased duration and severity of forest fires in North America. I don’t see how that lets anyone off the hook.
https://climatefeedback.org/claimreview/climate-change-forest-management-and-several-other-causes-contribute-to-wildfire-severity-and-total-area-burned-in-the-western-united-states/
There is no doubt that climate change is exacerbating wildfires. It’s not just here, it’s all around the world.
Great video. Note he specifically calls out climate change in addition to our forest management practices. No doubt several things are contributing, but that doesn’t change the reality on the ground for the forseeable future. Most definitely BC needs to stop spraying to kill all the non-commercially viable trees. Seems like a no brainer.
All that is, is stored carbon returning to the atmosphere. New trees will grow to take their place, and sequester that carbon right back.
I think attributing this all to climate change is bullshit, because it just lets the people doing the damage off the hook.
The intensity fires here have 2 major causes.
1. Forest industry practices. They continue to plant mono culture pine stands and spray glycosphate to prevent aspens from growing. Aspen groves are natural fire breaks.
2. Fire suppression. Because of fire suppression, forests end up denser and thicker, which not only makes fires hotter and larger, it also makes everything drier, since more trees end up taking up more of the prevailing rainfall.
Fire is a natural part of this environment, trees in the pacific northwest are built for fire. It’s a fire ecology.
Worst 5 of biggest 20 Canadian cities for air quality today are all on the Prairies.
Calgary is worst at 8/10 (higher is worse). Then Regina, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton
https://weather.gc.ca/airquality/pages/index_e.html
Victoria is 1/10 (best possible air quality)
Lots of smaller regions in BC are worse, like North Okanagon 10+, Cranbrook 10+, Kamloops 10+ https://weather.gc.ca/airquality/pages/provincial_summary/bc_e.html
Worst 5 of biggest 20 Canadian cities for air quality today are all on the Prairies.
I expect that the demand for air purifiers and air conditioning will continue to ramp up. That is my stock tip of the day fwiw. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/23/california-climate-crisis-wildfires-smoke-heat-health
This post seems to make the implicit assumption that mega-wildfires are a direct result of climate change. It’s not that cut and dry. While climate change exacerbates conditions leading to fires, it’s much more likely that forest management practices of the past 70 years are a more direct cause of mega-wildfires.
Worth watching this excellent TED talk to get a handle on North America’s wildfire problem: https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_hessburg_why_wildfires_have_gotten_worse_and_what_we_can_do_about_it?language=en
We had two days of fresh air and blue sky just after arriving in Calgary, but have had to stay indoors ever since due to poor air quality. Our family here reports that it’s been smoky nearly every day this summer. The Rocky Mountains are invisible. Like Leo’s folks in Salmon Arm, Calgarians find themselves attached to the house this summer, just like in the winter.
B.C.’s vicious wildfires (experienced 3 of the last 5 years) are partially a product of climate change but they are also contributing immensely to it: CO2 emissions from the 2017 wildfires (comparable to this year’s) were nearly 3 times B.C.’s annual carbon footprint.
If that knowledge doesn’t shake you up a little bit, nothing will.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/it-s-alarming-wildfire-emissions-grow-to-triple-b-c-s-annual-carbon-footprint-1.4259306
I agree with you Leo. I am not sure if the population will decline in the interior overall, but I do believe that more people will choose to relocate to the Island if they can and the only affordable spots left are north of Victoria.
I think there is a tipping point on this decision. For us it came last year after a number of summers impacted by smoke. If you have a vacation home there you will probably be reconsidering about right now. If you live there permanently then the decision is more difficult and relocation may not be an option, but those with health issues like asthma or ties to family on the island may already be planning for this move.
As for climate change, I’m no expert but we have continued to buy on the island with a view to future generations. Yes, the earthquake risk is real, but I guess it is just easier to live with.
Thanks Introvert. Good article in the CBC. We considered elevation when we bought but mostly to assess tsunami risk.
Crazy times
Fantastic post, Leo.
This CBC article I came across this morning is right on-topic:
Climate risk scores could reshape Canadian real estate markets, some experts say
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/climate-risk-real-estate-1.6139206