Wildfires are Tipping us Ever Closer to the Edge

As I write there are over 2000 current wildfires in Canada. This is on top of those in Hawaii, the USA, the Amazon, Greece, Australia and many other countries. It will take 50 years for the Canadian forest to start to recover. There will be more fires next year. Every fire adds to the CO₂ (Carbon Dioxide) in the atmosphere. It is a self accelerating process. We are getting quite close to runaway global warming. If that happens, humanity at least is finished, rain forests will be completely gone, it has to rain or life cannot persist as we know it. It is estimated that the 2022 wildfires in Australia added 1% more CO₂ to the total concentration in our atmosphere.

Year on year, starting NOW, not 2030 or 2050, the world has to increase its forest cover and quickly. I think a minimum target should be 5% per year. Young growing native canopy absorbs CO₂ and it grows faster in the tropics. We will lose more forest to wildfires in future years. This must be reduced and planting and rehabilitation must increase.

When will our governments realise how important this is? Our current economic system concentrates wealth in the hands of a few individuals. Those individuals hold the fate of the planet in their hands. As long as economic growth is measured purely in monetary terms we have a problem:

Essentially; Growth in £££s = CO₂

We need a new system.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66551480

Will the Anthropocene be the shortest Era in the history of our world? If we do not act very quickly indeed, it certainly will be.