Canada wildfires

 From Open Mind

Generally, I’ve stopped reacting to climate deniers’ idiotic claims, like the garbage firehose that is the “WattsUpWithThat” blog. Truly, I have better things to do. But this one is so ridiculous, it’s hard to pass up.

Here’s the theme: P. Gosselin claims that all the talk about the severity of Canada’s wildfire this year is hype. He titles his post “Canada Forest Fires Trend Has Gone Down Since 2000, Data Defy Alarmist Claims.” He supports his claim by showing this graph (of the NUMBER of wildfires in Canada each year since 2000):

It’s actually a common tactic of climate deniers, to make a false claim (i.e. tell a lie) and support it with a graph which doesn’t really address the point. Here’s the graph that does address the point (from the same data source), the AREA burned in Canada each year since 2000:

It seems that this year Canada hasn’t had many more fires than previously, but the ones it has had …

So … why do I bother to mention this? Because this is where republican politicians get their scientific beliefs.

Climate denial: the republican party way.