Renowned environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg has injected a dose of reality into the heated climate debate, countering one of its most pervasive narratives.
The Danish author and academic Lomborg published a wildfire analysis in The Wall Street Journal, also featured in The New York Post, which revealed a significant disparity between the alarmist rhetoric surrounding global warming and the empirical data concerning fire incidents across the world.
For over twenty years, satellite data from the Global Wildfire Information System has documented fires occurring on the Earth’s surface. Contrary to the alarming claims, these records reveal a consistent decline in the extent of burned areas since the early 2000s.
“In the early 2000s, 3% of the world’s land area burned each year. Last year, fire burned 2.2% of the world’s land area, a new record low,” Lomborg stated.
“Yet you would struggle to find that reported anywhere.”
Competing narratives
Lomborg further points out the disparity between this data and the narratives perpetuated by certain media outlets and political figures.
Wildfires across the globe have deceased over the past twenty years, but reporting on climate change increased by 400% between 2010 and 2022.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has claimed that this year’s record high number of wildfires are enough evidence to justify his climate policies, but it’s unclear this is actually true according to national data.
But fire management strategies don’t require sweeping climate policies, according to Lomberg.
Rather, Lomberg said that measures like prescribed burning, improved land zoning, and enhanced land management offer faster and cheaper means of tackling the issue.
On social media this week, he said that climate-related disasters have decreased by 98% over the last century.
Smith standing up to the Climate Cult
Last week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith criticized Canada’s Climate Change Minister for displaying “appalling” double standards by pointing out his contrasting treatment of China compared to his own country.
