Okay, this is what actual journalists are supposed to do: http://www.cbc.ca/player/radio#Radio1
I picked the Edmonton live-stream channel. Amazing job on the part of CBC journalists.
Image:
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- File:Landscape view of wildfire near Highway 63 in south Fort McMurray.jpg
Fort McMurray is a city of 88,000 people and it looks like at least 50,000 are now homeless. The devastation is profound and the disruption to Alberta’s and Canada’s economy is going to be incredible. These are, for the most part, young families who moved here to take advantage of the oil boom (15 years of prosperity, unprecedented in the province’s history) and they probably won’t be coming back unless the industry picks up again.
What’s REALLY disappointing is the opportunism of environmentalists, around the world, saying that Fort McMurray got what was coming to them for the original sin of working in the oil sands, and hence somehow being incriminated for global warming. I saw a Facebook post where one of their ilk noted the predominance of pickup trucks over Priuses in the exodus. Um, this is Alberta, where hybrids don’t exactly hack it over 6 months of arctic winter. Unbelievable.
@ vinny: That simply defies belief! Do these chuckleheads not grasp the sheer distance between towns in Canada and Alaska? The place is VAST. How long does a charge on a Prius battery last? Not long enough to get from point A to point B, I’ll bet.
A lot of people fleeing Ft. MacMurray ran out of gas on the highway, if you believe the reports. Apparently it wasn’t easy to get gas, since station owners would have been on the road, too. But a pickup’s gas tank holds a lot…even half a tank would get you a fair piece….maybe further than a Prius could go on a charge — especially on short notice, when the charge might be halfway run-down.
And imagine what a Prius battery would do at, oh, say, 40 below. 😀 No need to imagine, actually: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2014/01/auto_batteries_and_cold_weathe.html
I suppose you could get out your bike and bicycle to work…that would be even more politically correct.
Yah, if your house burned down it would be kinda convenient if you were out of a job, too: the insurance proceeds might be more than you could have sold the house for, and you could then move someplace that still had work.