Review of penalties and implementing stiffer consequences for human carelessness is an excellent plan.

Can’t justify the amount of fires this year compared to last year because we had unusual early and HOT weather this year and we’ve had more lightening storms this year too..

or, they could, you know, properly enforce current rules…”fines up to $2000 for littering.” If that isn’t stopping someone from flicking a butt, increasing the threat wont. Some actual enforcement, and some $2000 fines, sure would.

Smoke screen/distraction from terrible LNG deal btw.

Agreed Stillsmokin, too bad the Christy Clark government cannot fine and penalize lightening, which caused the majority of the fires. Global warming is bringing us earlier and hotter temperatures, no doubt our forests will dry out as a result, and forest fires will increase.

This is about the Province attempting to offset increased fire fighting costs onto Joe and Jane public. What I would like to see is how much human caused fires have increased year to year, compared to how much lightening caused fires are increasing year to year, to justify the increase in human caused fire fines and penalties.

I welcome the day when a government will penalize someone for using fossil fuels, when a variety of cheap alternative fuels are available. Reducing our consumption of fossil fuels is the only way towards cooling the planet and reducing the number of forest fires we are experiencing today and into the future.

It says 375 fires caused by humans.. kinda seems to target butts.. The Govt has looked everywhere else and taken money from people..this is only place they haven’t looked…butts (get it ?? )

Seems they have to worry about more than just cigarette butts. The following is from a Transportation BC website:

“Did you know that bottles and broken glass can act as a magnifying glass, catching the sun and sparking fires through reflection? Keep your drink containers in your car until you get to your destination and recycle them.”

http: //tranbc.ca/2014/07/16/only-you-can-prevent-roadside-wildfires

Sophie, you and your Global Warming, blah, blah, blah!

Are you not aware that we are entering a sustained period of Global Cooling? According to some people, people smarter than you and I (Yes Sophie, I did say YOU and I), we are on the verge of entering into a mini Ice Age!

A MINI ICE AGE!!!

http: //www.cbn.com/cbnnews/healthscience/2014/January/Cover-Up-Mounting-Evidence-Belies-Global-Warming/

Read it and weep!

Global warming! Global cooling! Global warming! Global cooling!

This should keep you up nights, eh Sophie??

I have even heard that a discarded plastic bottle of water, if laying at the right angle to the sun, can reflect sunlight so as to start a forest fire. Don’t know if that is an urban myth or not though.

Government is just laying the foundation to keep YOU out of the bush.

How stupid can this government get? Do they not have anything else for Mike to do? The last time I think he was counting wolves and that only lasted a couple of weeks before they give him another job. This most likely won’t last long enough for him to finish either.

Stunned sage, there is currently no feasible way to eliminate fossil fuels at this time. How hard is that for you to get. Your goals of renewable energy are not inconsistent with many posters on this site. The reality is it’s not any where near realistic. Maybe in 5-10-15 years. In the mean time grow up and look at the facts. Do you think a windmill on every available square mile of this province is the solution? Rational people don’t.

As I mentioned on another thread, your tiring anti harper/clark bs is beyond rational. Another paid troll. We’ve seen them before. attaloss and people#1. They come in to spam, change their name and resurface but its always the same leftard activist message.

Stunned dow, just a few days ago Denmark produced 140% of it’s entire energy need. The power surplus was shared equally between Germany and Norway, which can store it in hydropower systems for use later. Sweden took the remaining fifth of excess power.

www. theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/10/denmark-wind-windfarm-power-exceed-electricity-demand

There you go dow, and example of a country that can supply it’s entire energy needs via an alternative energy source. Once electric car use becomes more wide spread, just think of how much we will have reduced our need for fossil fuels.

I say charge $25. Pack for cigarettes.. If you start a fire you get to fight fires the next summer..

I heard Mike Morris talk about the ideas he is looking into and he said that increasing fines and banning people from being able to enter provincial parks were the ideas being entertained. I am struggling to recall how many human caused forests fires start in provincial parks. This is one location where parks workers can interact with campers and explain to them how to ensure that camp fires are actually put out. These proposals will cost the province more money as they will waste time on enforcement (police dealing with people in provincial parks who are not supposed to be there), increased investigation costs. As well it will lead to more people camping in more remote locations where camp fires will be burning unregulated.

Sage reading the Guardian is like reading or listening to the CBC, all biased garbage. See Denmark wants to get its costly inefficient renewables up to 50% of total generation by 2020 and they have a ways to go yet. So this 140% they hit was an anomaly and just proves how unreliable and inefficient windpower is if it has that wide a range from about 30% to 140%. Now think 140% of generation where did that extra 40% go well Norway, Sweden bought it for peanuts absorbing it by cutting back their abundant cheap efficient hydro power. Then when Denmark’s inefficient wind generation drops the power will be sold back to them at a higher rate than what it was bought for. Where does Denmark get their power on low to very low wind days well they depend on their neighbours and their own coal fired plants. Hey some days Denmark wind generation is almost zero, yup that is efficient and reliable alright. Oh another thing the cost of electricity in Denmark is quit high to pay for this inefficient wind power.

Who do you work for, Tides, Suzuki tax dodging foundation, Greenpeace where their executives make over $500,000 saving the earth?

How’s your electric car doing, just as good as Ataloss solar powered house? Do you plug into that house?

A few thoughts on the review of fines and penalties:

– if a person is proved to have caused a forest fire the gov’t can and does sue him for everything he/she owns. Prison time is also a possibility for arson and it is imposed occasionally. Fines & penalties are already in place for persons who have an illegal fire that does not cause any damage. Discussion of more penalties is just politics.

– person-caused fires are usually readily accessible and fairly easy to extinguish, as opposed to lightning which can occur anywhere. There are exceptions to the generalization about person-caused fires; the Barriere fire in 2003 was caused by a smoker.

– about 60% of fires are lightning-caused; pretty consistent over the last 10 years. Anyone think tougher penalties are going to change that?

– if gov’t was serious about reducing fire suppression costs and damage to property it would put a meaningful program in place to space and prune dense forests around rural and semi-rural communities. Current program is too small to matter.

CL

Not too sure how this thread got onto renewable energy, but solar panels are getting cheaper and more efficient all the time. The problem with solar and wind is storage, not generating the power at a competitive cost. New tech for storage batteries is being worked on and the day isn’t far off where we will be able to cut the cord if we so choose. Actually most of us probably know people who live off the grid now without making too many sacrifices in their lifestyles.
CL

At 3 in the morning, if you actually read what happened there Sage you will find they were importing more power from Germany than they were sending back to Germany at that time.

Actually I am surprised you are not totally against wind power in Denmark, here is why:
The Danish government keeps ignoring the people who complain about health and sleep issues from the turbines. In 2011 the CEO of Vestas sent a letter to the Ministry of Environment reinforcing that no changes could be made to the existing regulations because there would be a loss of Danish jobs and Danish exports. Vestas continues to deny there are any adverse effects from its wind farms. But you seem OK with destroying people’s health as long as it is green energy.

But not sure where this came out of a review of fines and penalties for causing a fire.

I am for the reduction, and eventual elimination, of fossil fuel extraction and use because it is killing us, and killing our planet. What can be worse than that? A few people who are having trouble sleeping, or complaining about some minor health effects from wind turbines?

The majority of windpower generated in Denmark is generated “off-shore” because the winds are stronger and more frequent there. Here are some pictures of those wind farms, and I don’t see any houses anywhere near them, do you slinky?

www. ecology.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Horns-Rev-windfarm-Denmark-524.jpg

http: //world.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/denmark-offshore-wind-farm.jpg

How is the fossil fuel business these days dow?

The fossil fuel business is taking a downturn do to an excess of it being available on the market.

I was just out west to the Nass Valley, Kispiox, Prince Rupert, and points in between and was surprised to find electric car charging stations in pretty much every small town west of including Burns Lake. Not sure if PG has one yet, but out west one could pretty much drive anywhere with an electric car now today.

Coolest thing I seen on this trip was the lava fields in the Nass Valley. Makes one feel us humans are but a speck on mother nature. For a hundred kilometres all one can see is utter devastation as far as the eye can see… apparently this eruption was 250-years ago and still the area is like a moonscape. Walking on it the earth gives out below like walking on a popcorn sponge. One of the greatest wonders in the whole province. Yet almost zero tourism promotion or services available despite being one of the most fascinating places in the country. The last leg of the Nisga highway is something else as well… akin to the sea to sky highway without any traffic or people for miles and miles, yet eagles in every tree branch as far as the eye can see.

Eagleone; its all NDP country federally and provincially out west. The people who live there are very environmentally conscience, it’s a lifestyle thing when you live by rivers and an ocean that have a reputation for having the best sports fishing in the world.

www. huffingtonpost.ca/2012/08/24/record-breaking-salmon-rivers-inlet_n_1828142.html

Now that’s a big salmon, and some wonder why these people are so against Enbridge.

It’s struggling dumbfounded, but it’s keeping your bike in fuel.

Stunned sage…..Denmark = Nova Scotia in size. Good comparison.

Hey dow, now that Iran has signed a nuclear non proliferation agreement, the extensive sanctions against it will soon be lifted, including sanctions on its oil, which has a hugh amount of. Just imagine all that oil hitting the world markets for the first time in decades. Now we are talking an even bigger over supply… lol.

Never again will we ever see $100 per barrel oil, as alternative energy sources become more and more mainstream in countries all over the world the demand for fossil fuels will continue to drop. Hey dow, I think the human species is smart enough to avoid using something that would eventually cause it’s extinction.

It’s Official – Sophic Sage is insane.

I do find Butts on our Country Road, must be from Drivers since we are about the only one walking it, stop smoking and with the Money you save you can buy a New Pickup every 10 to 15 years (Pack a Day at 10 Dollars times 365 , it will do it) besides you may live longer and feel better by not starting any Fires.

Fines right now for flicking a butt and littering are 165.00 according to CTV news. Considering our first fire in the Bobtail was suspected as human caused those carelessly discarding cigarettes and people who leave camping fires burning would be the most feared of the “human caused” fires other than the ones deliberately set like grass fires and slash piles. Slash piles lit in early spring Feb-Mar can still flare up in June and take out a forest, has happened in the past and will happen again.

Sage, energinet shows Danes are only producing a third of their power from wind farms right now and importing a third as they have no other real power generation to speak of to pick up the slack. Did you know the new wind project scheduled in Denmark has a pricetag of over 10 euros per kWh attached to it? Even with the price we pay to IPPs we have that more than cut in half, and yet people complain.

You actually cannot store wind energy into hydroelectric as it cannot be made into water. What you can do is sell it to a user and they sell some back to you when you need it from their hydroelectric dams. Unfortunately when demand is down and you have excess power so is price and when demand is up…