Readers are usually aware that changing events can quickly turn around a developing story. They also know that history has a bad habit of repeating itself. I recently wrote about the machinations surrounding the Earls Restaurant beef issue. As you might recall, that's when Earls decided to import American beef with a trademarked Certified Humane label. The intent was to get a promotion advantage over its competitors. A backlash quickly arose with many Albertans expressing their outrage by threatening to boycott the restaurant chain. Retailers instinctively know that any bad publicity is bad for business. Their usual reaction is to placate those bringing the bad news and try to spin it into something positive to kill the bad publicity quickly. In no time at all, the Earls PR machine went into action to make peace with Alberta beef producers. The CEO of Earls flew out from Vancouver and met with the chairman of the Alberta cattle producers' organization. He promised that the chain would put Alberta beef back on the menu and an appropriate photo was taken with the two individuals making up and shaking hands. But alas, all was not as it seemed – the Earls promise was rather shallow if not outright misleading.
The promise made by Earls reflected almost exactly the rationale they used to drop Alberta sourced beef from their menu in the first place. At that time they said they could not find enough Alberta Beef that met their certification standards, hence they had to buy from an American supplier. All they promised in the make-up agreement was that when more certified Alberta beef becomes available they will buy it for their restaurants. The reality is that such certified beef may not be available for a very long time – particularly if there is no financial incentive to producers. In the meantime, they will continue to happily buy certified beef from their original American supplier. With contracts in place to cover the use of the certification trademark, it's unlikely much Canadian beef will be used by Earls for a long time. Not surprisingly, none of this was mentioned by Earls or the cattle producers' organization. Earls won the day – they buried the bad publicity and made themselves look contrite and reasonable; gullible consumers will probably buy all this and drop any boycott intentions.
Past forest fires conditions were similar – did we learn?
In a past column I wrote about forest fires and the claims made by global warming fearmongerers that more fires were the result of climate change. I pointed out the inconvenient truth that forest and range fires were a common occurrence in our ecosystem and had existed for millennia. Not surprisingly, some green zealots (including the leader of the Green Party) are implying the recent Fort McMurray fire is also the result of climate change. Those interested in the history of such events may know that one of the greatest range and forest fires ever recorded in known history was in 1910. That fire started in Montana and finally petered out near the present site of the Fort McMurray fire. It burned off and on for almost four months. It is estimated that 12 to 18 million acres were destroyed. Newspapers reported that losses were in the hundreds of square miles in various areas. Those same reports noted that the winter of 1909-1910 was one of the mildest in history with the snow gone by March. They reported that no rain or snow had fallen in three months. It was also mentioned that there had been no major fires for almost 20 years and there was a huge build-up of fuel in the forests and on the ranges. Does that sound familiar – it is almost identical to the conditions that sparked the recent Fort McMurray fire. History as noted, has a bad habit of repeating itself.
One of the differences back then was that the 1910 fire was not blamed on climate change – apparently we are to presume that such a politically correct condition did not exist back then. What the 1910 fire did was spur the establishment of federal and provincial fire protection agencies and strategic plans to suppress all wildfires. That policy remained in place until the 1980s when it was finally realized that too much fire suppression increased the fuel load and the likelihood of more intense and severe fires. That history is cold comfort to those devastated by the recent fire – but hopefully there are more lessons to be learned and soon.