Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
A recent article from The Globe and Mail (G&M), “In French wine country, climate change and dwindling demand are a recipe for trouble,” claims that French wine production is suffering because of the effects of climate change and, at a distant second, market changes. This is exactly reversed.
A recent article from The Globe and Mail (G&M), “In French wine country, climate change and dwindling demand are a recipe for trouble,” claims that French wine production is suffering because of the effects of climate change and, at a distant second, market changes. This is exactly reversed. While it is true that drought and heatwaves impact grape production and yield, wine itself has persisted through many changes in average global temperature over thousands of years. Market forces are actually the main driver force behind the French wine slump.
This summer’s heat and drought in Europe caused crop loss of grapes in wine regions of France, especially in Bordeaux, where wildfires also destroyed some vineyards. The G&M attributes this weather to climate change, although as Climate Realism contributor and meteorologist Anthony Watts has explained in “Wrong, Newsweek, Europe’s Heat Deaths Are a Policy Failure, Not a Climate Failure,” persistent and severe heatwaves are far from unprecedented in Europe. In addition, as discussed in a second Climate Realism post, recent wildfires are not historically unusual in France, with no data showing a sustained increase in acreage lost over time.
Wine is grown in regions that are hotter than Bordeaux, and colder. Temperature has an effect on the sugars and tannins in the fruit, this is true, but bad weather is something that winemakers have had to deal with as long as wine has been produced. Global climate change is not harming global grape production, according to United Nations data, and data does not indicate that the French climate is spiraling out of control. Only a long-term trend of persistently bad weather would suggest this year’s drought and heat was indicative of climate change, yet there is no such long-term trend. This year’s bad weather was just that, a year of bad weather, like French grape growers have experienced hundreds of times before over the centuries.
Just three years ago, French winemakers were upset because they were producing more wine than they could sell, and they lost hundreds of millions in destroying the excess. Obviously having more wine than patrons wish to imbibe is not a problem caused by climate change, and low production years aren’t either.
As G&M itself admits, France has steadily reduced the production of grapes since peaking in the 1970s. Production peaked in 1979, at a time when many scientists were worried about global cooling with some warning of a possible looming ice age.
Buried several paragraphs into the article, G&M makes the devastating admission that “consumption has fallen by 14 per cent since 2018, largely because of shifting social habits,” and “annual consumption has fallen from more than 100 litres per adult in 1960 to less than 20 litres today.”
These are very significant changes, changes that have been much more damaging to the wine industry overtime than occasional bad weather. Market forces working against them combined with a bad season, for smaller winemakers operating on slim margins, can be devastating.
Another economic issue only briefly mentioned by G&M is that “the cost of fuel and other farm supplies has doubled in the past couple of years.”
That problem would only be exacerbated if climate alarmists have their way regarding fossil fuel use. Food prices are impacted greatly by fuel costs, but especially wine. Wine requires energy for processing and storage. Packaging wine in bottles usually relies on fossil fuel powered machines. Glass and cork prices are impacted heavily by energy costs, so those supplies will become more expensive too.
At the consumer level, the costs add up even more because of shipping. Higher prices for wine that people are already drinking less of only exacerbates the issue, suppressing demand even further.
As one wise interviewee remarked: “You need to adapt to the climate. You need to adapt to the market.”
The wine market has significantly contracted over the past couple of decades. This is obviously bad for winemakers as well as wine drinkers, as lower production usually also means higher prices. Changing drinking habits among Americans and Europeans alike are driving the decline wine sales that G&M bemoans. By contrast, contrary to G&M’s claims, there is no evidence or data to suggest that climate change is to blame for that contraction, even if winemakers experience a poor producing year due to bad weather.
The 2026 Bordeaux/Gironde wildfires align with expected increases in fire risk under warming, a single event (or even a cluster) cannot “prove” a broad, irreversible “drying climate” in isolation.
In late July 2026, major wildfires in France’s Gironde department (home to Bordeaux) burned approximately 42,000 hectares (about 103,000 acres, or an area roughly four times the size of Paris), mainly in pine forests.
This led to evacuations of over 220,000 people, destruction of around 240 homes, and significant disruption. President Macron called it one of the toughest situations since WWII. The fires were stabilized at times but involved “zombie fires” (re-ignitions) and pyrocumulonimbus clouds, with risks from shifting winds and heat.
Vineyards themselves were largely spared direct damage, though smoke taint was a concern and broader drought stressed vines, contributing to an early harvest.
Attribution science, historical context, land management, and meteorological nuance all matter. Here’s a more rigorous breakdown.
Fire Weather Attribution for Similar Events
Studies on the 2022 Gironde fires (similar scale and location: ~30,000+ ha in Landiras/La Teste-de-Buch) using CMIP6 models and Fire Weather Index (FWI) show:
Anthropogenic climate change made those extreme FWI conditions 2–10 times more likely in 2022, depending on scale (local vs. regional, duration-specific). Attribution fractions reached ~73–79% for key fires.
Under moderate scenarios, such conditions could become orders of magnitude more probable by late century, with fire danger expanding northward/westward.
For 2026, similar dynamics apply: multiple heatwaves, prolonged drought, low humidity, and winds created “fire weather” (e.g., 30°C+, <30% humidity, winds).
Climatologists like Valérie Masson-Delmotte note warming (France +2.2°C since 1900, more in summer) dries fuels and multiplies conducive days. Projections (Météo-France) suggest fire risk could multiply by 5 at +4°C, with the season lengthening.
Historical and Regional Trends
Burned area in France:
Highly variable. Pre-2010s averages were low (<8,000–10,000 ha/year often); recent years show spikes (2022 ~66k–72k ha nationally, a record). Mediterranean areas saw declines in burned area earlier due to better prevention, but risk is shifting north/west (Gironde now prominent). No simple linear “explosion,” but more extreme years.
Gironde/Landes specifics:
Major fires are not new (1949: ~50,000 ha in Landes; 1989, 2022 events). The area is a vast 19th-century pine plantation on sandy, low-retention soils—flammable monoculture. Experts (e.g., INRAE’s Sylvain Delzon) argue the pin maritime is drought-resistant and well-adapted; the core issue is extreme dryness from climate + soil, not the species itself. Large contiguous stands aid spread.
Precipitation in Bordeaux:
Long-term data shows variability with a modest decline in some analyses (~10% in recent decades vs. earlier 20th century, though not always statistically significant). Summers can be drier, but annual totals fluctuate (wet years like 2023/2024 contrast dry ones). No collapse into permanent aridity.
Why “Drying Climate” Is an Oversimplification
Not uniform drying: Precipitation changes are seasonal/regional—potentially wetter winters in places, drier summers, more extremes (deluges and droughts). Soil moisture and evaporative demand are key; warming amplifies the latter.
Fuel and management dominate locally: Vast pine plantations, post-storm regrowth (dense even-aged stands after 1999/2009 storms), urban-forest interface, and ignitions drive spread. Better prevention reduced Mediterranean burned areas for decades despite warming.
Natural precedents: Historical mega-droughts/fires existed (e.g., 1540 Europe, 1949 Landes). Today’s frequency/severity of extremes is rising faster due to the rate of warming.
Counter-trends: Some North American forests show a “fire deficit” relative to pre-industrial eras despite recent increases, due to suppression. European prevention has mixed effects.
Single events prove little in isolation because weather is noisy. “Proof” requires long-term emergence of signals above variability (e.g., FWI trends, attribution studies showing human influence on extremes). The 2026 fires fit the pattern of heightened risk but are amplified by a flammable landscape.
Adaptation Realities for Bordeaux Region
Winegrowers report mixed effects: warmer vintages yield riper grapes (benefits in 2020/2022/2025), but drought stresses vines, prompting earlier harvests, rootstock trials, variety shifts, and debates over irrigation.
Forests need diversified planting, breaks, and management for resilience—not abandonment.
Climate attribution science
Climate attribution science (also called extreme event attribution) is a rapidly evolving field that seeks to quantify how human-caused climate change has altered the probability, intensity, duration, or other characteristics of specific extreme weather events.
It does not typically ask “Did climate change cause this event?” (almost all weather has natural components) but rather “How much more (or less) likely/intense was this event because of anthropogenic warming?”
Core Methods
Attribution studies generally compare the “factual” world (current climate with human emissions) to a “counterfactual” world (what the climate would have been without large-scale human influence on greenhouse gases, aerosols, etc.).
1. Risk-Based (Probabilistic) Approach This is the most common framing. Scientists estimate how the odds of an event (or worse) have changed.
Use long observational records or large climate model ensembles (e.g., CMIP6).
Fit statistical models, often extreme value theory (e.g., Generalized Extreme Value distributions), sometimes with a covariate like global temperature.
Calculate a risk ratio (RR): probability in current climate ÷ probability in pre-industrial climate.
Example: An RR of 5 means the event is 5 times more likely due to climate change.
2. Storyline (or Conditional) Approach This examines how climate change modified the specific event that occurred, given the observed atmospheric setup.
Often uses high-resolution models or “pseudo-global warming” simulations (add observed warming to historical conditions).
Strong for thermodynamics (e.g., “This heatwave was X°C hotter”; “This storm produced Y% more rain via Clausius-Clapeyron scaling”).
Less emphasis on changing probability, more on intensity changes.
Impact attribution (linking to damages, health, or ecosystems).
Dynamical vs. thermodynamic separation (isolating circulation changes from warming effects).
Rapid attribution (e.g., World Weather Attribution) delivers preliminary results within days/weeks using peer-reviewed methods for timeliness.
Application to Wildfires (Including Bordeaux/Gironde)
For wildfires, scientists typically attribute fire weather conditions (high temperatures, low humidity, drought, winds) rather than the burned area directly, because ignition and spread also depend heavily on fuels, management, and human starts.
2022 Gironde example: Studies found anthropogenic climate change made the extreme fire weather 2–10 times more likely (multi-model median), with high attribution fractions (~70–80% for specific fires). Projections show such conditions becoming far more common.
Similar logic applies to 2026: Successive heatwaves and drought created record fire danger. Attribution would likely show a clear human fingerprint on the heat/dryness, though exact numbers require a dedicated study.
Strengths of the Field:
Rapidly improved with better models, observations, and ensembles.
Highest confidence for temperature-driven events (heatwaves) and related extremes (drought, fire weather).
Useful for communication, adaptation planning, and legal contexts (e.g., loss and damage).
Limitations and Uncertainties (Important for Nuance):
Event-specific: Confidence varies widely. High for heat/drought/fire weather; lower for small-scale convective events, hail, or tornadoes (poorly resolved in models).
Model and observational limits: Coarse resolution misses local processes; short records for rare events increase uncertainty.
Definition sensitivity: Results depend on how the “event” is defined (threshold, spatial scale, duration). Different choices can yield different RRs.
Natural variability: Still plays a large role, especially for circulation patterns.
Compound events: Wildfires involve multiple factors (heat + drought + wind + fuels); full attribution is complex.
Counterfactual challenges: Perfect “world without humans” is impossible; studies approximate it.
National Academies (2026 update) note the field is faster and broader but has geographic and event-type gaps, calling for better models, standards, and Global South capacity.
Relevance to the Bordeaux Fires Discussion
In the context of the 2026 Gironde fires:
Attribution science would likely conclude that human-caused warming substantially increased the likelihood and severity of the hot, dry conditions that enabled rapid spread in the flammable pine landscape.
It would not claim the fires themselves were “caused” solely by climate change—human ignitions, land management (19th-century plantations), and weather variability are critical.
This aligns with our earlier points:
The fires illustrate heightened risk in a warming world but do not standalone “prove” a simple, uniform “drying climate.”
Attribution provides probabilistic nuance, not binary causation.
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