READER ALERT: This blog pertains to status in the real world and real climate. It does NOT contain any salve for whatever worries you might already have, nor does it conclude that some god will intervene. We have changed nature and it now remains to be seen if our species can learn to manage what we have committed.
The inflamed parts of the U.S. are exporting smoke to places further east. Washington, Baltimore, Princeton, New York, Rochester, Boston–a partial catalog of places where breathing can be hazardous right now. Meanwhile Oregon’s biggest fire, Bootleg in Klamath and Lake Counties*, is around 400,000 acres and still moving east as fires in California rage out of control as well.
*Bad news for Summer Lake, Oregon, a wonderful marshland for birds in good times. These ain’t good times.
Smoke in Manhattan? Climate change is for everybody, regardless of where or how rich…unless you can afford high end air filters and never go outside. Maybe that’s why Bezos, Branson and other billionaires are getting into space…this planet is doomed and they know it? So those hedge fund managers and brokers with MBAs are getting richer on Wall Street but do they all think they can insulate themselves from the rest of the planet? Who’s gonna buy their widgets or Amazon-delivered crud or buy meals-ready-to-eat if the system begins to wobble and disintegrate? We face the inevitable conflict between profit from exploiting the planet and those who actually would like to presevre some life into the future. How bad does it have to get before greed is no longer the key motivation? Can survival move cultural groups that hate one another into co-operation, however belated? It certainly has not worked with covid vaccination. One doctor tells of badly ill covid victims now begging to get vaccinated!
We have many object lessons on what happens when countries fail–Syria, Yemen, El Salvador, Guatemala, Somalia, Libya. Coincidence that the most troubled nations are all in hot climates? Maybe some areas were pushed into trouble by famine but nothing like what we’re going to see in coming decades.
“People seem to think of extinctions as some silent, painless statistic. It’s not. You look at birds that can no longer find fish because they’ve moved too far off shore. They’re emaciated, they’re starving to death. We are at the point that there’s nothing untouched.” –Diana Six, field biologist
The “Guardian” covers the U.S. better than our own home-based media. Click here for the devastating reality Dr. Six faces as an entomologist in Montana.
She used to work on how to save endangered species and habitats. No longer. “I’ve gone from being an ecologist to a coroner.”
Towheeblog 
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