The Mountains Are Ablaze

My floor reflects mottled colours of gold and red, and even grey sometimes as the beleaguered sun works desperately to throw light through the heavy haze covering Calgary and much of southwest Alberta. The great cordillera is ablaze, from the top end of the Rockies in northern BC through to the mountains of Colorado, and through again to the high Sierra's of southern California. Forest fires rage, turning the very sky to flame, threatening life both human and animal.

I wonder if this is what the global Hothouse effect will look like, or perhaps does look like? Is this a foretaste of what climate change offers us, even those smug enough to think we are safe from the effects of this planetary change? I fear the future holds an increasing number of summers ablaze in the mountains and great boreal forests, with record temperatures everywhere.

You could find other, more fearful examples, yet this is one that we, even in a "lifeboat country" will experience. Other changes, such as a rising ocean, presents limited threat to those who live on the BC coast. In a piece of delicious irony, only the wealthy can afford to live in those homes threatened by rising sea levels and increasing storm surges. The poor among us have been compelled to live high up the hillside, away from the water.

There are changes coming, big changes. These changes threaten to wipe out as much as half of the human population on this planet. This does not mean we are killing the planet; we are simply killing our species. The planet, in whatever form it takes, will continue, perhaps to support life, perhaps even to support human life. Perhaps not.