Bits and Pieces

Photo courtesy of Brittany Hosea-Small / AFP

Enough already for 2020.

This morning, I looked out the kitchen window facing east to see the sun hanging on the horizon, a smoky orange orb floating in the haze of particulate ash diffusing the new dawn light.  It is fire season, but we are being told by climate scientists and state government that this is the new reality.  Climate change is upon us, and as a penance, we will struggle to breathe through the fires year-round as our dried-out trees, brush, and homes continue to burn.

Paradise, California, is in jeopardy again.  Two years on from the last inferno, fire officials are telling residents to be prepared for emergency evacuation.  In California, 250,000 acres have been burned; 64,000 have been evacuated; three people are dead.  Fire rages from the Mexican border to Oregon.  The sky in many places is blood red.  Smoking foundations and chimneys are what’s left of structures throughout the region.  Parks and recreation areas are closed.  Many of the campsites have been abandoned, with picnics still laid out on tables like our own version of Chernobyl.

In addition to climate change, stupidity and lightning helped ignite the flames.  Also, bark beetles have infested and killed thousands of trees.  With so much dry, dead fuel, the inferno is inevitable.  Human idiocy includes a “gender reveal” party where people ignited fireworks in the midst of a picnic area tinderbox, and the conflagration spread quickly over several acres.  That’s something to remember; did they get it on film?  The child will certainly enjoy knowing that at his party, his parents burned thousands of acres of wilderness to celebrate his gender.

Every news broadcast has the weather person show us the view of the smoke from space.  There it is, that tan-white smear covering California like rancid mayonnaise.  The fires impact air travel and flight paths.  CHP closes the major arteries up and down the state.  Meanwhile, people stay in their homes waiting for the signal to evacuate, and when it comes, highways are clogged with people fleeing the inferno.  Wildlife and domestic livestock stampede through the burning woods, embers falling and cascading around them.

Should we rebuild in those burn areas?  Are we tempting fate?  Paradise is burning, and so soon after the last scorching.  The earth has not healed yet, and now, the fires come again.  Is there a way to make forests less susceptible to fire?  Often, burning the dead debris on the ground in a forest allows new seeds to take root.  It can be a good thing, but not when it comes to homes and human habitation.

In the perfect storm of 2020, the pandemic rages on.  Scientists now believe the coronavirus arrived in California as early as December 22, 2019, when hospitals began seeing an uptick in respiratory infections.  The virus also profoundly affects the human brain in some survivors, causing headaches, confusion, and delirium.  As we learn from Bob Woodward’s book, Trump knew the virus was deadly and could be spread by air since January.  He knew, and he lied.  Is this surprising?  Years ago, Trump said that he could shoot someone on New York’s Fifth Avenue and get away with it.  He has killed almost 200,000 Americans, and as of this moment, does seem to have gotten away with it:  every night, new revelations, new damning evidence, new felonies and misdemeanors.  The Trump presidency goes on, and now, he is closing the gap with Joe Biden.  Four more years and we won’t be recognizable as America anymore.

There is no dearth of strange news.  Two planes landing at Los Angeles International Airport reported to the tower that they had passed a “guy in a jet pack” flying at 3,000 feet and ten miles from the airport.  The FBI is investigating.  Officials express some disbelief in the sightings given that a jet pack capable of propelling a human being that high would be very expensive and could not be owned by a private individual.

Like everything else over the last six months, we can only say how surreal this all is, scratch our heads, and wait for what tomorrow brings.