Twilight comes early.
Sunset choked to death on clouds of ash.
"Eat the fruit of this tree
and you shall be like God" -
but the idol of our godhood,
kindled by that pyrotechnic tree,
burns now to the ground.
I live in a city which hasn't seen blue sky or stars now for the last five days and counting. I have been inside my house for about the same amount of time, and during that time there has not been a day in which the air has not smelled like smoke. I should have gotten a lot done in that time (including house cleaning and repair, writing a blog post, and other business), but instead I must confess that I've been somewhat glued to websites like this:
- Portland Oregon Weather Underground
- Oregon Department of Environmental Quality - Air Quality Monitoring Data
- Oregon Smoke Information
- AirNow Interactive Map of Air Quality
- Smoke Forecast - FireSmoke.ca
Call my preoccupation a fetish, but as Samuel Johnson once said, "Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." This year is beginning to feel to me like the run-up to a mass execution. First, the stupidity and malignancy of Donald Trump. Then the coronavirus. Then the emergence of a blatant, murderous racism reminiscent of the American South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including the very public murders of unarmed African-Americans. Now massive wildfires for those of us in the American West, and a very active hurricane season for those on the eastern and southern seaboards of the United States.
A few facts about the wildfires. First, for the last three days, the smoke has produced widespread areas of pollution levels that have been designated as hazardous by State and Federal agencies. That's "hazardous", as in, "Any exposure to the air, even for a few minutes, can lead to serious health effects on everybody. Avoid outdoor activities." Second, the three biggest pollutants of concern have been smoke particles with diameters of 2.5 microns and below, smoke particles in the 10 micron range, and carbon monoxide. The presence of carbon monoxide is especially troubling because CO is only produced when there is not enough oxygen present to ensure at least a stoichiometric mix of oxygen and carbon-bearing materials.
Many of the fires have been caused by downed power lines or by lightning. Many of the fires have also been caused by typical human activity. But the fires have also become yet another occasion for political posturing by the American Right. Trump claims that this season's wildfires are the result of "poor forest management," but the facts don't support him. Many of the wildfires that have started this fall did not originate in forests. And there is overwhelming scientific evidence that the worsening fire seasons worldwide are a consequence of manmade climate change. Much of that evidence was compiled over the last two or three decades by national laboratories funded by the United States Government. Names like Livermore, Berkeley, and Argonne come to mind. These national laboratories are now the victims of Trump budget cuts. Therefore I expect that like the coronavirus, or deteriorating social relations, or fraying social safety nets, or a declining currency, Trump will willfully and deliberately botch his response to this exigency also.
And that had me thinking at 4 am this morning. You see, these things don't just impact me as a series of facts that fit into an analysis. (Even though I'm rather strongly geeky!) I am thinking of how last Monday I enjoyed an evening walk through the neighborhood and spent time in my backyard watering the veggies and playing my guitar beneath a clear twilight sky with two cats at my feet. That was my chill time, my therapy which enabled me to cope with a world that has recently become chaotic because of rich and powerful doofuses who want to Make Themselves Great Again due to long-standing inferiority complexes. Trump is such a doofus. But I thought I had learned to take him in stride even as I saw through his attempts to cause chaos. Now the consequences of his doofus chaos have flared up in new and unexpected ways - much like the re-emergence of flames from a fire that was not properly put out. And it's not just his doofus-ness. It's his constant gaslighting, his absolute refusal to tell the truth about anything, lest he lose what he perceives to be the advantage of pulling the wool over the eyes of those who listen to him. It's getting to be a bit much.
So because I had a hard time sleeping at 4 am, I was searching the Web for stories of Americans who have left the country for good within the last few years. And I was checking out what it would take for me to emigrate to Canada. (I found out that I'm just a few points shy of the minimum needed for a technical professional to be allowed to emigrate.) But then I thought of the people I'd be abandoning if I did such a thing. And I thought of how even the world's best places did not start out that way. They were built by the sweat equity of those who were willing to sacrifice to try to construct a righteous order in the midst of chaos. I also thought of how some of the world's best places are under attack from those who want to impose their chaos on what was a righteous order. Becoming a refugee is a temporary protection at best. And one can't be a refugee forever.
But trying to build or defend a righteous order in the midst of the chaos that is the United States just now seems to me like trying to make my bed in Sheol. (Or if you like the King James Bible, it seems like trying to make my bed in hell.) At least the Good Book promises that though I make my bed in such places, there is One Who is with me. And the art of making a sleep-worthy bed in unpleasant places will become a valuable skill as the great societies of the world run up against the reality of resource constraints and as their leaders grapple with the involuntary ending of their dreams of godhood. On that note, I'm going to lie down and try to take a nap.
P.S. Here and here are a couple of links to some interesting articles on wildfires and climate change.
