This new normal of near-constant wildfire smoke annoys me as much as the next person. But it serves as a reminder that we share one fragile atmosphere that we’re collectively screwing up. Fruitless to waste all this energy pointing fingers like children when we should be joining hands to fix this. It’s like nature’s warning signal.
Whether it be wildfire smoke, a global pandemic, or heat waves, nature know no geopolitical borders. So maybe instead of squabbling over whose smoke is whose, we could acknowledge that we’re all in this smoldering mess together. We only have one planet to live on, and we only have one atmosphere to breathe from.
(just food for thought)
The massive overreaction and resistance to COVID mandates gives us a bitter taste of what’s to come. Like, if a certain segment of the population can’t even handle relaxing at home for a little while and wearing pieces of cloth, they’ll sure be in for a rough awakening once the severity of the climate situation necessitates measures like, I don’t know, vegetarian mandates due to meat shortages, outdoor or N95 mask mandates for all the smoke like we’re seeing now, or water rationing like what California has been doing for drought.