Canadian forests are burning like fucking crazy this year, all across the country. The smoke has blanketed the eastern US and stirred up a lot of concern out there, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
See, I’ve spent decades fretting about the effects we humans have been having on this planet, trying to convince everyone who would listen to do our parts to decrease our impact here. Eventually, maybe five or six years ago, I realized that it’s a sinking ship, that it’s too late and there is no hope, that 99% of people either don’t know how bad things are (despite events like all of Canada’s forests burning) or they just don’t care, and there’s nothing I can do about it. At that point I decided that all I can do is my personal part to have as small a footprint on this planet as I can, and enjoy the show as Earth descends into a hellish chaos.
And this is part of that show. Finally, now that major cities are forced to stare at the result of choices humanity has made, even regular dumbass people are scared, and I find that immensely gratifying. I spent so many years worrying about this stuff, feeling like a freak because scant few shared my concern. Now, at long last, more people are feeling as fucked as I did for all those years, and I’m feeling a great sense of “I told you so.”
I’m excited to see where this snowball rolling downhill goes. Despite the growing fear, I don’t believe people will change or give up their comforts. We’ll all be eating Big Macs and buying the new iPhones and driving gas hog trucks and having 12 kids right up until the fire is at our doors. Even if we were to give all that stuff up, I think it would still be too late — things like these massive fires are now feeding the very cycles that started them in the first place. And since we WON’T give anything up, the chaos will only continue to accelerate, which I’m fine with. It just means I’ll get to see even more amazing, crazy shit before I die.
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel GREAT! Welcome the cataclysm, praise the abyss!
crimson highway 