Another Trip Round the Sun

 

This photo is from a few years ago, but it's not great outside this morning.

We have four wildfires to the west of us, which means it's all blowing our direction.  Since I'm allergic to smoke, I'm going to eventually start feeling sick - if the fires continue and the smoke sits like a chicken on her nest over us.

We have watched the climate change beginning in the late 1990s when the pine beetle invasion began.  It started in one of the largest provincial parks where the policy is to let nature take its course.  Not that there is much to be done against the pine beetle.  Normally Mother Nature deals with it by killing the larvae with extreme cold.  Well, we weren't getting any - at least not at the correct time or the correct level of extreme, for the correct length of time.  Our winters were becoming ever more mild.

Many people were thrilled with this gentle (seeming) warming trend.   They welcomed the warmer temps because they hated the cold.  (Which begs the question, why were you living north of the 50th latitude then?  But I digress.)

Over the years we have had to change our approach to living here, in this place, as we began to deal with far more grey dreary days and overcast, wet soggy snow instead of powder, dangerous roads due to ice from the constant freeze/thaw as the days warmed up above melting then froze again after sundown.

That was winter.  

In summer?  Dry bush due to the stands of dead trees (pine beetle kill at first, now spruce bud worm) and the barest spark, either lightning or human caused (cigarette butts tossed out of windows, hot boxes on train wheels, campfires not put out properly, whatever) meant more and more wildfires, going wildly out of control in extremely difficult terrain.

And here we are.  Once again under a pall of smoke, far too early in the year.  Made worse by temperatures unheard of - in JUNE - not August when we would expect hot weather.

So far this summer we have had temperatures in the very high 30s and two days at 40 C.   One small town literally burst into fire, cause still not known.  Lytton set a new world record at just under 50C - it was primed for exactly what happened.  Residents of the town had about 15 minutes to evacuate, nearly all with just the clothing on their backs, many leaving pets behind because they couldn't find them before they had to leave.  Two people died (that the authorities know about - there may be more - chaos reigns while people try to reconnect with family and friends.)

And of course, the ever present pandemic, making things even more difficult.  How do you suddenly shelter a 1000 people when the advice is to not gather in large groups or risk spreading the virus?

So today I completed another trip round the sun.  On Facebook I was urged to set up a fund raiser for a cause important to me.  I chose to not do that for a number of reasons.

Instead I urged people to donate to a cause important to them.  There are so many.  

We have weathered the pandemic in reasonably good shape, but we are old and have no children or grandchildren to worry about.  We are housing secure (as much as anyone can be when wildfires rage).  We have food enough and have been able to get more when we need it.  

But as climate change and the pandemic continue, supply chains may become disrupted.  Around the world there have been 4 million deaths due to covid documented - and many statisticians are saying that number is low due to the difficulty of collecting the numbers from places where the government has fumbled the pandemic response, or is covering up their ineptitude (or willful negligence), or that people are completely overwhelmed just trying to survive.

We have made some donations this year - Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF (for better vaccine distribution around the world), plus some local non-profits.  We have offered assistance to friends who were struggling.

Because when you have enough, build a bigger table.

If anyone is so inclined, choose a non-profit that is trying to help make things better and donate some money to them - if you have it.  

Bear in mind that this pandemic and climate change are linked, if not directly, then by the very fact that they are happening at the same time, each making the other more difficult to deal with.  

I never really wanted to live in 'interesting' times, and yet, here we are.

Thank you to all who have sent birthday greetings.  My most fervent wish is that we will all be here in another 12 months.