https://theprogressnetwork.substack.com/p/architects-of-survival
"There’s nothing like a blanket of smoke settling over your city to make things
feel decidedly apocalyptic. And while the haze from last week’s wildfires may
be slowly clearing out of the United States and Canada, when you add in today’s
genius political leadership on the issue, it’s no wonder that the “worst
possible timeline” meme has become a mainstay of the internet.
Although the causes of any one fire are multiple, the latest attribution
science fingers climate change as “very likely” to have “increased the
likelihood and severity of extreme fire weather: the hot, dry, windy conditions
that let fires ignite and spread,” as climate scientist Zeke Hausfather
summarizes. So, yes, with the world set to continue to warm in the coming
decades, this is probably far from the last time we’ll experience a smoke-laden
summer.
And there lies the rub, because the real danger is not the fires themselves,
but the smoke, which kills much larger numbers of people.1 It’s a frustrating
timeline to be living in, given that we could have done a lot more to stave off
a climate change-inflected future. But now that the chickens of our industrial
choices have come home to roost, the challenge has become a dual one: in the
medium and long term, cutting emissions, and in the short, mitigating climate
change’s consequences on our lives as much as possible.
On the latter front, there are some silver linings. While the environmental
threat has worsened over the years, the suite of tools we have at our disposal
to protect us against smoke’s detrimental health effects has gotten
considerably better. To illustrate what I mean, I invite you to join me on a
highly specific trip through time. There’s only one condition: you have to take
today’s wildfires with you. Let’s jump back about 80 years or so . . ."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
