Apocalyptic
Armageddon on the brink
Wild ones flee the flames
I know the human suffering is great. The news reported half a million people displaced by the fires at present, and dozens of people are unaccounted for, so many climate refugees now homeless.
But humans have resources, and the ability to climb into vehicles and outrun the flames. My heart aches for the wild ones, those fleeing in terror, and those dying horribly in the flames (including many domestic animals left behind, something I will never understand.) I hope when those who survive wander into towns, that they will not be shot, that people put buckets of water out for them. Two months of fire season left. Meanwhile, Australia's fire season lies ahead. It feels like we just recovered from the trauma of its last fire season.
It seems the apocalypse is here. Armageddon. At least on the western seaboard. Governments talk about how they "can't afford" a Green New Deal. In truth, we can't afford not to have one. The cost of cleaning up after these crises is far higher than the cost of preventing them, that should have begun forty years ago.
Talent, Oregon
for earthweal's open link. So sad.
So true: we have wrecked the environment for these animals who can't escape. And no, we can't afford not to have a Green New Deal - for the whole planet. I hope it's not too late.
ReplyDeleteThe devastation of the fires is heart-breaking, and over here we are only just hearing about the animals, domestic and wild, affected by them. Mostly the news is about people and the terrible losses of life. I feel for those who do not have the resources to escape the flames. What you say in the final paragraph is so obviously true, how can governments ignore it?
ReplyDeleteYes, the fires - that seem to have become the new 'norm' are soul-crushing. So heartrending to think of the terror of those flames: the people caught in them, the ones who will never truly recover any sense of security or peace-of-mind. And then, of course, all of those poor animals suffering through terrible agonies of death. All this ... and, of course, the horrors of the pandemic, extreme climatic events of all kinds, the triumph of idiocy and still - no whispers, of any kind, of some sort of comprehensive plan to stop (or at least, slow) the madness. It's too much to process, really, without experiencing a level of grief (or perhaps, it is a new-kind-of-grief) the like of which I have never known before. Stay safe, Sherry.
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