Is the world on fire or does it just seem that way? It’s on fire and fuck you climate change deniers. I’ve always been intrigued by the town of Lytton, how it’s situated at the junction of the Thompson and Fraser Rivers. I like to stop and snap a few photos of the picturesque town on my way up to the Cariboo. Always a hot spot with high temperatures, this freaky summer it’s been devastated by forest fires. Whether intentional or not, naturally humans are involved and I’m reminded of this New York Times article, Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene, by Roy Scranton. Penned nearly ten years ago, it is sadly still apropos, its sound message still ignored.

“Yet the reality of global climate change is going to keep intruding on our fantasies of perpetual growth, permanent innovation and endless energy, just as the reality of mortality shocks our casual faith in permanence.” “The biggest problem we face is a philosophical one: understanding that this civilization is already dead. The sooner we confront this problem, and the sooner we realize there’s nothing we can do to save ourselves, the sooner we can get down to the hard work of adapting, with mortal humility, to our new reality.”

I wrote a poem, which doesn’t change anything but I don’t know what else to do.

ANONYMOUS ARSONIST

Supercharged ambiguity,
uncertainty in overdrive,
the opacity of a long summer
of corrosive smoke

obscures identities
as we mince toward disaster,
Commerce Fair hurly burly.
Haggling, trade’s primary

exercise of the human mind
is a waste of precious time.
We are clear on the haze,
its origin, indistinct from cause.

Human error, upon human error.
We excel at doom,
fighting hordes
of demons and undead.

Effort wasted
on an expired civilization,
beyond sea walls,
green treaties,

carbon footprints and taxes.
We keep the status quo
propped up
against the altar of industry.