Ruminations from June 2019 (the Before Time)

 

I posted this on the DailyKos over a year ago. The observations are still relevant - because we are STILL NOT DOING ENOUGH about climate change.

Well, of course we're not - that ignoramus and his wrecking crew administration don't "believe" in climate change. Are you planning to vote in November? Are you voting for Joe Biden? If not, you are part of the problem.

Seattle’s Summers Are All Effed Up, Or, The Dizzying Speed at Which Hell Becomes the New Normal.

My husband and I live in Seattle. Have done for almost 20 years. We got here right after 9/11, in which we were both tangentially involved (long story).

Since moving, we’ve become “stuck.” We’re here because we’re here at this point. 

It’s partially inertia – partially the “golden handcuffs” of excellent jobs with the state – partially the fact that we’ve made friends and nested – but it’s also partially because of the glorious beauty of Washington State.

A majestic range of mountains – the Olympics to the west and the Cascades to the east – rises up like a guardian on either side of the Puget Sound. Looking south to the implausibly majestic bulk of Mount Rainier it’s easy to understand why some indigenous people worshiped her as a god.

After only a short drive from downtown you can choose to hike through deep forests, fish in a brilliant turquoise lake, or kayak across the shimmering teal and emerald waters of Deception Pass.

On a ferry ride across Puget Sound you’ll see cormorants, guillemots, and gulls. Look down over the railing to catch a glimpse of a sea otter, and if you’re very lucky, a pod of Orcas will appear on the horizon, a shimmer of water on broad backs and jutting dorsal fins.

An hour north of town the Skagit Valley beckons, with its seaside towns, broad swathes of excellent farmland, tulips and daffodils, and amazing farm stands.

On the shores of Hood Canal the oysters and clams are just a short scratch down in the sand. Bring a garden claw and a pocket knife. Dig for 15 minutes, then feast on fresh, delicate, briny oysters that will make your toes curl with delight.

Even just trudging around bang-in-the-city-center Green Lake I can feast my eyes on magnificent conifers and see myriad colorful ducks, bald eagles, and spidery, stalking herons.

In short – it’s glorious. The weather is glorious, too.

I know – I know. Everyone says it rains a lot. Not so much. Washington State is only the 29^th rainiest state in the union. Hawaii is number one, and even New York gets more rain.

We do get low gray skies and soft drizzle in the fall and winter. It’s nice. It’s not torrential. It’s good for your skin! But summers are mostly clear, and they are – or they were – utterly GLORIOUS.

It never really gets all that hot. Temps stay in the low-to-mid seventies. Lambent blue skies offer views straight up into Heaven. Everything is moist and green and lush, like a salad on steroids. In fact, much of the Pacific Northwest is a temperate rainforest!

The ecosystem of Pacific temperate rain forests is so productive that the biomass on the best sites is at least four times greater than that of any comparable area in the tropics. In sheer mass of living and decaying material - trees, mosses, shrubs, and soil - these forests are more massive than any other ecosystem on the planet. In part, this is due to the rarity of fire. Unlike drier forests, which burn periodically, temperate rain forests are naturally subject to only small-scale disturbances, such as blow-downs and avalanches.

Well, no longer.

Three summers ago, in 2017, a dear friend of mine journeyed to Seattle on the middle leg of a three-city “where should I retire?” tour. I took her on a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island. I wanted to cry. As we chugged away from the dock, the skyline receded into a grimy haze. Within ten minutes the Space Needle was barely visible. A grim shroud enveloped Rainier to the south: it was as if she didn’t exist. My friend tried to be polite about the not-all-that-dazzling scenery, and all I could think of was Mordor.

That was the first summer of wildfires on an epic scale. Records were set. Terrifying, horrifying records for heat and aridity – two things for which the Puget Sound has not historically been known.

On September 5, ash from the Central Washington fires fell "like snow" on Seattle and as far west as Grays Harbor County, which borders the Pacific Ocean.

Again in 2018, the wildfires raged and roared. Governor Inslee declared a state of emergency in July. In July and August the city smelled like a camp fire, and the skies were dull and gray.

The Boylston Fire started on July 19 again shut down I-90 east of Ellensburg for 24 hours. It burned 80,000 acres, mostly on the Yakima Training Center, caused level three "leave now" evacuations, and destroyed five buildings while being fought by three fixed-wing aircraft and two helicopters. Military personnel and equipment to fight the fire were sent from Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane and Joint Base Lewis-McChord in the Puget Sound Area.[23][24][25] The smoke caused "unhealthy" air conditions in Spokane on July 20.

The mellow drizzle of autumn was a more than usually welcome relief.

That was two summers in a row. Just two.

It’s June now and we’re on the slide into summer. About a month ago, I saw a TV spot for a local heating and air conditioning company. The voice over brought me up by the short hairs.

The reference to the “smoky air of summer” was dropped in so matter-of-factly, so casually, that at first I didn’t think I’d heard correctly. But I had. To at least one big Seattle company, the “smoky air of summer” needs no explanation. That’s just how summers are around here – buy our superior air conditioners!

THE SMOKY AIR OF SUMMER IS NOT A NORMAL THING. The smoky air of summer is something that did not exist until recently. Summers in the Puget Sound were cool, breezy, lovely. There’d be a few hot days in August when I’d sweat and curse, but never more than a week or two. Never a stretch of days when the forests were engulfed in raging flames and the air was choked thick with smoke. Never.

And now, it seems to be the “new normal.”

“We’re headed into summer, folks! Time to get out your asthma inhalers and make sure your air purification system is working! Gonna be some wildfires!”

We humans get used to things really quickly. We adapt. We don’t have particularly long memories, and we forget that what we thought was normal is now a memory, getting ever more distant as the years march on.

But we have to take notice. We have to remember. We have to pay attention and not allow ourselves to slide into a non-reactive state of torpor. Things change — things fall apart — really really fast. It is starting to be TOO LATE.

Wildfires are increasing as the climate changes. That’s a fact. That’s something we know.

Now what the ACTUAL HELL are we going to do about it?

My very first diary on this site was posted May 21, 2015. Allow me to quote myself:

It was late 2012, on a week day, about 5:00am. I’d just sent my husband out the door with his lunch and was brewing myself a cup of tea to enjoy in front of the odious "Morning Joe," when he called to share something horrifying he’d just heard on NPR.

They were reporting that at a recent climate change conference, some leading scientists had stated that 2020 is the LAST YEAR we humans can do anything to reverse the effects of climate change. At that point, said my husband a little breathlessly, everyone on the planet could stop driving cars and it WOULD NOT MATTER. We’d already be toast. Almost literally.

It’s 2019.

Carbon dioxide emissions are going up.

Hair. On. Fucking. FIRE.