Another brilliant opinion piece by David Wallace-Wells in New York Magazine, “California can’t afford to wait for climate action.” Like many I’ve watched the reprise of Australia’s 2020 global warming wildfire hell in America’s West with horror. It was difficult to imagine when it happened here (albeit it far from me), it’s difficult now. The article is well worth a read. Wallace-Wells makes three points. First, even if (let’s say, if we’re feeling optimistic today, when) we cut emissions to zero, wildfires in California (and by extension, through Australia) will continue to worsen dramatically over the next couple of decades. Second, the landscape itself will survive but not so our sprawled habitations. Third, regardless of anything else, we need to do what we’re resisting doing, namely respond and adapt. And that may well mean, as Wallace-Wells quotes climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer tweeting, retreating. Laws need to be enacted to prevent people building in areas now rendered essentially uninhabitable by global warming.
