Burning Down the House

IT IS NOW CANADA'S TURN to burn. At the moment more than one thousand out of control wildfires are ravaging our neighbors to the north,a paricularly large one requiring an evacuation order for more than thirty thousand people way up north, with thousands of acres already up in smoke, and many more to inevitably follow. Billions of dollars of damage and property destruction, international assstance, the usual scenario. And of course there is the tragedy on Maui, which has dominated the news for the past week, keeping the Canadian nightmare somewhat in the background by its sheer apocolyptic horror. This has become a global phenomenon. The United States is having a relatively fire free summer compared to recent ones, largely due to a wetter than normal winter in the American west,but surely nobody is sufficiently foolish not to believe that all too soon the lower forty eight will once again ignite,and burn with a vengenace, almost as if straight out of hell itself. How much longer before the fires spread to the east, and consume the Ozarks and Appalachians? There is a vast abundance of flammable forested land east of the Mississippi,certainly more fuel for fire than to the west; only one prolonged drought, which also seems ultimately inevitable,is needed to set off blazes of unimaginable proportions, especially considering the much greater population density east of the mighty Mississippi.The fires have consumed large parts of Italy, Greece, and other European countries, and just a few short years ago much of the continent of Australia went up in smoke. Climate change, a global disaster now no longer a future threat, but rather, a clear and present danger. All the predictions scientists have been warning us about for decades are finally coming home to roost,but far sooner and far more severely than they ever thought possible; they are shocked and horrified at how rapidly climate change is advancing, as each year becomes hotter than the last, and temperatures around the world soar to triple digits. On Facebook some non profit organization posted an advertisement, telling us what we already know or should know, that climate change is now a dire threat, and urging people to get involved. Some of the responses were insanely sickening. The problem, as always, is the insane stubborn denial of reality by the Conservative Christian community. For example, one post read: "God will take care of everything, despite what the scientists and so called environmentalists say". Maybe this nonsensical statement actually contains a glimmer of hidden hope; the idiot seems to be acknowledging that there is a problem. But here we go again, with the same old anthropomorphic supreme being in the sky tripe. Our imaginary benefactor in the heavens. Almighty God will cure Covid, put an end to gun violence, end all wars, and reverse climate change. We don't even have bother to do anything. Its out of our hands. And not just any old god either. The Christian, conservative, biblical one. Isn't there some Bible prophecy that God destroyed the world by water the first time, and will destroy it by fire the second time? Maybe humanity is merely fulfilling biblical prpphecy. Religious fanatics are known for their willingness to bend over backwards to fulfill biblical prophecy. A perfect excuse for inaction, to ignore our problems instead of address them. God will take care of everything. What,me worry?