Nature has something to tell us. It’s time we listened. - By John McKinney - November 16 at 3:08 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/nature-has-something-to-tell-us-its-time-we-listened/2018/11/16/d4c00d86-e917-11e8-b8dc-66cca409c180_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c6d72b874b61
Not so long ago, California wildfires knew their place. They burned wilderness areas, national forests and remote, sparsely inhabited canyons far from population centers. Sometimes cabins would burn, even homes when sparks flew and landed on the wooden shake roofs that were still allowed back in those days.
Now our wildfires know no bounds.
Unlike hurricanes that are christened in alphabetical order, and decided upon in advance, fires are named for the places where they start — the Woolsey Fire and the Camp Fire, most recently — and are much closer to homes than ever before. Their flames sweep through natural spaces and leap from exurb to suburb and burst into neighborhoods, taking lives and incinerating homes. They burn with a ferocity and randomness that is horrifying for those in the fire’s path and gut-wrenching for the millions watching them broadcast in real time.
Friends and family end up on television, struggling to express their losses as well as their gratitude to first-responders, though they have lost everything but the clothes on their backs.
This year, the loss of lives and the destruction of the built environment are unprecedented. So, too, is the loss of the natural world, the place where I have spent so much time and, as a nature writer and chronicler of hiking trails, shared nature with as many people as I can. Nature has something to tell us. It’s time we listened.
>Thanks for the Memes.