High Masculine Tones

B.C. ON FIRE screamed the headline from a Vancouver newspaper last week, and the fires burning out the interior of British Columbia keep on growing in size and intensity, as they do across much of the continent.

My sincerest sympathy to all who have had to leave their homes (including some close friends evacuated yesterday from their gorgeous house on the shore of Lake Okanagan), and to those who will lose them. But surveying the rampaging fires from my safe perch over a morning newspaper, my dominant reaction isn't one of concern, it's frustration growing into rage.

It's been a hot, dry summer. Sound familiar? Camping last week on Vancouver Island, supposedly in a rainforest, was like setting up inside a tinderbox. The trees seemed to cry out in agony. And every year, no matter where I am, it's the hottest, driest summer on record. The effects of global warming keep becoming more obvious, not only pushing up temperatures but causing strange and cataclysmic events around the world.

"Ah yes", I hear the skeptic mutter... "but that's just anecdotal evidence, isn't it?" Never mind that unless the study is funded by an energy corporation, the conclusions from the scientific research are clear and unmistakeable.

I find it ironic that the Premier of British Columbia has opposed Canada's ratification of that drop in the bucket called the Kyoto Accord, on supposed economic grounds. How much damage and expense are these fires causing, and can we harbour any reasonable expectation that the coming years won't be worse? No matter where you live, global warming is causing you ill effects, not way off in some undefined Future in which technological innovation saves the day, but now. We lack the courage to admit what is happening all around us, much less to change our behaviour to address it.

It's easy to point a finger at the cabal of corrupt oil men running the world's most powerful nation, and shake a head in disgust at the latest outrage that seems calculated to accelerate humanity's degeneration into pervasive misery. But villains like Gordon Campbell and George Bush are only able to perpetuate their disastrous folly with our support and consent. There's clearly political gain to be had in promoting an environmental policy of global self-immolation, and that's why they pursue it. To do otherwise is to be branded an "extremist" flogging a dreaded "special interest". And even after a week of breathless headlines declaring the collapse of our overburdened power grid nobody seems interested in seriously examining how we consume energy, and conservation measures are an emergency, short-term measure until things go back to "normal".

Three thousand die in a horrific event in New York and we turn the world upside down, recklessly dropping bombs in the name of vague ideals such as security and justice. Ten thousand French die in the latest heatwave and we write sickening, smug editorials and turn up the air conditioning.

Let's stop pretending that everything is fine. Because it isn't. Let's stop assuming that this story has a happy ending. It doesn't.

I remember reading about the novelist Paul Bowles (The Sheltering Sky, Let It All Come Down), something like "the worse things got, the happier he became." Too bad he isn't still alive.