WILDFIRES AND FADING MAJESTIC BLUE SKIES OVER CHICAGO

The sky across Chicago this summer is hazy. This phenomenon is caused by high altitude smoke drifting south out of central Canada.  This smoke causes deep blue skies over the Chicago skyline, on a sunny day, to turn opaque and take on a whiteish hue.   

Geoengineers once proposed dumping tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, at these same high altitudes, to turn the sky white and reflect quantities of solar radiation back to outer space.  Now, by default through nature’s actions, we are experiencing these same outcomes.

The cost of this wildfire event, to the ecosystem, is an increase in the tonnage of carbon dioxide gas spewing into the atmosphere from the burning of trees, the loss of vegetation sequestering carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and the reduced cooling effect these lost trees would have had upon terrestrial surface of our planet.

The deluge of smoke produced from the burning of the Boreal forests is a direct consequence of climate change and it is fueled by continued heating of Earth’s atmosphere. The proposed sulfur dioxide global experiment was intended to reduce the impact of climate change on the planet.  Nature’s actions like this burning of trees add to this crisis even as humans continually plan to resolve this problem by extraordinary means.  

If this is a race for the survival of the human species on Earth, with human effort trying to exceed nature’s consequences, then humans at this juncture are losing.

This afternoon I sat near a public pool and viewed another summer ritual, people swimming together in celebration of summer vacation. The sky is not as majestic blue as it once was, but people continue to live their lives.  The science tells us that we can expect that the number of wildfires, world-wide, to increase by factors of 4 times to 16 times as the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere pushes past a 2-degree Celsius increase heading to a 3-degree Celsius increase by the end of the century.

Today is now a historic inflection point, which is laid bare against an intensely red colored setting sun. It is a turning point where we live now on a planet that will no longer tolerate species that are excessively extractive of resources without showing regenerative efforts and that over consume well beyond any reasonable level of sustainability.

Maybe the consistent smoke clouded skies, this summer, will be a reminder to people, like when they write on posted notes, to make an engagement that is critical. You are telling yourself not to forget and do not just blow this off.  The consequences of not responding to this problem, with urgency, will only magnify the Earthly consequences we face from here on.