The weird orange skies over the Colorado Plateau the last few days are from hot winds and blowing dust.  These conditions are a preview of what’s to come, as a warming atmosphere intensifies weather and overgrazing and off-road vehicles disturb ever more fragile desert soil crusts, creating more erosion like this.  These storms also spread weed seeds of Russian thistle (tumbleweed) and cheat grass into damaged sandy soils, where they find perfect conditions for colonization.  The destruction of the planet is not abstract and it doesn’t affect only poor people and other species. It is a physical war with many victims, everywhere.

The carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases that industrial civilization has added to the atmosphere have been compared by scientists to baseball players on steroids: the change may not be immediately obvious, but over time the frequency of extreme heat and storm events is comparable to the “improved” performance of doping athletes.  [1]

We are seeing the inevitable effects of the most destructive human culture to ever exist, and the answer to those problems is still the same: organize and resist.  We privileged first-world consumers have more resources than most of the people who bravely defend their land and communities, and it’s our responsibility to help in whatever way we can.

1: https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/attribution/steroids-baseball-climate-change

https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/attribution/doping-atmosphere

https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/attribution/attribution-demand