Along with other countries in the world, Canada has experienced a virulent fire season in 2023. It is absurd to call this demonstration of climate change a ‘season’. To do is so is to normalize these events. This enables us to anaesthetize ourselves to reality, which leads to the attitude of ‘ah well, can’t do anything about it, so let’s eat drink and be merry’.
But as demonstrated by the story below, our world is connected in such a way that a given event or set of events affect not just one nation but all of them (e.g. the greed and self-service of the Russian war upon Ukraine).
These fire-fighters coming to Alberta to help, reminds us that the growth of international cooperation and mutual concern can prove to be the future of human life, as opposed to the anachronistic hatreds and self-serving desires that threaten thousands of lives and the repetition of history. The nations that don’t understand this are on the wrong side of future history. Or they do understand, but only care about acting upon their private hatreds, revenge, or will to conquer.
It is more than tempting to despair of humanity but every time we acknowledge and celebrate the beauty of life and living and care about our world and the intent to value of every human life, we will take one more step towards that future.
Thank you to these firefighters and to South Africa.
Fantastic! South African fire fighters