05/17/2021
We went to see some giant sequoias this weekend. Some of the trees began growing in BCE. Think about that. They’re not 100 years old. They didn’t begin growing 1000 years ago. They became seedlings before the industrial revolution, before the printing press invention, before Christ was born.
And some of them were destroyed in last year’s Castle Fire. 2020 was the most destructive wildfire season in California on record. 4.3M acres burned - scroll through to see the satellite image of the smoke. While some of these destructive fires can be curtailed with better management and new technology, they are largely the result of climate change.
The hike we had intended to go on this week was closed because of the fire damage. Some of these ancient trees were destroyed - giant sequoias that have survived thousands of years of normal forest fires were turned to ash by last years “gigaburn.”
I know many of us are making concerted efforts to curb the destruction we each do to the environment. For example, I’ve learned from some of you that my meat consumption represents one of the biggest greenhouse gas emission sources on the planet (shoutout ) and so we instituted meat-free Monday in our home. I learned that my former proclivity for buying cheap, trendy clothing was proliferating an economy of fast fashion with detrimental impacts on the environment (shoutout ) so we started .us
But I’d like to do more - things from personal changes within our home to supporting policies that will have more systemic impact. So my question is: what do you do? What changes have you made, which we can implement in our home, to make more of an impact?
Thanks to for many of these photos!