Gadd’s Truth: Interesting Times?
“May you live in interesting times,” is either an ancient Confucian quote or something Einstein said (according to TikTok, any quote you can’t quite remember but want to use to sound smart is now attributable to Einstein). And from the Ukraine to the Middle East; from breathing forest fire smoke in May instead of late July—we’re living in undeniably, and chaotically, interesting times.
It’s hard to read the news, or your social media feed, without feeling like you’re being bludgeoned with interesting but bad news. The algorithms of my own confirmation bias may have taken over my internet news feeds, but it’s lately well past the point of “interesting.”
As I write this from my home in Canmore, Alberta, there’s a “Special Air Quality Advisory” in effect (in May!), and the air smells like my clothes after a high school bush party, but thankfully without the accompanying hangover. The same area of what was once forest near Fort McMurray, Alberta—which burned in 2016 and ate more than 2,000 homes—is now burning again. The last burn was in the tops of the trees and spread very quickly in the wind as a result, but the latest fire is on the ground, fueled by the fallen remnants from the last burn. This is presented as a positive, as ground fires move slower.
This strikes me as pathologically optimistic, but that’s the Alberta way when presented with a problem: Ignore it, blame Trudeau (junior or senior) and get a bumper sticker on your truck to back that up. And maybe camp beside the highway outside Calgary waving Canadian flags and “Axe the Tax/Climate Change is Fake News” signage. (I saw this at the event recently, as I hypocritically drove by in my lifted pickup truck—contributing to the problem.)
Something just feels different to me now. The human world is angry, and so is the environment. Areas of Canada’s designated old-person sanctuary (British Columbia’s Okanagan, which I’m thinking of moving to now that I’m old enough to meet the age restriction) that burned in 2023 are under fire threat again. An onslaught of recent research papers predicts the end of the ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir forests in these areas, as hotter, more frequent fires destroy trees. Grasslands do a lot better with more and more severe fires, but my retirement fantasy of a house in the woods just doesn’t feel the same without the woods.
But I only lost a fantasy; the reality must feel a lot worse to the people who lived in the houses that burned last year. This spring, we drove through the wreckage south of Kelowna, our Alberta plates and happy mountain bikes on the back waving in contrast to the ashes. Some owners had started rebuilding, while others had clearly had enough and just let the eerie cement foundations stand where their dream houses in the woods once did.
This morning, before driving to the airport to fly to work and contribute to the current carbon dioxide problem (now rising 10 times faster than at any point in the past 50,000 years), I went for a walk in the woods with my dog. The air was crisp and cool, a few small snow patches still lingered in the shade and it was easy to forget the world’s “interesting” problems. As my dog and I walked back into town, I saw the many pine-beetle killed trees and the cedar shake roofs on an older subdivision. Cedar is naturally fire resistant when wet, but those shingles were looking pretty dry.
Many municipalities in California and other fire-prone areas have outlawed shake roofs, and as I saw the dry shakes I thought, “That seems stupid. Why?” I then went home and started my four-litre gas engine to drive to my waiting airplane ride south. Just like the cedar shake roof owners, my truck can’t be the problem… As Simon and Garfunkel sang, “Hello Hypocrisy, my old friend” (that’s how it goes, right?). I think I’ll just blame Trudeau, it’s easier than taking responsibility for my own role in the situation.
And this is the great dilemma, and a fine opportunity to close this somewhat depressing piece out with another perfect Einstein quote: “You can’t make a man change when his work depends on not changing.” I very much hope that by the time you read this, we have Middle East peace, a clear atmosphere, no more fake Einstein quotes and that my media algorithm stops being so damn depressing. Until then, the only real cure is to walk in the woods with like-minded dogs or people, which seems to temporarily cure about anything. Maybe walking in the grasslands will do the same?
Oh, and I just found out that the Confucian quote was likely fake news from the 1930s, fabricated because, at that time, China was the “unknowable Einstein.” Or maybe someone made that up too. If you can’t beat the alternative facts crew, then at least we can laugh, and that helps almost as much as watching my dog bark at her shadow.
This article was originally published in the Summer 2024 issue.
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