California Wildfires: An Apocalyptic Scenario

California Wildfires, September 9, 2020

A Red Dawn

Lowry and I woke early this a.m. to an apocalyptic dawn and messages from our niece. She and other friends and family have had to evacuate their homes because of the raging California wildfires. We can’t help but feel that current events reflect warnings about changes to our planet that date back decades.

Climate Change

Clearly these wildfires, along with ice shelf melt, are a result of long-predicted climate change. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.”

An Apocalyptic Vision

Even before writing my “zombie” novel Dead Love, I’d studied post-apocalyptic scenarios in non-fiction and science fiction, which often mirrors the newest science. This morning I witnessed a world channeled by my half-zombie heroine, Erin Orison, back in 2010.

Barbeque Sky

In this bloody barbeque of a sunset

gulls sweep over the salt sea

where it has turned pink—

a chemical pink, not like flamingos,

like iron.

There is a smell in the air like sulfides.

The lake has a head on it, foaming and poisonous,

and the skies brood over us, a simmering cauldron,

red at night,

yellow madder by day.

—Erin Orison

A Darkening Vision

This photo (Lowry McFerrin, September 9, 2020) is testament to the changes that can occur when we sacrifice oceans, rainforests (the lungs of our planet), and all that has created our garden world to the greed of a few. We need to press for a turnaround in the hope that there is still time.