Climate futurist says we’re in a trans-apocalyptic period

A writer says, California’s “honeymoon is over for its residents now that wildfires are almost constant”

Parker Creek Fire
Parker Creek Fire, December 15, 2021. Texas Forest Service photo.

Sunday night as I watched the Season 4 finale of Yellowstone, John Dutton, played by Kevin Costner, was talking with another character who said, “I’m terrified of the world we’re leaving (for my grandchildren). I honestly don’t know what this place will look like in 100 years.”

“Grass will cover the streets, and weeds will cover the rooftops,” Dutton said. “I don’t think we make it 100 years.”

I have been thinking about wildfire smoke recently, and how during the last two years massive plumes of smoke from fires in the western states have often migrated east, sending hazardous air laden with tiny PM2.5 particles (2.5 micrometers and smaller) across a dozen states. I learned in a Smoke Management class that if you could drop a PM2.5 particle from eight feet high in a room with still air, it would take about eight hours for it to reach the floor. Smoke with these pollutants is easily transported hundreds or thousands of miles across state and international boundaries. Canada and the United States seem to take turns exporting PM2.5 across the border.

Satellite photo, wildfires,
As the sun begins to set on the west coast, gray smoke from wildfires can be easily distinguished from white clouds. NOAA, GOES 17.

In research published online last week in the journal Toxicological Sciences, researchers reported that inhaled microscopic particles from woodsmoke such as PM2.5 work their way into the bloodstream and reach the brain, and may put people at risk for neurological problems ranging from premature aging and various forms of dementia to depression and even psychosis.

Extreme weather conditions that a few decades ago were rare are occurring more frequently, sometime establishing conditions suitable for extreme fire behavior. If this trend continues to increase, where will we be in 10, 20, or 30 years? Or 100 years? Grass on the streets and weeds on rooftops?

Widespread smoke is just one of the symptoms of how climate change is degrading the quality of life for many people on this planet. In the article described below, the author wrote that a researcher told her that “Wildfire is literally making it unsafe to be pregnant in California.”

The article by Elizabeth Weil published Monday in New York Times Magazine is well worth your time. It is a long form piece looking at how wildfires are changing, and the effects. She examines most of the issues that are involved — weather, climate, prescribed fire, indigenous fire, fuel breaks, “managed” fire, human health, fire resistant construction, and the home ignition zone —  in a style that makes you want to keep reading, and hoping that you don’t get to the end of the article in the next paragraph or two.

It is behind a pay wall, but that’s the life we have now, or are moving toward. (Yes, even Wildfire Today has considered a subscription fee.)

(UPDATE Jan. 4, 2021: AZFFT found an accessible copy of the article at
https://www.propublica.org/article/californias-forever-fire)

Here are excerpts from the article, titled, This Isn’t the California I Married — The honeymoon’s over for its residents now that wildfires are almost constant. Has living in this natural wonderland lost its magic?


…Aching and eager to escape my own boring loop of depressive thoughts, I met with Alex Steffen, a climate futurist, on the back patio of a bar in Berkeley. Steffen, a 53-year-old mountain of a man with a crystal-ball-bald pate, hosts a podcast and publishes a newsletter called “The Snap Forward.” The idea behind both is that the climate crisis has caused us to get lost in time and space; we need to dig ourselves out of nostalgia and face the world as it exists. As he explained to me in his confident baritone, yes, California, and the world, are in bad shape. But the situation is not as devoid of hope as we believe. “We have this idea that the world is either normal and in continuity with what we’ve expected, or it’s the apocalypse, it’s the end of everything — and neither are true,” he said. That orange sky in 2020? “We’re all like, Wow, the sky is apocalyptic! But it’s not apocalyptic. If you can wake up and go to work in the morning, you’re not in an apocalypse, right?”

The more accurate assessment, according to Steffen, is that we’re “trans-apocalyptic.” We’re in the middle of an ongoing crisis, or really a linked series of crises, and we need to learn to be “native to now.” Our lives are going to become — or, really, they already are (the desire to keep talking about the present as the future is intense) — defined by “constant engagement with ecological realities,” floods, dry wells, fires. And there’s no opting out. What does that even mean?

We’re living through a discontinuity. This is Steffen’s core point. “Discontinuity is a moment where the experience and expertise you’ve built up over time cease to work,” he said. “It is extremely stressful, emotionally, to go through a process of understanding the world as we thought it was, is no longer there.” No kidding. “There’s real grief and loss. There’s the shock that comes with recognizing that you are unprepared for what has already happened.”

Relinquishing the idea of normal will require strength, levelheadedness, optimism and bravery, the grit to keep clinging to some thin vine of hope as we swing out of the wreckage toward some solid ground that we cannot yet see. “We’re no longer dealing with a fire regime in the woods that responds to the kinds of mild prevention and mild responses, the sensible responses we have thought about, and that thought alone is a crisis,” Steffen said. “It means the lives we had we no longer have.”

This brings us to one other forest- management tool in the knife: “managed wildfire.” This one, however, does not always pair well with the other overabundant species out there in California: people. 

This summer, in Kings Canyon, as the wildfires approached, firefighters wrapped giant sequoias in aluminum foil. This included General Sherman — 2,200 years old and the largest single tree on Earth. This act was meager, and it was devotional. It’s what we’ve got now. The good news is, some of the moves we need to make are easier, more straightforward and more under our control than we imagined, if we’d just allow ourselves to get them done. The bad news is that there is just going to be loss. We’re not used to thinking about the world that way. We’re not used to paying for our mistakes.


Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Tom.

Typos, let us know HERE, and specify which article. Please read the commenting rules before you post a comment.

Author: Bill Gabbert

After working full time in wildland fire for 33 years, he continues to learn, and strives to be a Student of Fire.

18 thoughts on “Climate futurist says we’re in a trans-apocalyptic period”

  1. only thing i see is human stupidity and an uncontrollable population boom – we spend 100s of BILLIONS s year building bombs, plans, tanks and other useless equipment that are parked somewhere gathering dust waiting to be obsolete.. yet hundreds of planes that able to out of fires when they start (and are small) are not available to this day – we aint got the money for it.. but we have money for bombs.. human stupidity has no limits

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  2. Really its a pretty good article about accepting the situation we are in now rather pining for a lost past or saying its the apocalypse. Pretty clear sighted about the nature of the problem in wildfire; its multifaceted with government at all levels and private landowners all sharing responsibility for the issues of today.

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  3. Odd analogy but I see the residents reliance on the government to cover their acceptance of risk is similar to the crop insurance programs. Farmers plant say soy beans (high end cash crop) in areas not suited for them because the government will pay for their failure year after year. It is a very odd relationship with the government they dislike, just like the residents of these towns.

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    1. Its a good analogy. Seems the people who hate government the most wind up at the from of the line when the handouts arrive.

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  4. A few years ago, El Dorado county in California tried to get a parcel fee approved by the voters to improve fire protection in the county. It was defeated, people felt they couldn’t afford yet another tax on their property. The parcel fee, if I remember correctly was about $75 dollars a year. The median price for a home in the county is $646,000. I suspect most of the no votes came from homeowners in the more developed parts of the county where they possibly felt insulated from wildfires. They might want to reconsider after seeing the destruction in Colorado this last week.

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  5. First of all, NOBODY knows what the world will look like in 100 years, or even next year for that matter. This winter could be the beginning of a cool, wet cycle of 10-20 years. I like the Yellowstone show but that scene was more about big money and greed and outsiders from New York, California, etc than a commentary on climate change. Secondly “unsafe to be pregnant “!?!? Is there verifiable and peer reviewed scientific data to support that? I do agree with the assertion that the best way to cope with the increase in fires the past 10 years or so and extreme weather events is through adaptations and adjustments to coexist with the new normal, while understanding that with climate and weather, change is the only constant.

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      1. Thanks for the articles on the continuing research re: the effects of wildfire smoke, especially on pregnancy. It makes sense that there could be effects, especially from non-wildland fuels, but also day after day after day of wild land fuel smoke. There are many factors that can negatively affect a pregnancy, unfortunately. I’m still skeptical about these “climate futurist” people.

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      2. Thank you for posting these links Andrew. I’ve been on the line for 19 years and have either miscarried on the line or as soon as the assignment was over- 4 times. It is the quickest way to abort without even knowing it is happening… Holding during burn operations leads to massive amounts of pm2.5 exposure that restricts oxygen in the essential development stages. It is severe. I haven’t seen info on it until now, but I have always warned my female counterparts on the line. Thank you

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  6. Apocalyptic, it’s kinda of a scary word, it’s origin comes from the book of John, foretelling the end of mankind as we know it, not necessarily the end of the world, the world will get another do over….clean slate…
    I believe no matter what we do to try and turn things around it’s much too late for that now, we passed the point of return a long time ago…..From a biblical perspective…..

    I promise I am not a nut, I am fairly kinda normal…..it is just how I see it all going down……

    However, we still need to try and do our best…..Peace……

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  7. I believe that Alex Steffen’s analysis about the “trans-apocalyptic” applies to and explains a lot of the current fear and irrational responses by people to other phenomena as well, such as covid, the general distrust of government, and various conspiracy theories. Fear of the future turns into anger, hate, and irrational behavior as people grasp for a past condition that no longer exists. Sorry, the days of Leave It To Beaver, and a Corey Stewart and Lassie forest service aren’t coming back.

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  8. Alright Bill, here’s the deal. Fed firefighters get Tim’s Act passed and I’ll have enough money to pay for a subscription to wildfire today…but I want bonus content and a tote bag.

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