Hazy memories of future summers

For the second summer in a row, we had to cancel a camping trip to the Sierra because of the wildfires. Day by day, as the date in early August approached for our vacation in Yosemite, we watched as blazes raged around the state, and worried that even if the flames didn’t reach the valley, ash would rain over us and turn the air noxious.

Our group ended up just south of Pescadero, where the invigorating winds blew briskly over the beach as our children frolicked in the waves, building dams in a clear stream and climbing sandstone formations. Later that night, we stargazed and munched on s’mores while my husband strummed on a ukulele and another friend played his guitar.

Happy as we were, I couldn’t help but feel that this haven was at risk, too. We could escape here now, but what about in the future? In July, wildfires sweeping through the Greek village of Mati, east of Athens, killed scores of people, including victims who tried to flee the flames by scrambling down to the sea.

I’ve been thinking about how global warming is altering our collective memory and imagination. When my twin sons are adults and look back at their childhood summers, will a haze of smoke hang over it?

In July, when we stayed in a cabin at Lake Tahoe, wildfire smoke drifted north, so thick you couldn’t see the mountains opposite the shore. As we floated down the Truckee River, the air smelled like burning. Until now, for me, the scent of the mountains has been of crisp air tinged with pine needles, above granite peaks sharp against the high dome of the sky.

But what’s going to become the norm, and what will be a rarity?

The wildfire “season” in California is seemingly year-round, and with that comes the tragic losses of life, homes and businesses. The Mendocino Complex fire is now the largest in state history, bigger than the city of Los Angeles. For those who live away from the burn zone, outdoor activities still get postponed or canceled, our eyes sting and our throats catch, and we end up trapped up inside at the times we had hoped might be most carefree.

A report by the National Wildlife Federation suggested that by the end of the century, the climate won’t be favorable to the state tree or flower in 28 states, including the Mississippi magnolia or Ohio buckeye. And unless we curb carbon emissions, San Francisco’s temperatures will become more like those in Los Angeles.

It’s hard — and disturbing — to imagine San Francisco without frigid #Fogust, our polar fleeces zipped up against the mists coming in on little cat feet. Without the atmospheric backdrop of noir movies and the bane of unprepared tourists, all while climate change imperils populations, stirring up destructive weather patterns and leading to rising oceans that swamp shorelines worldwide.

Over the weekend, I was picnicking with another family in the East Bay and we studied the ominous tea-colored skies, wondering if we should go inside. As depressing as it feels now, my friend said, she was heartened to consider how global efforts to shrink the ozone hole — which began in the mid-1980s with the ban of emissions of chlorofluorocarbons in refrigerators and aerosol propellants — are working.

It also reminded me of how Los Angeles fought back against its horrendous smog that was synonymous with the city, due to emissions spewing from cars and refineries. The polluted air triggered asthma attacks, and led to difficulty breathing and lung damage. But federal laws such as the Clean Air Act and tightened emission standards, catalytic converters for vehicles and other remedies helped clear up the skies — which are still less than pristine, but much improved.

All of that gives me hope, but hope means nothing, of course, if we don’t take action, if we don’t call upon or vote in elected officials who enact and enforce laws to protect and restore balance to the environment, if we don’t make changes in our own lives to reduce our impact, and model those actions for our children, to keep up the fight.

It will still take decades to restore the protective ozone layer, until perhaps 2080, scientists say. That year, my twin sons will turn 70. This week, they started the second grade, and already I can see the teenagers, the adults they will become, and I wish desperately that they, their children and every generation after will enjoy the blue skies of summer.

Hope means nothing if we don’t call upon or vote in elected officials who enact and enforce laws to protect and restore balance to the environment.