This drying land loses its capacity to retain water, even as it comes down in torrents in the wet season, and the glaciers don't easily accumulate again after they have melted away, leaving exposed rock darker in color with its own local warming effect.
At the same time, the deterioration of our political economy has produced a lasting bridge failure, cutting us off from the outside world, which carries with it many contradictory effects, including a protective effect, in which there isn't a steady stream of motor vehicles coming in, producing their sparks and their flammable trash heaps and their undisciplined campfires, among other hazards, so that we may be somewhat insulated from wildfire here, for now, even as dry as the woods have become.
And the wild, however confused and stressed it may be from the increasingly chaotic climate, becomes more wild itself as the people pressure is lifted, setting free its own inner productive forces and resources. We've seen exploding elk, deer, and bird populations, and the rapid growth of apex predators in conversation with them. And the trailing blackberry (I believe) vines, their toes no longer repeatedly crushed and amputated, discover a newfound imperiousness, and venture out across the abandoned highway. May we live in interesting times.
