{"id":5661,"date":"2023-09-21T10:13:11","date_gmt":"2023-09-21T09:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/?p=5661"},"modified":"2023-09-21T11:08:50","modified_gmt":"2023-09-21T10:08:50","slug":"no-paradise-is-immune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/no-paradise-is-immune\/","title":{"rendered":"NO PARADISE IS IMMUNE<\/span>Marybeth Holleman<\/span>"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

There is nowhere that climate chaos will not harm. We\u2019ve heard this, again and again, and yet we cannot seem to grasp it. Even those places we call Paradise\u2014whether it\u2019s a town called Paradise, like the one in California, destroyed by fire in 2018, or places we find so perfect we call them Paradise, like the islands of Hawaii or Seychelles or Canaries\u2014even they are not immune.<\/span><\/p>\n

When fire destroyed the historic town of Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii, in August, I was shocked. I knew to expect more intense and deadly wildfires in California, Oregon, Washington, Canada; I knew to expect dangerous wildfires in Alaska where I live, too. But Hawaii?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we are preparing for a hurricane, we expect rain, sometimes we expect floods,\u201d said Hawaii Lt. Governor Sylvia Luke, \u201c We never anticipated that in this state that a hurricane which did not make impact on our islands would cause this type of wildfires.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

My favorite thing to do in Lahaina was to arrive at the Banyan Court before sunset, sit on a bench beneath the shade of that generously spreading 150-year-old banyan tree, and watch as one, then another, then dozens of mynahs flocked in from every direction, groups of them settling onto the banyan\u2019s upper canopy, their voices a growing cacophony, hundreds of them alighting, as many as a thousand. As the sky dimmed, their voices rose then began to fall, soften, the light fading, their ruckus quietened. This was one of the biggest roosting gatherings I\u2019ve ever seen, and I loved it every single time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But the fires in Lahaina turned this Paradise, this Heaven, into Hell.\u00a0 Any remaining delusion of immunity from climate chaos is burning up fast, exploding in our faces.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the thing about climate chaos: It is unexpected. It is unpredictable. The best science in the world cannot prepare us for what\u2019s coming next, for what we\u2019ve unleashed on ourselves and every other living being on this planet.<\/span><\/p>\n

We can\u2019t adapt ourselves out of this. Early on in the climate chaos conversation, we talked about mitigation and adaptation\u2014how to slow\/reverse climate chaos, and how to adapt\/adjust to the changes it brings. But most of the talk and actions are now aimed at adaptation. We\u2019re barely trying to slow it, much less reverse it. Our technological-fix society seems deluded into thinking we can adapt ourselves out of this. The fires in Lahaina give the lie to all that.<\/span><\/p>\n

And the underbelly of that deadly horror are the pineapple and sugar cane plantations run by corporations that destroyed the natural habitat and then abandoned the land, leaving non-native fire-dependent plants to colonize vacant fields, with no attempt at restoring fields to native plants and habitats. Corporations take what they want and then leave behind a mess, a tinder-box of a disaster in waiting. For instance, in Nigeria\u2019s restive Niger Delta, after earning billions in profits, international oil companies are now abandoning their onshore operations, leaving an unimaginable environmental and social catastrophe of their own making behind. This is happening all over the world, usually in places where governments are corrupt and citizen power is weak and voiceless.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Aloha<\/em> isn\u2019t just a word; it\u2019s a way of life. Every single Hawaiian I\u2019ve met over the dozens of times I\u2019ve visited there has been kind and generous. Just like that banyan \u2013 a spreading wide embrace, sheltering, holding Aloha.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The death toll in Lahaina\u2014115 dead, 388 unaccounted for\u2014surpasses another Paradise Lost: the 2018 Camp Fire in California that burned the town of Paradise to the ground. What\u2019s it going to take for us as a society to wake up? Well, one thing\u2019s for certain: we have no idea what disaster will happen next, except that it will not be like anything we\u2019ve seen before, nor anything we are\u2014or can be\u2014prepared for.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Earth is still replete with Paradise. As Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote, \u201cEarth\u2019s crammed with heaven.\u201d\u00a0 So let\u2019s love this Paradise we call Earth. We can\u2019t adapt our way out of a warming world, but we can become more flexible and creative, in both how we respond to the coming disasters and how we work to keep them from happening. It\u2019s beyond clear: we must reduce emissions. Let\u2019s keep up the good fight to reduce our emissions and to hold our governments’ feet to the fire until they do what needs to be done.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Marybeth Holleman<\/strong>\u2019s most recent book is the poetry collection tender gravity. She\u2019s also author of The Heart of the Sound, co-author of Among Wolves, and co-editor of Crosscurrents North, among others. Her award-winning work has appeared in venues including Orion, Christian Science Monitor, Sierra, Literary Mama, ISLE\/OUP, North American Review, AQR, zoomorphic, Minding Nature, The Guardian, and The Future of Nature. Raised in North Carolina\u2019s Smokies, Marybeth transplanted to Alaska’s Chugach Mountains after falling head over heels for Prince William Sound two years before the Exxon Valdez oil spill.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>www.marybethholleman.com<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Call to action: Donate to help those who lost everything in the Lahaina fire:<\/span><\/p>\n

Maui Strong: <\/span>https:\/\/www.hawaiicommunityfoundation.org\/maui-strong<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Maui Humane Society: <\/span>https:\/\/www.mauihumanesociety.org\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  There is nowhere that climate chaos will not harm. We\u2019ve heard this, again and again, and yet we cannot seem to grasp it. Even those places we call Paradise\u2014whether it\u2019s a town called Paradise, like the one in California, destroyed by fire in 2018, or places we find so perfect we call them Paradise, […]<\/p>\n

Read More… from NO PARADISE IS IMMUNE<\/span>Marybeth Holleman<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":5660,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,1],"tags":[305,1173,1172,1174,1175,1138],"yoast_head":"\nNO PARADISE IS IMMUNE - Writers Rebel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/no-paradise-is-immune\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NO PARADISE IS IMMUNE - Writers Rebel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"  There is nowhere that climate chaos will not harm. We\u2019ve heard this, again and again, and yet we cannot seem to grasp it. 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