Let's Find Common Ground
I wish I could bring you good tidings, my friends. I wish I could tell you, with some amount confidence, that it will all be ok. But my thoughts are clouded today — obscured by the heavy smoke that has enveloped the California Bay Area over the past few days. And by the ash — the remnants of trees, flowers, homes, pets, wild things, and even fellow humans swallowed by the wildfires ravaging across the West Coast — that’s coating every surface outside my window.
And then there’s the horror that befell New York City on this date 19 years ago, barely two months after I’d moved across oceans to live there. No matter how much time passes, waking up to September 11 is always a gut punch. The smoke and ash in the air today are bringing back too many painful memories of that other ash-filled sky on an otherwise clear blue day, and of the nearly 3,000 lives we lost when terrorists flew two passenger-filled planes into the Twin Towers.
It was a calamity we didn’t see coming, so it caught us unprepared.
But the natural calamities we are facing right now — drought and wildfires in the West, flooding and hurricanes in the East — we have known these were coming at us for more than three decades at the very least. And still, we have been caught unprepared.
The morning of September 11, 2001 brought great tragedy upon this nation. But we managed to band together, perhaps imperfectly, and find our way through. On this day of remembrance, I can only hope that we will again be able to unite in some fashion, and find our way out of climate chaos.
Maureen Nandini Mitra
Editor, Earth Island Journal
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