They’re starting to call it the Pyrocene – the age of Fire.
Above, remembering 2021’s Marshall Fire, in Boulder County, Colorado, in which high winds combined with extraordinary dry conditions to blowtorch thousands of buildings.
Lytton Canada, a city in the glacial valleys of British Columbia, while reaching record temperatures of 121°F, breaking old records by a mind-blowing 17 degrees, simply burst into flames and was razed in 2021.
In 2017, the Tubbs Fire charred 5000 buildings in Santa Rosa California.
Now, Lahaina, in Maui, erased by wind driven fires after drought.
Some Native worldviews hold the end of this iteration of the world (3rd or 4th, depends) will end in fire
Nothing about angels or aliens floating down out of the sky to carry them all away to paradise …
May have been on to something
Given 10,000 years, a 3 C warming can give ecosystems a bit of time to migrate. Given 100 years? I think the burning has only just begun.
Perhaps the recent research by the Universities of Exeter and Cork is on to something.
“The rate at which Earth approaches critical levels of climate change could be as dangerous to our future as reaching these levels themselves, researchers have determined.”
https://www.ucc.ie/en/news/2023/rate-of-change-in-climate-as-dangerous-as-reaching-critical-warming-levels-and-can-trigger-tipping-points-study-finds.html
University of Exeter press release:-
“Until now, critical thresholds have been assumed to be a point of no return, but the new study – published in the journal Earth System Dynamics – concludes that dangerous rates could trigger permanent shifts in human and natural systems before these critical levels are reached.”
https://news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty-of-environment-science-and-economy/tipping-points-can-be-triggered-unexpectedly-by-dangerous-rates-of-change/