Nature's resilience

I was in a part of Oregon that was hit hard by wildfires, last year, and while there were barren hillsides with nothing but tree trunks left to remind you a forest once covered these mountains, I also saw trees with scorched sides still sprouting green. A lot was destroyed. You can still smell traces of the smoke, and piles of burned logs were everywhere. I lost count of how many place I passed that had one been homes and now were just free-standing chimneys, or where new houses were being built. But there was still so much left, it startled me.

This is the area I was in, the driveway off the road. The house was spared but a shed holding irreplaceable archives was destroyed. And looking up I could see where branches that were once thick with leaves were now barren. But above them, the trees continued to grow,

When the climate finally turns completely on us, the planet will continue to build and grow and develop. We cannot destroy it, no matter how hard we try. New species will come up from the depths of the ocean to take over the land. It may take millions of years, but it will happen, and it will be as if we never existed. It's only our unimaginable arrogance that lets us think otherwise.

I finished Eamonn McCann's book and have copious notes from it, to reference. Tomorrow's trip may be spent reading Battle of Bogside. I tried to start it on the trip here, but zoned out so watched Cruella on American's entertainment system. Hmph, re-imagining Cruella DeVil as a hurt orphan who just wanted to design clothes but then went out for revenge over the death of her mother. Spread over more than 2 hours. Amazingly produced and the costumes were amazing, but the script was very ABC...

I went to Powell's, in downtown Portland, after I was done and found a couple more books I wanted. One deals with the British Army's excuses for its atrocious actions in Northern Ireland, as written by a British officer. This should be interesting. The other is another account of the hunger strikes of 1981. That's not as demanding, at the moment, because it's happening in Book 3, when Brendan returns to Derry.

So...tomorrow to home...