Camp Fire Forest Fire
risk and the power of perspective
From up close to perhaps a quarter of a mile away, few things evoke like the sight and smell of a camp fire..a sense of warmth or contentment, or of being at peace with nature. For something that is actually burning, a camp fire sure is comforting. The sight and smell of a camp fire transcends modernity. It’s pure and welcoming.
And it smells like a warming memory: something to huddle around.
From up close to perhaps a hundred miles away, few things evoke like the sight and smell of a forest fire…a sense of pain or dread, or of being at war with nature. For something that is actually many camp fires burning, a forest fire sure is terrifying. The sight and smell of a forest fire transcends modernity. It’s primal and horrible.
And it smells like a searing amnesia: something to flee from.
The difference between a camp fire and a forest fire, between what you huddle around and what you flee from, is not really a difference of degree, the difference between a little and a lot. Trip and fall into a camp fire and it will burn you the same as a forest fire, perhaps even worse since it’s terribly embarrassing. Rather, the difference is one of perspective. From a certain perspective, perhaps one of distance, a forest fire might seem quaint. From a certain perspective, perhaps one too close, a camp fire might seem like hell.
But it’s not a general difference in perspective that makes us toast marshmallows around one and soak rooftops around the other. Rather, it’s our perspective of control that divides the two combustions. We think we control one and not the other. That’s what a forest fire is for us, an out-of-control camp fire. And it’s that lack of perceived control that burns our confidence away like straw. But here’s the horrible marshmallow-ruining truth…we don’t control camp fires either.
Modern risks are like forest fires for us, terrifying in scale and intensity. Risks such as war, climate change, cyber crime, and resource scarcity burn through our sense of control with a ferocity that shakes us. War burns through treaties and talks; climate change burns past pollution controls and talks; cyber crime burns past firewalls and encryption; resource scarcity burns through, well, it burns through itself. We are covered in the soot of our many burning risks.
Our modern risks are enormous, and like large fires they are often literally visible from space. But these risks have been that way in scale for some time now; it’s the real-time consistent perspective from space which is new. Such a view, that shows exactly how large these risks are, burns away the false notion of locality and of control. We’re left with a fire-resistant sense of futility that adds more fuel to the fire. So we do nothing but add more fuel. Doesn’t have to be that way but it is.
It’s this additional fuel, this intensity of modern risk that is truly dangerous. Our risks burn hotter than ever. In nature, trees like the lodgepole pine and jack pine depend on relatively moderate forest fires with their relatively high but passing heat to open their resin-sealed cones (word of the day is ‘serotinous’) and spread their seeds. But today’s forest fires are burning so hot (due to an abundance of fuel and persistent drought) that the word of the day can’t protect the pine cones and they burn along with everything, including the soil. Some landscapes in the western U.S after these monster fires are almost sterilized.
Modern risks such as war with new technologies, cyber crime with new technologies, and resource scarcity with, well, it’s hard to invent new water…these risks are also burning so much hotter than before. Our long-established defenses and adjustments are turning to ash.
But all of these risks started out as camp fires. We started them. We built them. We huddled around them. We drew a circle of rocks around them and called it control.
And then we tripped and fell into them, every one of them. And the burning is even worse because it’s terribly embarrassing…
We believe we control our camp fires even though we don’t: they are, almost incomprehensibly, the cause of over half our forest fires. Yet we fear lightning more because we can’t control it. We fear nuclear war because we can’t control it so we shoot, bomb, and gas each other instead. We worry about keeping passwords and account information in a wallet because we can’t control it so we put them in a cloud. The perspective shifts and we feel it all get away from us. What was once only scary up close is now scary from a distance.
This leads to a compelling question. How far do we have to go for perspective once our risks look terrifying even from space?
