Fire on the Mountain

July 5, 2006

Going on a trip this summer? Chances are you’ll hear something about the local impact of global warming just about anywhere you go in America.
Forest fires, floods, hurricanes, drought... Sure, some Americans still scoff at global warming when the likes of drug-addled Rush Limbaugh and the right-wing media pooh-pooh it as not even existing. But increasingly, it’s a topic of concern just about everywhere you go in America.
It was certainly the talk in Sedona, Arizona last week where the hottest decade in the past 2,000 years played a role in a devastating fire. The fire destroyed 4,200 acres just outside of town in beautiful Oak Creek Canyon. You could see its smoke blotting the sun more than 150 miles away. And the smoky haze made for lovely tangerine neon sunsets -- probably what the last people on earth will see when we roast ourselves to extinction.
One of the casualties was Sedona’s tourist economy. Each year, up to 80,000 hikers travel to the New Agey town in central Arizona to hike the canyon trails through spectacular red rock formations. But because of the fire -- which threatened to burn down the town -- foresters closed Oak Creek Canyon and the Coconino National Forest to visitors, possibly until September. That means no hiking, jeep tours, horseback rides, hot air balloon trips or camping during the height of the tourist season... and that means empty hotels, restaurants and gift shops.
You could see the fire up on the mountain above town at night, blazing like the devil’s hairpiece. In the morning, what looked like a gorgeous Irish mist turned out to be a pall of smoke settling over miles of desert in the 105-degree heat.
You want sad? In Sedona, people whose lives depend on the tourist industry looked like they were going to cry when they talked about the fire and the forest closure. Imagine if all of the beaches and lakes of Northern Michigan were closed for the summer. It would mean the death of scores of businesses and many dreams up in smoke.
Former Vice President Al Gore claims that the colossal forest fires of the past few years are due to global warming and the drying out of the American West. Sedona isn’t the only example: just to the north, hundreds of people were stranded on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park by the 50,000-acre Warm Fire.
Elsewhere, Durango, Colorado (the “Traverse City of the Southwest”) is one of many towns in the Rockies which suffered an early snow melt this year, creating less river water from mountain run-off. Colorado’s Division of Wildlife believes global warming may be to blame. Again, local tourism is taking a hit: a water diversion scheme to supply a big housing development in Durango is expected to lower the depleted Animas River, wrecking the town’s popular white-water rafting tours.
At Lake Powell on the Arizona/Utah border, the Colorado River is way down due to drought, exposing sections of the Glen Canyon Dam that haven’t been seen in nearly 50 years. In Minnesota, “Land of 10,000 lakes,” residents are worried that plans for massive ethanol plants will drain the state of its water resources.
And so it goes. But the good news is that before you know it we’ll be past the summer droughts and fires and into the hurricane season and the symptoms of global warming will be someone else’s problem.
Funny, but when you‘re a stranger in town, someone else‘s global warming problem seems more urgent and alarming than it does to the locals who‘ve had time to digest the news that their world is changing. Here in Northern Michigan, for instance, we now take it for granted that the ski industry is doomed in the long run due to global warming and it‘s been reported that our climate will be similar to that of Kentucky‘s by mid-century.
But no one seems particularly alarmed about our situation, even though the aggregate of similar conditions around the world could spell the end of civilization and the return of time-honored traditions such as, say, cannibalism, for instance. (For more on this, check out the bestselling book, “Collapse,” by Jared Diamond about how climate changes destroyed thriving civilizations of the past.)
Although plenty of people are talking about global warming in the West and the South, you seldom (okay, never) hear anyone suggest that it might be a good idea to do something on an individual level about it, like getting rid of their gas guzzlers. The doors to the casinos in Las Vegas are wide open to the 107-degree heat, trying to air-condition the ghastly desert. And the coal plants of Arizona blast away, providing more smoke and power, the fires burn higher, and the western sun gets redder.