Rob Lewis

The methods we use, and the words that come with them, seem to be widening the distance between us. What we call the climate is really the earth, and measurement doesn’t always equal understanding.

It’s not that human carbon emissions don’t matter; they matter hugely. It’s that they aren’t the only matter, and are intimately coupled with the land and our treatment of it.

Logging interests and the U.S. Forest Service have a history of using the wildfire threat to create “emergency” authority to bypass environmental reviews and curtail judicial oversight.

It comes in a box with a picture of a fire extinguisher on the front. Below it the words: Guaranteed to stop wildfires. But when you open it up there’s a chainsaw inside. Tucked beside it is a piece a piece of paper saying “Now without citizen overview!”

The work of restoration will continue, as the Tongva return native species to the land while reviving ceremonial and cultural practices. In the midst of ash and loss, a human relationship to land and water over 2,500 years old is resuming. It may be the LA basin’s most hopeful acre.

But like it’s subject, life, this movement is self-generating. Roots are spreading and it can only grow. Eventually, mainstream journalism will take notice. At that point, the narrative is generating its own rain.