Parallel Universes

My friend Probyn Gregory has been writing about his nervousness being near the fires in LA.

Probably a lot of people have.

I assume it helps people dissipate stress, or to feel less alone.

Fortunes might change on a dime, so perhaps some want to leave a realtime record of what's going on, just in case they suddenly blink out of existence.

Some are poised to run, and want to leave hints about where they might be found in case they are delayed or blocked from their chosen destination.

Some probably want to communicate the urgency of dealing with Climate by personalizing the risk. It's too easy to think this happens only to other people. Within the US, it's often portrayed as something affecting only far away countries.

Today Probyn wrote:

“We may not live in Altadena but our lives are enmeshed in it. I see people just a mile or two away driving in rush hour presumably to work and it seems positively surreal, this facsimile of normal juxtaposed with what I feel inside, this aching sadness and not-quite-coming-to-grips.”

—Probyn Gregory on Facebook (Jan 12, 2025)

I think this is a metaphor for our nation.
And the world.

AI-Generated envisioning of a divided world: some experiencing collapse, the rest in denial.

It's not just our neighbors' world that is on the brink of collapse. We live in that same world.

Individually, some of us get it. But, collectively, as a society, we're still not quite coming to grips with how serious this is.

Time to wake up.

 

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Author's Notes:

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The image was generated at abacus.ai using Claude Sonnet 3.5 and FLUX 1.1 [pro] Ultra. The initial request was for “a generic part of downtown Los Angeles, looking down a street that divides the image into two parts. on the right hand side, show ordinary buildings and people casually moving among them, cars parked, cars driving normally, business as usual. On the right side, show parked fire engines, buildings in flames, a world in collapse.” Some post-processing was done both by the LLM and by me using GIMP.

Plutocratic Denial

First sea level came for the islanders, and I continued to deny—
   Because “those people” are poor, and this is their lot in life.

Then hurricanes took out some coastal cities, and I continued to deny—
   Because I had business elsewhere, so got in my jet and steered clear.

Then fires came for rich homes in California, and I continued to deny—
   Because I was conservative, and California was full of liberals.

Then the heat took farms and spiked food prices, but I continued to deny—
   Because this was why one hoards cash, to weather rough times.

Then, finally, no one came to my dinner parties.
   Too busy “just surviving” they said,
      those with the good manners to return an RSVP.
      What was the world coming to?
   In this moment I had an epiphany—
      This might actually involve me!
      How inconvenient, this sudden wave of truth.

By the time it all came tumbling in on me, supply chains had folded
      and there was no one left even to bribe.
   Was I the last? Would anyone read this? No way to know.
   But, I smiled, neither anyone left to deny
      that this had been just a bad run of weather.
   Nothing more.

 

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Inspired in form and spirit, of course, by Martin Niemöller's post-WWII poem “First they came...”