7.You could have been forgiven for seeing the cloud mushrooming over the hills behind the lagoons as an integral part of that tranquil scene, with ribbons of cloud streaming across the length of the hills. Most people did not even look up from their mobile phones as the cloud boiled in slow motion.
8. According to French media, the fire probably started with a still lit cigarette from a vehicle; an ignorant, or malicious act. I hope whoever did it is caught and punished but that act is hardly the root cause of what is playing out in the Aude and other parts of Southern Europe.
9. The climate crisis is an obvious cause and also a symptom. A root cause of the climate crisis may be our seeming human incapacity to grasp the climate catastrophes that are unfolding in slow motion when you’re not directly affected.
10. But there’s something more malign at play here in the neoliberal dogmas and systems that have been clever enough to get us to look away from the collapse of living systems. If people can’t see it, they’ll carry on not adapting and, god forbid, mitigating.
11. I only went to Narbonne and surrounding areas for a few days but loved it there. I hope it thrives and finds ways of dealing with recurrent wild fires.
12. I hope I can keep those scenes of the wildfire clouds to the fore of my mind so that, in whatever way I can, I challenge the psychologies and toxic systems that caused it. Ultimately it’s ugly stuff and a threat to everything that thrives.