WASHINGTON POST • June 30, 2021
Unprecedented is becoming the norm. In less than a year, there’s been a full week where I couldn’t leave my house because of the smoke from nearby wildfires, an ice storm that left thousands of Oregonians without power, and now this heat wave. It’s only June. It is easy to conjure ways to make the ever-warming Pacific Northwest more livable for humans. Coastal areas can practice “managed retreats,” so people’s homes no longer lie on flood plains. We can repair asphalt that ruptured in the heat and put new wires on cable cars. More families can put air conditioning in their homes. But for the plants and creatures that live outside, all we can do is triage. ~ Tove Danovich, Portland, Ore.