Life Will Find A Way

"Life Will Find A Way" is one of my favorite lines from Jurassic Park, and was written by one of the best climate realists - Michael Crichton

In 1950, an orphaned bear cub was found after a fire in New Mexico. He became known as Smokey the Bear, and became the symbol of man's attempt to stop hundreds of millions of years of forest fires. But the forest needs fire to regenerate, and nature takes care of itself.

Los Alamos, New Mexico had forest fires in 1977, 2000 and 2011. The forest had become terribly overgrown because of decades of fire suppression. The 2000 fire was started by the US Park Service during high winds as a "controlled burn" - and burned up 400 houses. The 2011 fire was started by a power line. After these fires, many people in Los Alamos thought it was the end of the world. I took a different approach and wrote an editorial in the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper, explaining that fires in 1890 created the spectacular Aspen groves which the Santa Fe Ski Basin is now famous for.

This is what Los Alamos looked like yesterday. Life found a way.