Climate change grabs New York by the throat
There is a bulky white structure in my little village by the Hudson river in New York just north of the Bronx. It has a 19th-century solidity to it and, on most days, offers a lovely prospect. As you descend the driveway, you see the flowing Hudson and the verdant hills on the other bank on the way down. Its past lives include stints as a brewery, Bible printer and US Navy office. These days its filled with the sorts of niche businesses that suburban New Yorkers need, including a CrossFit studio, co-working spaces and the karate dojo where my younger son trains. I take him on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, listening to him talk on the way there about what hes going to learn and on the way back about how well he learned. In just a few hours the weather had gone from overcast to smoggy and oppressive. The air felt heavy; a few deep breaths left a slight sting in the throatThis Tuesdays return conversation was different. It looks like the world is ending, he said, getting into the car in his purple-belted uniform. In just a few hours the weather had gone from overcast to smoggy and oppressive. The air felt heavy; a few deep breaths left a slight sting in the throat. Wednesday was worse. Our office is on the 16th storey in East Midtown, and over the course of the day the usually glorious view from the windows had become obscured. When I walked outside to get lunch, more people were masked than unmasked for the first time in a couple of years. The air smelled like an old campfire, smoky and slightly fetid. When I walked outside to get lunch, more people were masked than unmasked for the first time in a couple of years. The air smelled like an old campfire, smoky and slightly fetidA couple of hours later I was waiting for a guest in the buildings lobby. One of the security guards said her husband was a street-cleaner and was on the job outside. She was getting ready to admonish his boss, and working herself up before calling him (He knows I dont play, she said, shaking her head. My man should not be outside today.) My sons texted a picture of themselves wearing masks on the way home from school, the sky behind them an ominous, looming taupe. They had experienced smogs like this before. We lived in Singapore for a few years: when winds brought haze from burning forests in Indonesia, they went to school masked. I had been in Beijing and Delhi on bad-air days, and had learned to distinguish the chemical acridness of the former from the wood-smoke smell of the latter. Years before east Asia, when we lived in Moscow, we wheezed through a summer of stagnant, low-hanging yellow smoke from peat fires in the surrounding forests. And of course wed seen pictures of San Francisco during the horrible wildfire season two years ago and thought, glad we dont live there. Glad that kind of thing doesnt happen in the northeast. Except, of course, it does. That is the abiding lesson of these wildfires. Climate change isnt happening there and we are not safe from its effects here. It is happening everywhere, to all of us, all the time. Jon Fasman is The Economists American business and society correspondent images: Xinhua / Zuma / Redux / New York Times / Eyevine