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So Sarah and I had a great wedding, as you can see from her post below. And in an unheard of turn of events we even went for four whole days following it without turning on our computers, reading the news or even checking our email. Ignorance as they say was bliss. Because as soon as we did start getting back to work this week, we were immediately struck by the magnitude of the calamity unfolding directly south of us.

This picture is from one of NASA’s satellites and it shows the smoke that’s still rising over much of Southern California. Somewhere close to one million people have been forced to evacuate from their homes, and more than a billion dollars worth of damage has already been assessed, with surely more to come. Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone affected by the wildfires, and we sincerely hope that this prods our amazingly unresponsive federal government to take the threats we all face from climate change seriously.

It should be noted that this is not a political problem, it’s a human one, it’s a planetary one. Democrats and Republicans alike (here in the States) will be affected by what we choose to do or not do. The Republican governor of California, some guy named Arnold Schwarzenegger, has taken positive steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as have many other states, cities and municipalities across America regardless of their political affiliation.

As my homie, Howard Dean likes to say, “We’re all in this together.” And indeed we are, best to everyone in SoCal, and we hope you’re all safe and sound.