Wildfire eclipse
A pause for thought in the midst of drought, Welsh wildfires and a solar eclipse
Hello, how are you?
I'm on a much needed holiday, my partner and I headed West to meet friends on a small campsite in Wales.
"Prepare yourself," I was told before we left. "You won't find the landscape you're used to and it might be upsetting."
If you are far from this island, you possibly associate the UK with grey skies and rain. Usually you would be correct, Wales in particular gets the kind of rain that turns Land a lush, rolling green. Deep, dark Celtic rainforests; misty, moss covered castles; mountains covered in rich forests and purple heather.
But this year Wales is experiencing both a drought and scorching heat. It feels like Portugal and far too many of the fields are yellow and brown. The rivers are low, the farmers are deeply worried and the habitats that support insects, animals and birds are stressed.
With the drought has come wildfires.
We woke up one morning with the campsite filled with smoke as if a bonfire had been lit in a neighbouring field. We'd been monitoring the wildfires to stay safe and give the fire services the space they need, but the high temperatures had caused the smoke to spread. The smoke broke the trance of the tiny utopia we'd built amidst the trees and the cooling river. Fire is both friend and deadly enemy. The arrival of its smell brings not just sore throats and stinging eyes but vigilance and fear.
Plumes of wildfire smoke. A fire warning sign up on the Bannau Brycheiniog mountain range.
Interstellar special
That evening was the solar eclipse. We climbed a hill with cardboard boxes for pinhole cameras and sat looking out at an altered landscape with plumes of wildfire smoke now on two sides of the horizon.
The solar eclipses we experience on Earth are extraordinary on an intergalactic scale. They are the kind of deeply special moment that - once we establish contact with other planets - will bring interstellar tourists to Earth to gasp at the outstanding alignments within our solar system.
We have a planet that is incredible. I'm not just talking about Earth's beauty or the fact that you and I exist simply because this the only remotely habitable planet in our solar system, I'm talking worth fighting for on an intergalactically amazing level!
High tech. Low tech.
With that in mind I sat on the hill with my loved ones and hoped with every fibre of my small Earthborn being that this can be the turning point. That the fires burning here and around the world mean we collectively stop Big Oil and end the burning of fossil fuels forever. That's what it will take, that is what is needed.
There is no magic wand, however, and we're in the midst of a backlash that is trying to blame environmentalists and 'rewilding' for the wildfires. I met an elderly man yesterday who was angry at people doing things for the environment and at peat in particular. I later saw everything he'd said on the frontpage of The Daily Mail. The world is on fire and people are being taught to hate 'the environment'.
That conversation prompted me to read more in defense of rewilding and the protection of peatlands. (It turns out the purple heather I mentioned at the start of this letter is 'flammable and unnatural.')
Anna Gilchrist
Weird time to write a book
The wildfires are also making me think a lot about my book. To write Charity Shop World I spent months in a stockroom surrounded by society’s leftovers. At a critical moment in the climate crisis, I faced constant doubt. Climate change due to human activity is a scientific fact - was writing a book about the entanglement of people and stuff the right thing to do?
But the more I saw, the more I wanted to communicate what it feels like to face up to the detritus of our society. To encounter it in the back rooms of the shops we walk past on a weekly basis, to not just witness it but to handle, piece by piece and rubbish sack by rubbish sack, the endless mountain of stuff. A mountain made up of the lie that capitalism is a healthy system.
Before I left for Wales, I had a really nice email from someone who was sent an advanced copy of the book. She wrote: 'I have so many people ask me to recommend a book to read as a starting point to understanding “sustainable fashion” and (despite the specificity of the subject) I think this really could be it.'
That made me feel like the months in the stockroom were worth it. It has reaffirmed my belief that those of us investigating and campaigning to make the world a better, more inhabitable place for all must keep revealing systems and pointing people towards recognisable pressure points for change. With the mountains on fire, the crisis needs to be made understandable and accessible and point people towards capitalism and Big Oil, not environmental scientists.
Not long to go now before 3rd September. As ever it would be truly wonderful if you were able to pre-order Charity Shop World.
Here is a video from inside the beautiful utopia:
Holiday snaps
Thank you for reading, it means a lot to me that you are here. Wishing you rain!
In solidarity, Tansy.
p.s. Please check out my Events page - lots of Charity Shop World events happening, with more to be added:
Tansy Hoskins