When I lived in southwestern Ontario I can not remember any alerts for smoke. Even as a young married woman (just 20 years of age) when my husband and I took our canoe up into Northern Ontario throughout the summer months we would still find snow hidden in the crevices protected from the sun. It was always cool at night but now with global warming (Canada is not one of the top ten nations that are considered to be the worst offenders causing global warming) the forest bed is hot and dry and with thousands of lightning strikes we are lucky actually with how few forest fires are burning as the potential is much much higher. The rain today will help to dampen the land and put the fires under control. We have massive forests having traveled in them by canoe and they are all over the northern part of most of the provinces as well as down into the south of many of them; Canada has the second largest land mass in the world and the maintenance of our forests is high on our agenda but just one large maple tree in my back yard produces enough dead wood/leaves on the ground to fill thirty large recycling bags every summer. One tree and we have billions of them. The rotting dead lumber in the forests enriches the ground and helps to retain the moisture and keep the forest from getting to be too hot in the undergrowth. Nonetheless we do clear large swathes of the forests throughout the summer (good to make pulp with for sure; yet another industry that Canada has). There are fires burning all over North America at the moment but we do have the most forest and Canada is warming up twice as fast as countries further to the south of us because of global warming. But the trees capture carbon and help protect us from global warming; it is a difficult tradeoff actually but we are better off with our forests in this world but perfectly manicured woods are possible in City Parks, built up residential areas and that is why there are so many forest fires burning in Canada, in the United States and in Mexico (all of North America). It is called Global Warming and if one believes the scientists will lead us to a new ice age and then we do not have to worry about Forest Fires! However the last Ice Age likely killed off Homo neanderthalensis so we continue doing the best we can controlling the fires, helping our neighbours to combat their fires as we are lucky to only have fires in the brief summer period whereas fires to the south of us burn all year round and the smoke travels where it travels (the air streams tend to be out of the southwest and into the northeast so we are not free of smoke either from fires to the south of us when our forest fires are dampened down for the long winter times).
Reading the first chapter of Judges and the Israelis continued to take over the Promised Land as God had commanded. Reviewing in my mind the intent of God the Creator throughout these first books of the Bible. There were many gods worshiped on earth by the early peoples but God wanted the people to know that He alone was the True God, the Creator God and He freed the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt and brought them back to the Promised Land. The land which Abraham purchased and where Abraham had walked and talked with God and God had told Abraham that He would make a mighty nation of his descendants and they would always live in this Promised Land (Israel). In the second chapter already time has passed and God wants the heathens driven out of the Promised Land as He had made Convenant with Moses and Joshua that that would happen as the Israelis took over the Promised Land. God wanted no craven images of supposed gods/no altars built to celebrate these fake gods in His Holy Land which he had given to the Israelis. I will continue reading and tomorrow will think more on all these chapters.
Having been raised Anglican I am knowledgeable of these thoughts on the Creator God. They were frightening to me as a child and it is only in my early 80s now that I truly can understand why the Creator God went to such lengths to teach the peoples of Israel, His chosen people how they needed to live in order for Him to live amongst them. Greed has to disappear from our world because it destroys; the desire to take what is not yours has to disappear from this world because it destroys and it was Jesus who brought us that message to encourage us to continue with our closeness to God and His Commandments and Jesus gave us the very basic knowledge that can bring peace to all the peoples of the world - Love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind and love your neighbour as yourself (that eliminates greed from our life). It is greed that destroys the very fabric of life.
Saturday and it is generally a quiet day as I avoid going anywhere. Today though is a rainy one and the air, although full of smoke, will be cleansed somewhat.
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