Perhaps you know, perhaps you don't.  As I write this, the little town of Jasper, Alberta, has been evacuated and Jasper National Park has been closed due to encroaching wildfires.  Emergency personnel estimate that over 25,000 people have been forced to leave the area.  It's awful in every way:  awful for the residents of Jasper, awful for the vacationers in the area, and horribly awful for the forest itself.

    At the root of this conflagration is the effects of climate change:  a rapidly warming planet.  While many of us in the West can retreat into our air conditioned cars and homes and, relatively speaking, insulate ourselves from, at least for a time, the impact of intensely hot weather, the mountains, lakes, forests, and animals of Jasper cannot.  They are suffering immensely from the unwillingness of many people, principally in the West, to mitigate their use of fossil fuels.

    It should not be their problem.  But it is.  And the results are tragic.

    Pray for Jasper.  Pray for its landscapes, pray for its wildlife, pray for its people.  And pray for humankind.