The Sunday Read: ‘This Isn’t the California I Married’

<p>Elizabeth Weil, the author of today’s Sunday Read, writes that, in her marriage, there was a silent third spouse: California.</p><p>“The state was dramatic and a handful,” Weil writes. “But she was gorgeous, and she brought into our lives, through the natural world, all the treasure and magic we’d need.”</p><p>However, for Weil, there is internal conflict living in a state where wildfires have become the norm. She describes living through a discontinuity in which previously held logic fails to stand up to reality.</p><p>Today, Weil analyzes the sources of California’s crisis — from the impact of colonization and the systemic erasure of Indigenous practices to the significant loss of fire-management practices and critical dryness caused by global warming.</p><p>In California, as in much of the world, climate anxiety and climate futurism coalesce into trans-apocalyptic pessimism. But, in spite of the doom, Weil suggests the situation is not completely devoid of hope.</p><p><i>To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, </i><a href="https://www.audm.com/?utm_source=nytmag&utm_medium=embed&utm_campaign=forever_fire_weil" target="_blank"><i>download Audm for iPhone or Android</i></a><i>.</i></p>