Thinking through smoke

Vast firestorms across a series of Canadian provinces sent huge plumes of smoke aloft, as I noted on Sunday. Those clouds have since drifted south, across the international boundary, and down across several American states, including the one where my family and I have been this week.

On Wednesday Ceredwyn and I were in Fredericksburg, Virginia to address the Reclaim Open conference (my blog post with all slides; full recording). That morning as we walked across campus the skies looked… wrong: extremely hazy, the sun dimmed as if behind layers of gauze.

When Reclaim ended, Ceredwyn and I headed out. We drove to the edge of town to eat a delicious meal at an Indian restaurant, then checked the skies. A kind of mist seemed to have enveloped us. You could stare at the sun, directly, for several seconds at a time.

My son took this photo Thursday morning, and if I zoom in a little you can see the haze right on the ground, blotting out the train tracks and sprawling across the horizon to the right: