Weather websites and municipalities are issuing air quality alerts because of the smoke coming from several uncontrolled forest fires, and yet people in cottage country just a few hours north of Toronto have smokepits going all day, presumably so they won’t be bothered by mosquitoes.
Never mind that said smokepits fill the whole neighbourhood with toxic smoke, worse by far than that coming from the forementioned forest fires.
Never mind that there are non-toxic (and non-trespassive) alternatives like zapper racquets and protective clothing.
A confrontation with a neighbour about this ended in a not-quite death threat: it took less than sixty seconds for the man to go from “Mind your own business!” (I am: when your smoke crosses over onto my property, it becomes my business) (not to mention, I consider the state of the planet to be, in part, my business) to “Fuck off, bitch! Why don’t you smash your head with rocks, then jump in the lake and drown?!” (Seriously. That’s what he said. He was practically foaming at the mouth.)
Surely, this is a metaphor. Our environment, our world—in this case, the very air that we breathe—is visibly overburdened, and people just carry on, doing whatever it is they’ve always done, or want to do, regardless of the consequences.
