In defense of the toxic wildfire smog currently healing our ozone layer

For decades, we wrung our hands over the hole we tore in the ozone layer. We banned CFCs, we stopped using aerosol hairspray, we watched helplessly as ultraviolet radiation threatened to bake the biosphere. Now, the Earth is taking matters into its own hands. Entire ecosystems are heroically immolating themselves to manufacture the exact chemical compound we were so desperate to save. It is a stunning display of planetary self-regulation. Yet instead of dropping to our knees in gratitude, the media is stubbornly framing this majestic atmospheric restoration project as a respiratory crisis.

I love the passion of scientists like Dr. Lin, even when they get bogged down in the pedantry of altitude. Whether the ozone is in the stratosphere or hovering at knee-height in a Sacramento elementary school playground, the universe is providing. During an off-the-record lunch with a prominent fossil fuel executive last month, we marveled at this exact phenomenon. He wept openly into his scallops, moved by the realization that his company’s historic emissions were simply accelerating the temperature conditions necessary for the forests to synthesize this vital gas. We are so quick to cast villains, when in reality, we are all just midwives to the Earth's fiery rebirth.

If anything, we should be increasing our extraction efforts to ensure the forests have the raw thermal momentum they need to finish the job. We owe it to the ozone. The trees have volunteered as the fuel for our planetary salvation, and it is our moral imperative to strike the match.

Of course, not everyone possesses the biological or spiritual fortitude to appreciate the mechanism at work. I have heard the complaints from local parents about their children’s soaring asthma rates, their frantic trips to the emergency room, their petty grievances about the sky smelling like burning tires. But the universe does not care about our bronchial tubes. It operates on a grander scale. When you inhale the thick, yellow smog rolling off the burning canopy, you are breathing in the raw, elemental machinery of creation. We are stardust, after all. And stardust does not require a nebulizer.

It is time we stopped fighting the flames and accepted the gift they are trying to give us. The next time you step outside and feel that sharp, chemical burn in the back of your throat, do not retreat indoors. Close your eyes, take a deep, agonizing breath, and thank the ashes for wrapping us in their suffocating embrace.