Dr James Allan: Climate Change Giving Meaning to Life

The religious mindset embraces the belief that there is more to life than the material world of the senses. There are truths that transcend the here and now. Things that give a non-contingent meaning to human existence. This is obvious with the monotheistic religions, and a little less obvious with Buddhism and polytheistic beliefs. Still, the appeal of this sort of belief in transcendent truths is pretty obvious. That means that not all that many people who reject established religions will move over to some sort of David Hume or Bertrand Russell-type sceptical view that what you see is what you get – we are here because of the fortuitous collisions of trillions of atoms, lots of time and even more luck. As Hume famously said, “the life of a man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster”.

Peter Savodnik: ‘Everything Is Gone’

In the wake of the disaster that will be known collectively as the Los Angeles Fire but was really three or four or even five big fires pressing in on the city from the north and east, we can now start taking stock of the size of this catastrophe.

Some 36,000 acres have burned, or 56 square miles, more than the footprint of Miami.