最近，当我的家人沿50号高速公路驶向太浩湖时，我们瞥见了去年夏天的卡尔多火灾的破坏：山脊上下的木炭森林；金属屋顶融化成水坑；烟囱从地基伸出，有些不仅仅是1,000 structures destroyed.

The sight shocked us. But it wasn’t the first time we’ve driven past the charred remnants of a megafire. Those have become a part of the West Coast landscape as much as its storied beaches and granite peaks.

For my 10-year-old twins, Didi and Gege,their childhood memories of summertake place against a backdrop of a fire season burning ever hotter, ever longer.

It’s a sickening “here we go again” ritual of checking the air quality before heading outdoors, rearranging or canceling activities, and worrying about the people caught in the crosshairs of wildfires while also wondering if the blaze might reach us too.

Hopingto get ahead of the fires, some Bay Area friends sent their children to sleepaway camps at the start of summer instead of later, rather than risk choking smoke or the possibility of an evacuation.

At sunset in Tahoe, my family skipped rocks at the beach. Gege found a smooth rock that he decided to pocket, while Didi proudly bounced a rock twice across the water.

On the other side of the lake, smoke from the Washburn Fire in Yosemite National Park was starting to drift into the Tahoe basin, a line of smudge looming over the mountains.

The next day, as the haze thickened, blurring the view, Didi said, “I don’t want to be in a fire! I don’t want my stuff to burn up.”

We assured him that the fire wasn’t nearby, but he and his twin brother have experienced threats closer to home: planned power outages, red flag warnings, asky that turned orangedue to wildfire smoke.

And for a while now, they’ve been complaining about the heat in California.

“Why can’t we go somewhere it’s raining?” Didi asked.

Places that rain in the summer are usually humid, we explained. Then he announced that when he’s an adult, he’s going to move somewhere colder.

那可能是在旧金山或沿海地区 - 如果iconic fogis still around then; it too is at risk due to climate change.

“I like Tahoe better in the winter,” Gege said. “I like the snow. Why didn’t we come more often then?”

It was adry winter, we said. Trying not to fan the proverbial flames, we didn’t mention thatglobal warming is a threat to the future of the ski industry.This week, Britain reached record highs in a heat wave, with wildfires also sweeping through parts of France and Spain.

As much as parents might want to shield their children from the gloomy forecasts, young people know what’s happening. In asurvey released last fall在10,000名受访者中，近60％（10个国家 /地区的16至25岁）表示，他们“非常或极为”担心气候变化。

受调查的人中约有65％的人同意政府失败的年轻人，而三分之一的人同意政府根据科学行动。那些担心的人比例最高的国家是菲律宾，印度和巴西在内的气候危机已经遭受严重打击的国家。

Yet despite the havoc humanity wreaks, nature finds ways to persist. At least for now.

As waters receded in Lake Tahoe due to drought,dormant seeds of lupinesbecame exposed and bloomed in a spectacular show in June, reportedly the most abundant since 2015.

On our trip in mid-July, we hiked through pine trees, our family marveling at the red blaze of Indian paintbrush; purple checkerbloom; patches of thimbleberries; and masses of mountain coyote mint, beardtongues, yarrow, bird’s-foot trefoils and Woods’ roses.

说他们的名字就像是咒语，以保护野花并现在和将来打电话给他们。