The third movement of the eco-composer John Luther Adams’ newest work, “Vespers of the Blessed Earth,” called “Night Shining Clouds,” references this paradox of natural beauty fueled by man-made disaster, a phenomenon for the age of climate change that probably deserves its own Latin name. It was only later, scrolling through headlines from the West coast, that I realized their startling colors were caused by smoke from the wildfires then burning in California and Oregon. They seemed like a gift from the planet in a time of global tumult. I took pictures of pink, hazy dusks in the Northeast, gawking at the spectacle of them. From Colorado to Virginia, the sun glowed like a hot red disc, and social media feeds filled with photos of blazing orange sunsets. In the summer of 2021, Americans across the country looked up and noticed strangely brilliant skies.
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