Unreal becomes real

And the necessary mindshift it requires

This is about radical changes in reality and their impact on the strategist.

The example comes from fire. Canadian wildfires of this past summer, to be more precise.

The evidence is breathtaking, provided in a recent article by David Wallace-Wells. To set a baseline, about 10 percent of the world's forest is Canadian. And this summer, so much - so, so much of it burned.

Wallace-Wells writes, "By the end of September, more than half of the world's countries could fit inside the land burned this year in the Canadian wilderness." The previous modern-era Canadian record was 1989, when nearly 19 million acres burned. This year was over 45 million acres.

As one longtime wildland firefighter and fire chief put it, "There's no more, 'It can't do this' or 'It can't do that.'" He went on:

"It can't jump the Athabasca - that's a kilometer. And it did it, just as we were standing still. It can't burn down the town. It can's spread into the neighborhood. It can't jump the lakes. It can't go up that mountain in one day. It can't travel 30 kilometers overnight. All of these things. In my 30-year career, I never saw that - I've heard people say that almost every day this year. The unimaginable has to be imaginable now. You have to think that way."