Tales from the Carbon Cult in Glasgow

There is a whiff of incense in the air, sweet and heavy as tree sap. The theme is "Spiritual and Religious Perspectives on the Climate Emergency," and Calder Tsuyuki-Tomlinson is conducting a tea ceremony -- "sitting with the future, sipping the present" -- and thereby illuminating the "intrinsic ephemerality of things." I enjoy the smell of the incense, but here at COP26, the annual United Nations climate-change convention, we are all about the Science!, and the Science! doesn't think much of burning incense indoors: particulate matter, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, etc. Burning wood may be carbon-neutral, according to the EPA, but it is a serious indoor-air-quality concern, if you're concerned about that kind of thing -- about Science! At COP26, I met monks, mystics, and misanthropes, but I didn't meet one person who knew the first thing about indoor-air quality.