As we’ve worked to get our newspaper out again this week, we’ve toggled back and forth from covering the news on Vashon to being glued to the news of what is happening in the wider world.

There is no comparison right now in terms of the lives we are living on Vashon and the suffering and chaos that is roiling daily life in Ukraine, yet world news this week has given us a window to see clearly what kind of bravery is required in malignant times.

Because that is what war and conflict are: a colossal failure and fatal frailty of the human condition.

In this edition of The Beachcomber, our frequent columnist Scott Durkee puts that failure in a related context, linking the ruin of war to our planet’s existential threat — the climate crisis.

Durkee’s comments are timely: yesterday, nestled beneath the headlines about Ukraine on the front page of The New York Times, was an article about a new study produced by a panel of climate experts for the United Nations.

The article detailed that the report had concluded that “the dangers of climate change are mounting so rapidly that they could soon overwhelm the ability of both nature and humanity to adapt, creating a harrowing future in which floods, fires and famine displace millions, species disappear and the planet is irreversibly damaged.” The report, said António Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general, is “an atlas of human suffering.”

The stark poetry of that phrase does nothing to make the article easier to read, much less absorb.

Still, we need to pay attention to the news, heed the advice of experts, and prepare in all the ways we can for a time when we, too, may need to be as strong and brave as the people of Ukraine — or as resilient as those all over the world who have been displaced by climate catastrophe.

That means that on Vashon, we need to tend to our own community and do whatever is possible to make it better. This edition of The Beachcomber is filled with stories about life on our small island in the year of 2022. It’s not Mayberry, but it’s our town, our world, our home.

There are heartwarming stories of resilient islanders starting small businesses that are eco-friendly and community-centered, and a more concerning article about the governance of our fire district, and how conflict and acrimony on the board of commissioners is now impacting the operation of our most important public safety agency.

There’s a story about how much we’ll all be paying in property taxes this year, god help us, and where that money will go.

But inside these pages is also news about concerts and exhibitions about to take place in our vibrant art community, and stories about islanders who are working to support worthy causes. There is also advice, from our esteemed Medical Reserve Corps, about how to navigate the latest “new normal” in the shifting (and hopefully easing) landscape of the pandemic.

We hope our readers will read this issue of The Beachcomber and realize how good we have it on this island — but also remember how fragile that good fortune may be. We all need to work to preserve our own measure of peace, safety and sanity on Vashon.