The terror in Paris was both horrific and routine.

The particular time, place and style of Islamist terror attacks varies, but after 9/11 in New York and Washington (2001), Bali (2002), Istanbul (2003), Madrid (2004), London (2005), the Toronto 18 (2006), Algiers (2007), Bombay (2008), Fort Hood (2009), Moscow (2010), Marrakesh (2011), Benghazi (2012), Nairobi (2013), Brussels, Ottawa and Sydney (2014), and Paris (January 2015), Paris (November 2015) was not novel. When and where will the jihadists next strike? We don’t know. We only know that it is not a question of if — only when, where and how many dead. That’s the reality.

The travelogue of terror encircles the globe. The above list does not even include the places where Islamist terror kills dozens not yearly, but every week or month — Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria. It does not include attacks in Israel, or its Arab neighbours, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan.

So will Paris 2015 be just the latest entry on the list of places once traumatized — or twice traumatized in this case — but that otherwise leaves things unchanged? Not that nothing changes. Airport travel becomes more cumbersome. Surveillance by security services becomes more intrusive. In Paris, all the Jewish schools became garrisons after the Charlie Hebdo and Jewish grocery store attacks, with permanent round-the-clock armed forces stationed on school grounds. What doesn’t change is the ability of the jihadis to visit terror upon us.

Will this reality change? It depends. The first step toward changing reality is acknowledging it. That was Al Gore’s message in Paris on Friday. But Gore — who was U.S. vice president during the World Trade Center bombing (1993), the American embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi (1998) and the USS Cole bombing in Yemen (2000) — was not speaking of the reality of terror.

No, Gore was hosting his annual climate change broadcast, 24 Hours of Reality — The World is Watching. Joined by various pop stars, Gore brought his show to Paris in advance of the climate summit due to begin in two weeks. 24 Hours of Reality began on Friday afternoon, just hours before reality came crashing down upon Paris. Gore’s 21st-century telethon had to be cancelled. The world was watching to be sure, but it was tuned into the carnage, not climate politics.

That really is the question, isn’t it? What will Paris 2015 mean? Will it mean, as it does for the tens of thousands of climate activists and bureaucrats coming to a conference that, at a cost of $240 million, hopes to save the planet in 2030? Or will Paris 2015 mean the urgency of stopping the travelogue of terror and the expansion of ISIL?

The response will be, in the words of French President François Hollande, “pitiless.” His allies were not quite so sure. The U.S., Germany and Canada all indicated that they would stand in unbreakable solidarity with France, but would not actually change any of their policies on fighting ISIL or refugee resettlement. Perhaps Paris 2015, climate-wise, might mean significant change. It already seems evident that, despite Hollande’s rhetoric, Paris 2015, terror-wise, might mean nothing much at all.

The routine nature of mass terror was reflected in the rituals of mourning. The Eiffel Tower went dark, just as it did in January. There was the drawing of a cartoonist’s pencil that went viral on social media in January. This time there was a sad looking peace symbol cum Eiffel Tower. They gathered in the streets to sing John Lennon’s Imagine in January. This time it was an instrumental version on a piano outside the concert hall where the massacre took place. Last time U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry brought James Taylor to sing You’ve Got a Friend at Paris city hall. No word yet on who the Americans might send to sing to Parisians this time.

There is much that is attractive in an imaginary world, especially when ISIL is shaping the real one. In an imaginary world, tens of thousands of refugees from Sunni-dominated camps in Syria will pose no security threat upon arrival in Germany or Canada. In an imaginary world, grave evil does not have to be opposed by armed forces, justly deployed and capable of the mission.

Lennon’s Imagine is the go-to anthem for sentimental, and radically sceptical, sorts in times of terror. And so Paris’ bloody weekend began with Al Gore’s version of reality and concluded in John Lennon’s imaginary world. In between were the cold and cruel souls who have a firm grasp — a lethal grasp — on the reality of life and death on the streets of our cities. Which one is next?

National Post