NASA posted this a couple days ago about the heat situation last week. Nothing much we hadn’t already known about, but an interesting 48-state view of things.
Nothing to be concerned about.
Hey look, we have a new way to measure zettajoules that doesn’t involve nuclear weapons!
I’ve often wondered why it’s so difficult to make my fellow Americans see what we’re doing to the planet as a bad thing. But if you think of this entire endeavor as a never ending Boston tea party it starts to make more sense.
It’s no harder than the hoary old saw that it’s very difficult to convince a man to believe something when his job depends on not believing that something.
To fix this we need to turn off everything and revert to living like the 1600s. Tomorrow. Not next year, nor over a span of decades. Right F-ing now!
And eliminate about 3/4ths of the human population via either active unspeakably evil measures or the simple reality that 1600s tech cannot feed 8 billion people even if everyone is a farmer, so starvation will cull the herd to a few million even if no man ever raises a hand to another. And fat chance of a violence-free fall from the modern world.
OK, that’s out. So now what?
Close your eyes, whistle in the dark, & hope you die of a comfortable old age before modern techno-society collapses under the strain. Or if you’re a multi-billionaire, build a colony on another planet or an appropriately secret defensible island and be the progenitor of your own Captain Bligh act on your own Pitcairn Island.
Or, most comfortingly, simply pretend the whole thing isn’t happening and is the result of a giant scare tactic by some evil politicians who want to control your life in a direction contrary to your desires.
I think nearly everyone here can identify with the effectiveness of: “some evil politicians who want to control your life in a direction contrary to your desires.” As it’s presently being applied in the service of other goals, not AGW-reduction.
Or the third option. Bear witness to our failures and deal with psychological drain by occasionally laughing at the people with their heads stuck in the sand.
I want to say “with heads stuck stupidly in the sand” but the jury is still out on which path of futility is actually dumber.
I just preheated, outside, a refrigerated 3 quart sauce pan 1/2 full of shredded porkloin/onion/jalapeno/refried beans/rotel* In 2 hours it was up to 120 degf.
*to make enchiladas.