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A Burning Summer
Author: BobR
Date: 09/06/2023 12:30:31
In case you haven't noticed, it's been hot lately, like really hot. Southern states (which - yes - do get hot in the summer) had numerous days where temps got into the low 100s. Places you wouldn't think of as hot, though, like Portland, OR had a record high of 108, and even Olympia, WA got to 100. Previous high temp records were broken all over the place. I mean - 115 degrees in Phoenix? That will literally kill you.
All of this has been predicted for decades. CO2 levels have been up and down before, but always around 250 PPM. We are now approaching 450 PPM, all since the advent of the industrial age. Average temperatures have risen about 1.5 degrees during that same time period (source). Republicans decided to make this a political issue (because *RAWR* manliness and oil companies), taking snowballs into the House of Congress to make stupid points that yes, it's still cold in winter. Scientists predicted global climate change because of this, and it is also proving true.
Part of that is extreme weather, disrupted "norms" in climate, like the disruption of the Gulf Stream, which could easily plunge Europe into a new ice age. That seems counter to what global warming would create, but the counter-clockwise rotation of the Atlantic Ocean brings warm gulf waters to the shores of Europe.
The current weather-related story consuming news cycles is the dire situation at The Burning Man Festival. This yearly event occurs in the NW desert of Nevada, typically hot and very dry. This year, however, it rained... a lot. Apparently when it rains heavily there, the hard-packed sandy dirt becomes ankle-deep mud. This ended up stranding about 70K people, many of whom are still there. While everyone brings in their own food and water, there are still the porta-potties, which have not been emptied since the festival began. Some people are attempting the 6-7 mile hike out, but it's not for the weak, and vehicles are definitely not going in.
Never one to miss taking advantage of tragedy for political "points", MTG once again opened her yap and spewed "fertilizer" on the subject:
I know Thomas Jefferson said something to the effect of "we get the leadership we deserve", but we certainly don't deserve this kind of venal stupidity. Nobody deserves this.
All of this has been predicted for decades. CO2 levels have been up and down before, but always around 250 PPM. We are now approaching 450 PPM, all since the advent of the industrial age. Average temperatures have risen about 1.5 degrees during that same time period (source). Republicans decided to make this a political issue (because *RAWR* manliness and oil companies), taking snowballs into the House of Congress to make stupid points that yes, it's still cold in winter. Scientists predicted global climate change because of this, and it is also proving true.
Part of that is extreme weather, disrupted "norms" in climate, like the disruption of the Gulf Stream, which could easily plunge Europe into a new ice age. That seems counter to what global warming would create, but the counter-clockwise rotation of the Atlantic Ocean brings warm gulf waters to the shores of Europe.
The current weather-related story consuming news cycles is the dire situation at The Burning Man Festival. This yearly event occurs in the NW desert of Nevada, typically hot and very dry. This year, however, it rained... a lot. Apparently when it rains heavily there, the hard-packed sandy dirt becomes ankle-deep mud. This ended up stranding about 70K people, many of whom are still there. While everyone brings in their own food and water, there are still the porta-potties, which have not been emptied since the festival began. Some people are attempting the 6-7 mile hike out, but it's not for the weak, and vehicles are definitely not going in.
Never one to miss taking advantage of tragedy for political "points", MTG once again opened her yap and spewed "fertilizer" on the subject:
Because we live in an age of near-unfathomable stupidity, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Farcical) sat down with reviled conspiracy theorist Alex Jones over the weekend and revealed THE TRUTH about this year’s rain-and-mud-soaked Burning Man festival.
The first part of the previous sentence – the part in which a bafflingly influential Republican lawmaker lets herself be interviewed by an unhinged quack who has been ordered to pay nearly $1.5 billion for defaming the families of eight school shooting victims – would, in a normal version of American politics, be a scandal. But there’s nothing normal about our politics these days, so let’s focus on the second part, which somehow manages to be even nuttier.
[...]
Here are the actual words that fell out of Greene’s mouth: “There are 73,000 or 75,000 people in the Nevada desert now at this Burning Man. They're locked in. They're not allowed to leave. And they're basically, probably being brainwashed that climate change is the cause of all of it, it's the root of all evil and it's going to destroy the earth and they’re feeling the panic.”
I know Thomas Jefferson said something to the effect of "we get the leadership we deserve", but we certainly don't deserve this kind of venal stupidity. Nobody deserves this.
