Hot as dammit
(but cooler than it will be)
A storm kicked up while Richard and I were making dinner last night. It started with distant, rumbling thunder, then the sky quickly darkened. Sideways rain lashed the windows, and the treetops swayed and tossed in the wind. Bea came into the kitchen and suggested she fill the bathtubs in case our power went out.
She did, and it didn’t, but it was that kind of storm. Quick, violent. After it was over Richard and I picked up sticks in the yard and driveway, and I saw that our illicium and oak leaf hydrangeas looked turned inside out, the leaves twisted to their silvery undersides.
Yesterday it was 99 degrees in Austin, 95 in Richmond, 97 degrees in Philadelphia. This is the same weather pattern that brought sweltering heat to Texas earlier this month. Hotter than normal temperatures contribute to drought (“exceptional” for much of Texas this year), wildfires, stronger storms, and deaths. This March was the hottest on record in India, and on May 1, Nawabshah, Pakistan recorded the hottest temperature on Earth this year (so far): 120 degrees. At least 25 people were killed by the record heat wave in India’s Maharashtra state, and more than a billion people in India and Pakistan are vulnerable to extreme, life-threatening heat. Only 12 percent of people in India have air conditioning, compared with 91 percent of Americans.
The National Weather Service predicts that we’re in for a hotter than average summer across the U.S. this year. The same is true for Europe. Frighteningly, this Yale Climate Connections report points out that even as 2022 sets heat records, it will likely be “one of the coolest years Earth will experience in the foreseeable future.”
It’s pleasant this morning at our house. We’re not running the AC, just a ceiling fan, and the doors are open to the screen porch. The girls are playing outside, and will probably splash in the river or the streams that feed it later today. We had a great swim on Friday with a few of our friends, who all agreed that you didn’t feel the heat at the shady, swiftly-flowing spot where we like to splash in the Haw.
I’m going to enjoy the outdoors with my family today, even as, in the back of my mind, I’m thinking about the fact that my daughters are growing up in a country that may soon tell them they have no agency over their bodies in a climate that will be hotter, stormier, and more dangerous every year.
Then, this afternoon, I’m headed to a County to County event to learn more about the the increasing privatization of public goods (including water, education, and parks). County to County is a project of the Orange County Democratic Party that focuses on electing Democrats in targeted counties (like Alamance) to the state legislature—crucial if we’re going protect kids and families, safeguard the rights of women, and keep our waterways clean, our trees upright, our schools functional.
What are you up to, Frog Troublers? Resting? Reading? Gardening? Bea is loving her Venus flytrap (“so many mouths to feed!” she exclaimed while searching for flies), her moth orchid is fully in bloom, and all of Harriet’s caterpillars have started forming chrysalids (Bea’s are just a day behind). Plus, every watermelon we’ve had this year so far has been delicious. Harriet says it tastes best eaten outdoors, by some water.
