At least five people have been found dead in Italy following violent storms in the north and wildfires in Sicily.
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) July 26, 2023
The government is considering declaring a state of emergency in the hardest-hit regionshttps://t.co/5JRVjmA9jv pic.twitter.com/sWzTqYBRHV
I've been to Sicily a couple of times and it is fiercely beautiful. I am heartbroken for what is happening. The temperature in Palermo a couple of days ago was 47°C, which is astonishing not only because it is a local record, but because it is a record likely to be demolished soon.
(Giorgia Meloni has said fine things about environmentalism that she certainly doesn't believe because the fascisti attitude is ne me frego.)
Algeria is facing wildfires and temperatures of about 120° F. The heat index at the Persian Gulf airport in Iran reached 152° F. These are conditions that suggest an unlivable future.
Scientists are saying that there is no "new normal"--the term is a lie. We won't really have time to acclimate to anything we are seeing because it will just change faster than we can get used to it. I've been staring at this idea unable to strike another mode than elegiac. Or at least poetic. I don't want to succumb to "doomerism". The problem is that I understand enough of biology to know that if ocean temps are over 100° F this is very bad for cold-blooded things. And then, warm-blooded things. It's like feeling a mass disturbance in the Force.
But back to the presentiment of doom--I don't know how we walk back tipping points we might have already crossed. The idea that the Gulf Stream collapses during my lifetime is not something I have words for. Poetic or otherwise.
Those things are hard to fathom (though we need to figure out how to), but in the meantime, if we value eating, if we value culture, if we value any of the standard of living we associate with civilization, we need to reckon with the idea that some sacrifices must be made now to prevent the losses of things beyond price. Not for the sake of our great-grandchildren. I'm talking about the intolerable conditions we will spend what we have of our old age in.
2 comments:
I'm glad that we live in Oregon, it's been fairly temperate here, and smoke free. But I've been reading about the increase in temperature elsewhere particularly in Florida where the ocean temperature has reached record levels. This is like adding jet fuel to the hurricane cycle. This will not end well, it seems as though we are actively seeking our own destruction through means we don't understand (Okay, some of us understand what's happening but the masses of people who don't will lead us to our own destruction). I wish it wasn't so, but here we are...
I just turned 60,so I expect to be checking out by the time things get really bad -- assuming a tornado or heat wave doesn't get me first.
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