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There’s a good summary of what is happening right now with the extreme heat wave hitting the Pacific Northwest over on Arctic News.
I’ve nothing to add to this regarding the science. Local temperatures here are at least 35F above normal. Last night, I left the air conditioning running all night, outside temps didn’t drop below 80F I think. Setup some fans to move more air around and actually slept pretty good (first time in a long time).
Stepping outside is quite intense, so you don’t stay outside very long. Just making a trip out in the evening when the sun drops, but it’s still in the 90’s. I’ve been in hot weather before, up to 123F temps, but this is different, somehow worse. The heavy forests here are literally baking, giving up tons of moisture making the air very oppressive.
Don’t believe ANY of the bogus claims that this is a “millennium” event (happening only 1 in a 1000 years), expect this to happen somewhere EVERY year. Extremely deadly and dangerous climate change is here and here to STAY. We’re not going to escape any of this now. Global leaders and industry polluters have conspired to do almost nothing to stop the contributions of deadly gasses to the atmosphere. They’re still spewing endless levels of hopium and lies.
Read the Dangerous Trap posted on this blog. Read all the links contained with that article. I’ve been warning about this for years and years and years. Denial and delay, refusal to upset the status-quo, refusal to admit to wrongdoing, refusal to tell the whole truth, refusal to admit to grievous errors and mistakes made – that’s why these “events” are happening with greater and greater frequency and severity.
Remember the extreme cold suffered by Texas just a couple of months ago? The grid failures? Human civilization is NOT built to withstand any extremes. We are balanced on a knife’s edge of survivability in fact, something that they never really admit to. Everything must arrive and be delivered just-in-time, water, power, food, fuel, supplies, equipment, medicine, treatment. All of this is vulnerable to failure points (of which there are many) at any time. The safety and security that most people assume is there simply isn’t (and never was). In a “normal” climate, these things can all be delivered reliably (for now), but it an abnormal climate, or what should be termed the changed climate, none of these things can be relied upon like before.
There are still all kinds of shortages found throughout the United States in this follow-up year to the COVID-19 pandemic which is still far from over. The newer Delta variant poses even worse problems then previous virus infections. There are five US states at the most risk now, with low vaccination rates and lower protection measures in place, these places may literally explode with infections. Other countries are already deep in the grips of the Delta variant.
Everyone wants the pandemic to end and go away, but not everyone isn’t cooperating to ensure that happens, not even close. So… it’s not going away, it’s just that simple. Human arrogance and stupidity has ensured that COVID-19 is here to stay.
I haven’t mentioned preparedness for quite a while, but if you still need advice on this topic – get ready. The future continues to look very bleak with no reasonable reasons for optimism. Deadly dangerous climate change is here to stay, the ability of our government and infrastructure to weather this unending storm of one disaster after another looks extremely doubtful and everything we take for granted is continuing to be proven false.
If I were to title this post, it would be “I told you so” years ago, but that’s too arrogant. Add your own title, anything will do.
There is little doubt that industrial humans have completely wrecked [via outrageous levels of CO2 generation associated with use of fossil fuels] global climate systems that made the Earth hospitable to life as we know it.
I remember Dr Jennifer Francis highlighting the disruption to the Jet Streams that are a consequence of the rapid overheating of the Arctic region and the commensurate reduction in the equatorial-polar thermal gradient. That was a decade ago.
And, as discussed many times on this website and elsewhere, the ‘plan’ is to keep burning humungous quantities of fossil fuels (whilst pretending there are technical solutions to the massive overloading of the atmosphere and oceans with this deadly gas.
Anyone who thinks CO2 is not deadly might try sitting in a room with zero ventilation for a few hours. It’s not lack of oxygen that kills submariners in immobilised submarines, it’s the build-up of carbon dioxide in the air and in their bloodstreams. And build-up of CO2 is just as deadly in the atmosphere and oceans, but for different reasons: trapping heat and messing up the CO2-bicarbonate-cycle that shellfish and corals are critically dependent on.
But, as discussed many times, it’s all about the money and ‘the lifestyle’, whatever that means.
Well actually, we know what ‘lifestyle’ means now: struggling to keep warm or keep cool; struggling to find healthy food at affordable prices; coping with the ongoing collapse of the industrial system.
Interestingly, NZ has just been subjected to an unusual Antarctic blast. it didn’t knock out the grid (as happened in Texas a few months ago) but has caused significant disruption -like cancellation of inter-island ferries.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/29/new-zealand-storm-coastal-wellington-residents-antarctic-blast-hits-weather
Clearly, the situation in the Southern Hemisphere is very different from the Northern Hemisphere because of the lack of land mass in the 40 south to 80 south latitude and the presence of Antarctica (covered in ice sheets). yet there is reason to believe the disturbance to the Jet Streams witnessed in the Northern Hemisphere is mirrored to some extent in the Southern Hemisphere -the Earth being a complex interconnected system.
On the matter of global shortages, i have commented before about the lack of bicycles in NZ. A few days ago I decided to check it out further. The speciality bike shop I visited a while ago had only expensive bikes unsuited to my needs, and no indication of when new stock would arrive.
The chain store I visited had only one bike suited to my needs -a display model- and none in boxes. nor did any of the other stores in the chain have stock. Although stretched to the limit financially, I decided to buy the bike, on the basis there may soon be none available. I wanted a security lock: none in stock and donlt know when any will arrive. fortunately I had an alternative.
How long NZ can maintain its road surfaces is an interesting issue. The local council has ‘no money’ for what might be regarded as basics like replacement of leaking pipes and cracking up pavements. the main arterial road that runs the length of the South Island is taking hammering from heavy trucks carting logs etc., and is cracking up.
As we are only just into winter, methinks we will be getting more icy blasts over the coming months.
Climate Instability isn’t much fun.
Nor is collapse of Industrial Civilisation.
We had it good for a while.
But now the Age of Entitlement is over and we are well and truly in the Age of Consequences.
They also wrecked the Earth by terraforming all the habitable regions, razing forests, greening deserts, removing mountains and replacing wild places with asphalt and concrete. The C02 is a by-product of all this ‘civilization’ and activity. There was nothing civilized about any of it, requiring the enormous destruction of the Earth’s habitats, the enslavement of billions and the eradication of countless species. We called this ‘progress’.
Some localities have reverted to gravel roads; cheaper to maintain and less reflective of heat. If a county can bring itself to give up the status of pavement, it’s not a bad idea.
Indeed, the reversion to gravel roads is underway, though not by design. The thing is, it has been the power of the road transport lobby group that brought about the destruction of the rail system and the humungous number of heavy-haulage trucks on the roads. It’s supposedly ‘more efficient’.
Yeah, well, it’s very efficient when it comes to looting and polluting the commons and making short-term fiat money for the perpetrators of these various crimes. And very efficient when it comes to accelerating Planetary Meltdown.
All we can say is, it’s worse in Asian cities, where the air is unbreathable most of the time.
People are starting to drop like flies, and not just because of Covid or its variants.
Been wondering about heat-related deaths on the increase. Can’t say I’ve seen anything in the media about the PNW heat dome causing this, but would not at all be surprised. The sun went down about an hour or so ago, stepped outside, still over 100 here. Oppressive as hell. Just not used to this at all, whereas other people wouldn’t find this all that bad, so it is a matter of perspective.