My computer tells me that it’s 100 degrees outside and that we will be having a high temperature of 104 degrees today. I don’t remember it ever being 104 degrees before in this part of the country. It has only reached 100 degrees on a small handful of occasions. This weather is totally aberrant. And it’s dangerous. We have friends who had to take their three-week old infant to the children’s hospital in Philadelphia because they became overheated during a visit to the doctor. We are hoping beyond anything that everything will be okay, but this kind of heat is a major stress on newborns and the elderly. It’s not some kind of joke.
Yes, this particular heat wave has hit us close to home, and it’s stupid to cite every extreme weather event as some kind of proof of climate change. All I know is that I’ve been around for nearly a half-century and I’ve never seen weather this hot. It’s also ridiculous how little it has rained in the last two months. The only upside is that the lack of standing water fixed our mosquito problem. Yet, when I water my garden it is instantly overrun with stinging insects desperate for some water.
Our consumption of energy is causing these extreme changes in climate and, yet, our response is to use record amounts of energy.
