What is it they say? When engaging in conversation, avoid politics and stick to the weather and your health? But who wants to hear about my new aches and pains, or how my good knee has started to hurt a lot? So that leaves the weather.
But it seems even the weather is a source of contention these days. This seems to have been a hot summer. Across social media, people are posting memes “Only [so many] days until fall” says a man sweating under a hot sun, holding one of those portable, battery-operated fans as he can barely put one foot in front of the other on the sidewalk. It’s as if people forgot, from last year to this, that it’s hot in July and August.
The problem is that discussing the weather leads on to global warming—or climate change to use the latest term. Look how many hot days we had this July compared to last. It must be global warming. Mankind’s activities must be heating up the planet. Thus, a simple mention of weather in casual conversation become a source of contention, as one believes in climate change and the other doesn’t.
I had occasion to begin studying my utility bills recently, trying to see if a gadget my wife bought is having the advertised effects on our power usage. Our meter reading for July 2023 was indeed significantly below July 2022. Might this gadget be working? For the first time I noticed that our utility bill shows average temperatures for the month. July’s average high was 89°. I checked last year, and the average high was 93°. So this year was cooler, or should I say less-hot. We also have a new air conditioner, put in at the end of August last year.
I’ve heard lots of complaints about the temperature this summer. They tend to come from the same people who complained about the weather last winter. Hot, cold. Doesn’t matter. People need something to complain about.
Right now, remnants of Hurricane Hillary are hitting the western US, the first tropical storm to make landfall in the USA from the Pacific Ocean in over a quarter century. I can’t wait for the pundits to come on TV to say this is obviously an effect of manmade climate change and we must change our ways if we are going to save the planet for future generations. A couple of days ago, a tornado touched-down in my native Rhode Island—a very rare occurrence. It hit the cemetery where my parents and grandparents are buried and did a lot of damage to mature trees. Are people already saying, “See, see! Climate change!”
People, it’s hot in summer and cold in winter, depending on where you live. Some years are hotter than normal, some cooler. Some hotter than normal in the East, some cooler than normal somewhere else. Turning weather into a discussion on climate change, which necessarily morphs into politics, is a waste of time.
One storm, or two storms, or one summer season, are not enough to make a claim that human activities are causing climate change. It may be that they are. In fact, I feel fairly certain that modern society, as we live in the USA, is adding heat to the atmosphere. Whether that’s changing earth’s climate in an irrevocable manner is another question, one I’m not ready to discuss in social settings.
It’s now 6:20 a.m. on Monday morning. Got up earlier than I wanted to when I couldn’t get back to sleep. I’ll now get dressed and go outside for some yardwork, trying to beat the heat on what is predicted to be a 100° day. It’s summer, and heat is expected. I have a small place that is overgrown with weeds and I’d like to get it cleared today. Tomorrow, maybe I’ll tackle deadfall on the woodlot.
By next week it is forecast to be in the 80s for the highs. Happens every August.