19 July 22
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Take a good look, Joe, at the world you want to keep.
From the BBC:
The Portuguese authorities say at least 238 people have died from the heat over the past week. Fires are ravaging areas of France's south-western Gironde region, where over 12,000 people have been evacuated. Heatwaves have become more frequent, more intense, and last longer because of human-induced climate change. The world has already warmed by about 1.1C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to carbon emissions. The French weather service has forecast temperatures of up to 41 degrees in parts of the country's south on Sunday and new heat records are predicted for Monday. Late on Saturday the country placed 22 more regional departments mostly along its Atlantic coast on high orange alert. One resident in south-west France described the forest fires as feeling "post-apocalyptic" - "I've never seen this before," Karyn, who lives near Teste-de-Buch, told news agency AFP […]
Other parts of the Mediterranean are affected too. In Italy, the government has declared a state of emergency in the desiccated Po Valley - the country's longest river is no more than a trickle in some places. In Greece, firefighters are tackling blazes in the Feriza area, about 50km (31 miles) south-east of Athens, and near Rethymno, on the north coast of Crete. Seven villages have been evacuated near Rethymno. In northern Morocco, several villages had to be evacuated as fires swept through the Larache, Ouezzane, Taza and Tetouan provinces. One village was totally destroyed in the Ksar El Kebir area and at least one person died in a blaze.
According to the World Bank, which calculates such things, approximately 12 percent of the land area in Morocco is forested, and yet that 12 percent is burning down, too, and taking entire villages with it. Elsewhere, Northern Ireland is experiencing its hottest weather, with temperatures hitting triple digits on the Fahrenheit scale.
NASA's Earth Observatory is keeping track of the overall scorecard:
In Italy, the record heat contributed to the July 3 collapse of a portion of the Marmolada Glacier in the Dolomites. The avalanche of snow, ice, and rock killed 11 hikers.
In the U.K., the Met Office issued extreme heat or amber warnings as temperatures were expected to continue to climb, possibly breaking all-time highs. In North Africa, Tunisia has endured a heatwave and fires that have damaged the country's grain crop. On July 13 in the capital city of Tunis, the temperature reached 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit), breaking a 40-year record. In Iran, temperatures remained high in July after reaching a scorching 52 degrees Celsius (126 degrees Fahrenheit) in late June. In China, the summer has brought three heatwaves that have buckled roads, melted tar, and popped off roof tiles. The Shanghai Xujiahui Observatory, where records have been kept since 1873, recorded its highest temperature ever: 40.9 degrees Celsius (105 degrees Fahrenheit) on July 13, 2022. High humidity and dewpoints, along with warm overnight temperatures, created potentially deadly conditions.
In China, desperate improvisation is barely keeping up with the ramifications of living in a convection oven. From CNN:
Vendors in the city reported surging sales of ice cream, melons, and crayfish chilled in liquor -- a popular summertime dish. At a sprawling Shanghai wildlife park, eight metric tons of ice are used each day to keep lions, pandas and other animals cool […] In the city of Chongqing -- which has issued a red alert -- the roof of a museum melted, with traditional Chinese tiles popping as the heat dissolved the underlying tar. The city has deployed trucks to spray water in an effort to cool its roads.
Elsewhere, residents are trying to cool off in various ways. On Sunday, huge crowds in the city of Qingdao, in eastern Shandong province, flocked to the beach for a dip in the sea. Children in Nanning, in the Guangxi region, played barefoot in public fountains. In Nanjing, Jiangsu province, residents instead headed for an air raid shelter to escape the heat, reading newspapers and watching TV to pass the time in the Wifi-equipped wartime bunkers.
In related news, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-Bituminous), who effectively scuttled recent attempts to deal through Congress with the climate crisis, rang the bell on contributions from energy industries again this quarter.
From Politico:
Manchin, who chairs the Senate Energy Committee, has long been a top recipient of campaign contributions from the energy sector, and last quarter's campaign finance data shows that trend has continued. The senator received donations from executives at Georgia Power, including the utility's CFO Aaron Abramovitz, and from Dominion Energy CEO Robert Blue.
— Energy services firm Concord Energy CEO Matthew Flavin gave Manchin the maximum allowable amount of $5,800, as did Southern Company Gas CEO Kim Greene and Harvest Midstream CEO Jason Rebrook. Southern Company's chair and CEO Chris Cummiskey gave Manchin $2,000, while three other company executives gave at least $1,000. An in-house lobbyist for the company donated $1,000 as well. Kara G. Moriarty, president of the Alaska Oil & Gas Association, gave $1,000, too, along with two executives from the energy storage company Form Energy.
— Manchin also took in more than $19,000 from political action committees belonging to fossil fuel or energy companies and their trade groups, including the Coterra Energy, NextEra Energy, North American Coal Corp., the American Exploration & Production Council’s PAC. The PACs for private equity giant the Carlyle Group and AT&T contributed $10,000 and $5,000, respectively.
You get what you pay for. And on this, the rest of the world gets what the fossil fuel industry paid for, too.
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