Summertime and the lying's not easy

Temps are jumping and the truth burns

My wife’s boss peeked over her cubicle wall. “How’s it going? Are you guys still without AC and toilets?”

Ellen laughed. “David thinks it’s fun. Like we’re camping.” Throughout this calamity Ellen has been an extraordinary “camper.” No AC. No toilets. Hell of a woman.

If I didn’t remain cheerfully delusional I’d roll up into a fetal position and broil until I sizzled.

What’s a little heat? Who needs AC? Who needs plumbing? We are at one with the 3rd World.

Our toilets backed up two months ago. And the sewage soaked the sheet rock at about the same time Republicans reportedly were more skeptical of the need to fix the climate according to a poll of brain-baked idiots.

A majority of sentient respondents to the same survey said, “Holy Hell! My biscuits are burning. Are these deniers nuts?”

Yup. They’re nuts. Roasted nuts. In the words of Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” And “us” are well-funded by oil and gas.

The Bizarre-Right’s pathological rejection of science, easy embrace of irrational theories and the mass cognitive dissonance they share makes them unable to confront climate change at a time when the effects are right in front of everyone’s eyes in the form of relentless heat that will grow only hotter.

And faster.

Because the myriad manifestations of climate change are cascading sooner than expected and the dying reefs will lead to the food chain being disrupted in oceans that are changing patterns in terrible ways that will affect the northern hemisphere where by 2032 the north pole will be gone and this once fabulous Eden will cloud over like a stormy very hot and very humid greenhouse and we will have been responsible for a planet-wide dying off of the diverse beauty that once thrived here.

And that’s all on you, to be precise. It’s your fault. Not mine. I recycle paper and tin cans and retweet Greta.

When I’m not doom scrolling headlines like these:

Research Confirms Human-caused Climate Change 
Driving Life-threatening Heat Waves 

SENIOR CITIZENS SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST

2,000 Plus High Temp Records Broken in July
Science says Hottest month in 100,000-years

My grand daughter in Phoenix, Emma, is 12 and wonderful. I should text her. “Hey Em, grandpa is real sorry that the saguaros are dying where you live and that it’s been 110 degrees forever and your home is a prison. Run away from home! Come live in our swimming pool.”

Unhappy emoticon. “Got any good news, grandpa?”

“Yup! My generation will be dead soon.”

Unhappy emoticon.

“And there’ll be more electric chargers next year! And fewer Phoenicians!”

Thumbs up.

Do I sound like a crazy person these days? An end timer? Are my sources credible? Did my eyebrows really catch on fire last Tuesday? Am I an alarmist? A chicken little? The boy who cried wolf? Am I like one of those deranged Biblical street prophets carrying a “THE WORLD IS ENDING” sign?

On second thought my sign would read “YOU SHOULD HAVE PAID ATTENTION TO YOUR MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHER”.

My First Alert Weather Brain has tracked one zillion consecutive days of triple-digit temps with no relief at night. My Far Too Alert Weather Brain has have learned from Phoenix botanists that this heat is killing saguaros because they need cooler nights to cool down and they are not cooling down and they are not doing well and they aren’t reproducing successfully and I’m thinking when saguaros go we’re not far behind.

On the bright side, the very bright and hot side, our great-great-great-grandkids will still be able to see saguaros in vintage Wiley Coyote cartoons in their subterranean chambers.

When our AC died we were exposed to the heat for a few jarring weeks. Thankfully we lacked working toilets so our home insurance gave us a hotel room. Every day I returned to our dead hacienda to do basic upkeep and to write about our survival for an upcoming substack column where we’re the fictional descendants of colonists marooned on a desert world that’s growing more hostile.

Our house was an open ramada in the July heat. We had ceiling fans spinning like Casablanca movie props blowing hot air and doom down on us and portable evaporative cooler fans blasting moist hot air at us. I can’t imagine the suffering of those without relief from this murderous heat.

We left for a week in early July for a planned trip to NYC and we returned home to Tucson from our cold Manhattan hotel room to find our AC still dead and still not working. Parts on the way. As well the toilets were not reinstalled because the sheetrock repair was delayed again.

“Hey its not so bad without AC. Right, Ell?”

“I can’t sleep.”

“This is how people slept here in territorial days, Ell. On porches. Cool, huh?”

“This isn’t Frontierland, Captain History.”

“Thank goodness we have those as-seen-on-tv velcro door screens I bought to keep the bugs out and let breezes in.”

“What breezes? You’re just letting the heat in, Hellboy. I’m roasting here in the dark.“

“Whoa. You are red. Hey, Ell. Think cold thoughts.”

"Morgue. ”

“What?”

“A nice cold morgue. For when I kill you.”

“Alright, alright. I’ll get us our hotel room back tomorrow. In the meantime think of a favorite cold song.”

“Winter Wonderland.”

“Feel better?”

“No. How long until we have working toilets back?”

“Couple of weeks. Think of your favorite cold movie.”

“Day after Tomorrow.”

“You win. I’m spraying us with the garden hose.”

The HVAC guys who came to our funky hovel more than once to fix our AC were up there for hours. Every 15-minutes I’d carry up ice water and remind them ”I’ve got 911 on speed dial. I’ll be listening for the thump when you keel over.”

The news reports a young farm worker dies in Yuma in the heat working in the fields of America, leaving behind a wife and kids.

In Pima County border crossers are detained outside under a ramada behind a chain link fence. Like animals.

In Phoenix the elderly and people of color are more likely to die from the heat. Thirty-nine are dead due to the heat in Maricopa County with more than 300 deaths likely linked to heat.

My old friends and I make light of the predictable deaths of visitors who decide a mid-day hike in an oven would be an adventure. Terrible way to die. It’s not fast or painless.

What will jar us into collective action? Will the predicted wetbulb mass deaths in third world villages horrify us? Meanwhile Phoenix is becoming Baghdad with barrios, saguaros are collapsing, the Colorado is dwindling and the MAGA Republicans are denying and dithering.

Author’s note: I am a heathen. Yet, I hope they all burn in hell.

From the comfort of their air conditioned compounds Arizona’s Republican bright lights are singing the fossil fuel industry’s song. This hot summer is just another hot summer, don’tcha know? A summer like any other summer and that silly climate change hoax is just liberal Marxist bullshit.

This is the hottest summer in 100,000 years.

I predict that next summer it will be the hottest summer in one hundred thousand and one years.

I am struggling to accept the irreversible effects of global warming and remain optimistic. Summers will be hotter and longer. And the freaky weather more deadly. Food will be more costly because crops will be affected. Follow farming news around the world if you need motivation to learn native seed vegetable gardening as fast as I am.

The turbulent economies of my children and their children will be rocked when the big insurers will no longer insure properties in the path of climate change.

My grandchildren will see millions of climate refugees burdening already overcrowded hot urban areas. Canadians will be building a wall.

My grandchildren will see mass extinction, the end of coral reefs and the slowing of the atlantic meridional overturning circulation, the AMOC, a term we will all grow too familiar with in the years ahead.

My grandchildren will see the North Pole vanish, the seas rise and the end of the Amazon rain forest serving as the carbon inhaling lungs of the planet.

It will be their collective charge to repair the world we have forsaken. They will have no choice if they wish to survive.

Watering my desert garden my focus narrows. Which desert plants will survive as our summers grow hotter and drier for longer stretches and will they survive the ensuing destructive microbursts, haboobs, wildfires and Biblical deluges that are predicted for our region? Where will I place the rainwater harvesting tank?

On this day, watering my strapped desert garden, I eye the partially cloudy sky on the horizon. The thunder, lightning and winds are my cue to tie down the pool umbrella and batten down the hatches. Will this be another destructive storm? Will power lines be downed, the streets flooded and cooling centers opened? Will Arizonans come to think life is not sustainable here? Will our hot neighborhoods fill with “FOR SALE” signs in front of baked homes no one will buy?

The rain comes and fills the water buckets we set out to catch the rainwater that gushes off our flat roof. We scurry to harvest every drop. In the past rain was rain. Today, in this era, rain is life.

Scottsdale has banned front lawns in all new home construction. Bold action, rich people. That will save the planet, Muffy. Every bit helps, right, Chad? Job well done, Scottsdale. While you’re at it burn your golf courses to the ground. Fill the space with solar farms. Speaking of well done, by mid-century Phoenix will be well done if not charred. Will Tucson welcome the hot hordes of Phoenicians seeking relief?

To escape the heat and boredom I surf television.

Oh, great. A German news story about Germany’s historic drought. No, danke.

On the BBC: The Greek Islands are on fire. Yikes, no. I’ll try PBS.

Wonderful. They’re running a documentary about what happens next, and when and in what order. I’m a doom scroller. This is not news to me.

A few channels over there’s a feature on the wildfires in Canada. This just in: The world’s on fire. Thanks for the heads up, Canadian news team.

I end up watching a documentary from the Economist.

I’m seduced by the animated apocalypse predicted to unfold as our world grows 3-degrees hotter. The ocean currents going wonky like a pretzel on acid make for a riveting info graphic. There was never any mention of this phenomen by the Professor on “Gilligan’s Island”.

I could watch Greenland thaw over and over.

I turn the screen off to read a story telling me we’ll be flying in small electric planes and dirigibles in the slower world of our great grandchildren after the planet’s port cities drown beneath rising seas. Cheer up! Millions will be employed in vast multi-national public works climate change mitigation projects, the world will one day adopt a single global carbon currency and Elon Musk will most definitely become the Emperor of Mars.

Might as well go shopping. I need fine wine and cheese to enjoy this apocalypse by. And popsicles.

When shopping I do my part. Carrying my endlessly recycled grocery bag into Trader Joes I know I’m saving the Arctic, the Siberian perma-frost and the coral reefs. Why let futility defeat your noble sacrifices?

And the next bizarre-right lummox who says to me, “Summers are always hot. What’s the big deal?”

I’ll think, “We’re doomed, jackass, thanks to you. That’s the big deal.” But I won’t say anything.

It’s too damned hot.