Mid Summer

 Summers are hot, that is what summer is. The hottest period of the year. This year however we have experienced at the end of June, record-breaking hot weather in the Northwest of the USA. The phenomenon called a heat dome produced temperatures about 100 Fahrenheit, 38 Celcius to one day an extreme 116 F (47 C). Many people died caused by this heat. It got to national news. Click here to see CBS's great article about this with an explanation of why it happened. 

NPR photo showing cooling stations

The government at the state and city level acted immediately to help those who needed but the effort was insufficient and people died from the extreme heat. Cooling stations were set where people who didn't have air conditioning in their homes could come and stay. The need was overwhelming and now government officials are planning proactively for the next one that will happen for sure in the not-so-long distant time.

David Wallace-Welch's book "The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming is a good description of what we are witnessing now.

We don't have to wait for a long time to see the devastation that Climate Change and in particular Global Warming is having on our lives. At the same time, we are witnessing flooding and forest fires that are unprecedented.

The question now is what can we do? As individuals? As a community? 

I am an optimist and think that there are many things we can do, and the first one is to get educated in these matters, as for me the main problem we have is a lack of understanding of how nature works and how we humans are part of nature. Being educated on these issues is the first step to get organized and active. The good news is that we are not alone and we are not the initiators of the environmental movement. Many have come before us and many more are side by side with us in this endeavor.

So let us not be discouraged!