SUMMER SOLSTICE

 

It’s not like anyone here needs a news bulletin that summer has arrived. No need to rehash the common complaints about the heat. I’ll just say that I didn’t spend a lot of time out of my car when I visited Tower Grove Park. I gave this picture a bit of an old color postcard look, thinking about what used to be normal.             

THE HEAT

Citygarden, downtown St. Louis. The forecast for today, Saturday, is for a high of 104 F / 40 C. It's the kind of day when I want to take climate science deniers or the-economy-is-more-important types by the shoulders and just throttle them. Unlike many of our European friends, most of us have air conditioning and can hide indoors. But then there are the people who work outdoors and our neighbors who can't afford the electricity to run AC.        

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - BECAUSE IT HURTS TOO MUCH

  

 

We are home again, at least for a few days. I did not get out to photograph any Fourth of July activities yesterday because it's just too damn hot (worse the rest of the week) and you have to arrive hours early or park a long distance away to get to the parades and fireworks. I'm not up to it.

 

And the U.S. had another mass shooting yesterday, this time at an Independence Day parade in a suburb of Chicago. It made me think of this picture, taken a few years ago at a July 4 parade in Harrison, Michigan, that seems to sum it up. We will be in Harrison in eight days, not to see the Imperial Storm Troopers but because it is near where my son and his family live. 

 

Destructive climate and violence around here. You don't have to make a choice.

IT'S NOT EVEN SUMMER YET

Summer doesn't officially start until tomorrow, June 20, but much of the U.S. is under a dome of high-pressure, hot air that has us cooking. This photo was taken downtown yesterday afternoon. 100 F is about 38 C. I think it was 119 F / 48 C in Phoenix on Thursday. Most - but not all - of us have air conditioning, but then think of our substantial homeless population. There are cooling shelters here but it's not unusual to hear of low income elderly people dying in their roasting apartments. 

I'm sure we will revisit this in a month. Maybe less.       

SAKURA

Our botanical garden has a large, gorgeous Japanese area. It's cherry blossom time, sakura in Japanese. They were out in their glory this week although most of the other trees were just beginning to bud. It was cloudy on the day we went and I may have to look again in sunshine.

Today's climate change note: Mrs. C  and I are planning a trip to Japan for this time next year, hoping for the same kind of scenery. We've been there before but it's been a long time. Our memory was that the sakura were in full bloom about a week into April. The Japanese have kept records of cherry blossom time for 1,200 years. A news item this week noted that the peak in Kyoto was March 25, the earliest in 12 centuries. We should time our trip accordingly.             

FLAME OUT

One of the features of the rehabbed Union Station is a show of gas jets set to music, sort of like dancing fountains but with fire. It runs under the train shed every half hour from 5 to 10 PM, lasting four or five minutes.

It looks cool but it is really, really wrongheaded. Just what we need, sending hundreds or thousands of cubic meters of butane with all its heat and hydrocarbons into the atmosphere 11 times an evening. We are in enough trouble already. I have to admit that I am a climate pessimist. Sure, predictions of the future get battered by the unexpected but I think that there is some chance that I am living at the high point, if you can call it that, of human existence and may leave it just in time. I fear for my grandchildren. This display and the reckless people in our national government are some of the reasons why.         

Action Speaks

The heroic stance of the woman in the first picture sums up nicely the mood and attitude of the Women's March. What we don't need is the conduct Yeats describes in The Second Coming: The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. The worst are not on the horizon. They are inside the doors and they have the keys.

The sign in the second picture triggers some of my worst fears. The new administration is heavily sprinkled with climate change deniers, among the worst of the irrational loonies, people driven by ready-made, rigid belief rather than data. No one knows what is at the end of a road but am apprehensive about my grandchildren's future.  

         

Thursday Arch Series Two-Fer

Arch views from the climate change rally. The earth flag in the plaza takes the eye away from the national flag high on the Old Courthouse. Below, the monument frames the guitarist who provided entertainment between speeches. He was often the better choice.            

Turn Down The Heat

I'm sure it's obvious by now but this week's photos have been of Sunday's climate change rally, one of many around the world. There were a few hundred people at this one, a droplet compared to the - what was it? - 400,000 in New York. Ours was ironic since the offices of a huge coal company are across the street.

My view of our species' future is pessimistic. It is clear that short-term greed is winning out over our descendant's survival. Nothing is certain but it seems likely that our southwest will become dessicated and blow away. Parts of our Atlantic and Gulf coasts will become inundated and suffer more violent storms. It would not surprise me to see terrible conflict over water and food. I am horrified that so many people in this country declare that this is fiction. My granddaughter's future could be a hard one.