In which I sit in the Atlantic

[gwendally]

It was brutally hot today.  It was over 90 by 9 AM.  After that I stopped paying attention, but I've heard it hit 100 here on our little island in the north Atlantic.  That's beyond bizarre.  I've never been on the island on a day this hot.  We started the day by installing an air conditioner in the Octogenarian bedroom.  I brought a table in and

Comments

[lds]

Have you noticed, the people who very loudly proclaim on cold days that global warming is obviously disproved, are very very quiet these days?

[roasted_beets]

Like it doesn't get hot every summer.

[gwendally]

It hit 100 yesterday and made the record books.

Yes, it gets hot every summer.

It doesn't get THIS hot. The hottest it has ever been in any July in record was 100 degrees, yesterday's record.

[roasted_beets]

And in Birch Island, British Columbia yesterday it was 59° when it's normally 85°.

"It's just weather - not climate."

[gwendally]

Well, I think it's pretty well established that we have a warming climate at this point, and fairly well established that it's man-made. Whether we can or should do anything about it is another question entirely.

But the temperature isn't what shocked me. It was that my octogenarians would have died without air conditioning on an island in Maine. I am not counting on the Caves of Steel to be there when I'm old, and it came as a brutal moment when I realized that their life depended on ready access to air conditioning. Even on an island in Maine.

Wow.

[roasted_beets]

Ok, I understand your concern about your octogenarians. Do people lose the ability to regulate their temperature when they get old? I know babies can't sweat, maybe old folks can't either?

Personally, if I have to ever be kept in an air conditioned room just to stay alive, I'm going to give my *quality of life* a serious look.