You probably shouldn't visit here then...(Arizona desert). It makes me want to freak out when I look at all the perfectly watered lawns, swimming pools, man-made ponds, water parks, golf courses that are around here. Selfish for sure and just....stupid. it gives me such anxiety.
Arizona is on my bucket list! I would love to visit. I think i am mentally prepared, after having visited Las Vegas and parts of southern California.
I know there are some excuses for maintaining a garden in a desert. Like people say they are using grey water on their lawn, or they make the (valid) point that shade trees can help to decrease the urban heat island effect. That's fair enough, but i still think it would be better for people to accept the fact that they live in a desert, and that does mean they may not get to enjoy all the same things that people who live in rainier or more humid climates do.
There's a certain degree of shaping our environment that we can and should do as humans to make our lives safer and more comfortable, but at a certain point it's easier to just go with the flow of the environment that we're in. We can be pretty resilient when we put our minds to it!
Well, then, come on down!! What is it in Arizona that you'd like to see? Just the desert in general, or specific things? I guess lots of people come here to see the Grand Canyon. While I agree it's pretty cool to see and experience once, I don't really understand why people go to see it over and over. I think there are lots of other cool places here to see that I actually prefer over the Canyon. I would be interested to hear what types of places, if any specifically, are on your list to see in AZ.
Yeah...accepting where you live. That's key. It blows my mind that people here insist on trying to grow a pine tree forest in their yard. There are places in Arizona where pines naturally grow, and aspen, and all kinds of pretty things... but not in the desert. Come on, people.
Watering gardens is necessary to keep your food going. Watering your lawn is not. Lawns are stupid.
Also, in regards to temps, above certain temps, people don't thrive very well, and you end up seeing a massive increase in people being rushed to the hospital due to not being able to tolerate the heat (mostly older folks.) So, A/C allows them to survive. It's a bitch, but it is what it is. I remember when I was working on the oil spill down in Louisiana in the middle of the summer, and this Cajun guy said to me "This is God's country!" implying LA was all that. I flippantly said "you only say that because you have A/C going nonstop." He started to reply, and stopped.
It's interesting that according to the BC chief coroner twice the number of people died over last weekend than would normally have died (with the implication that they died from the heat). Those 100-odd extra deaths dwarfs both the COVID and opioid death rate, but it's only COVID and opioids that really makes the news on a regular basis. Much like deaths due to air pollution, this kind of death is just a footnote in the odd environmental article that will be forgotten once the heat wave is over
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Norskie homes often have a Varmepumpe for heating. It's a weird thing to me because it looks like the units you get in hotel rooms but rarely have in a domestic house in the UK. I was assured it was the most efficient way to heat, and electricity is all we have here. (No gas or oil
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When you say "units you get in hotel rooms", do you mean those weird American box thingys that hang out of the windows in New York City? Or those snazzy AC units that look like flattened spaceships that hang up on the top of the wall where you can't reach them so you need to use a remote? Or are they both the same thing? I am an air conditioning luddite. I had one of those spaceships when i lived in China, but i only used it once or twice when i had very, very bad hangovers. (And that just made me feel even more guilty
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Yes to both! The box fan thing on the outside and the spaceship on the inside. I have a remote to programme mine, but I usually use an app, so I can keep the heating on minimal while I am out and nudge it up when I leave work. In winter I can't switch the heating off entirely or risk the pipes freezing, but the house is far better insulated than a British house so probably isn't too wasteful.
Fuck lawns, but I'm just trying to keep my 100 year old pear tree, raspberry bushes which are the children of my grandma's bushes (ie: the raspberries I grew up eating), and her rhubarb alive. The heat has pushed all the berries into a false ripening... and in 2 days of this heat without water would kill the whole plant. Usually they only need watered once a week... but this is crazy. It was 116/46.6 IN THE SHADE at my mom's mountain cabin near the Canadian border. It's actually hotter in the mountains than in the cities during this heat wave... its crazy.
She has no electricity, no water on site... she hauls it in monthly. Now her water supply is 150 degrees.... too hot for the animals to drink... too hot for the garden, too. Scalds on contact. Other, more simple options... don't work in this heat *either*. But at least she's not adding to the problem... energy-wise.
I'm not sure anyone around here has food growing in their yards, but the news from the surrounding farms (more down toward Okanagan/Kootenays - we're ranch land up here) ain't great. Then as if the heat wasn't enough, the fires hit bad yesterday and today you could barely see 100m from all the smoke. The smoke just cleared an hour or two ago, and the temperature has dropped to 85F/30C now, but there's a lot of lightning, and i'm pretty sure i just saw a fire start on the hill over the river. At least, there's a new and suspicious plume of smoke coming up from over there.
I feel for your mom. I spent a couple hours over the past few days sitting outside to get some fresh air and it was stupidly hot. Drinking from my water bottle was almost hot enough to scald. I'm not sure even burying it would help much in this sort of weather. Definitely not the best time to be living without even a refrigerator.
Humans are only able to survive all over the world's face like horrible ants, because so many of our cultures are about adapting by adapting the WORLD to suit us, rather than ADAPTING to suit the world. It's a real fuckin' shame.
Stay safe. Find the clean air, some cool shade, and keep on keepin' on.
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You probably shouldn't visit here then...(Arizona desert). It makes me want to freak out when I look at all the perfectly watered lawns, swimming pools, man-made ponds, water parks, golf courses that are around here. Selfish for sure and just....stupid. it gives me such anxiety.
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I know there are some excuses for maintaining a garden in a desert. Like people say they are using grey water on their lawn, or they make the (valid) point that shade trees can help to decrease the urban heat island effect. That's fair enough, but i still think it would be better for people to accept the fact that they live in a desert, and that does mean they may not get to enjoy all the same things that people who live in rainier or more humid climates do.
There's a certain degree of shaping our environment that we can and should do as humans to make our lives safer and more comfortable, but at a certain point it's easier to just go with the flow of the environment that we're in. We can be pretty resilient when we put our minds to it!
Reply
Yeah...accepting where you live. That's key. It blows my mind that people here insist on trying to grow a pine tree forest in their yard. There are places in Arizona where pines naturally grow, and aspen, and all kinds of pretty things... but not in the desert. Come on, people.
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Also, in regards to temps, above certain temps, people don't thrive very well, and you end up seeing a massive increase in people being rushed to the hospital due to not being able to tolerate the heat (mostly older folks.) So, A/C allows them to survive. It's a bitch, but it is what it is. I remember when I was working on the oil spill down in Louisiana in the middle of the summer, and this Cajun guy said to me "This is God's country!" implying LA was all that. I flippantly said "you only say that because you have A/C going nonstop." He started to reply, and stopped.
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She has no electricity, no water on site... she hauls it in monthly. Now her water supply is 150 degrees.... too hot for the animals to drink... too hot for the garden, too.
Scalds on contact.
Other, more simple options... don't work in this heat *either*.
But at least she's not adding to the problem... energy-wise.
Reply
I feel for your mom. I spent a couple hours over the past few days sitting outside to get some fresh air and it was stupidly hot. Drinking from my water bottle was almost hot enough to scald. I'm not sure even burying it would help much in this sort of weather. Definitely not the best time to be living without even a refrigerator.
Reply
Stay safe. Find the clean air, some cool shade, and keep on keepin' on.
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