Last summer started for us with smoke from the Canadian wildfires. I went to pick up the boys from the last day of school and the whole sky was a queasy pink and the air had an acrid taste. We got in the car and went to my mom's house an hour away because the air quality there was just slightly better. I want my boys to have summers like I did... but I know that won't be the case. Even on a day when there's nothing acute, the weather patterns have shifted. Rain storms in the afternoon with the humidity building and breaking. These are southern storms, here in New York.
When you strip away the statistics, the science, and the politics... that we are changing the climate - for the worse - is just so damn sad. I feel such sadness that our children's summers have so much more crap to deal with.
We were atop Mount Blue Sky yesterday afternoon (7/31) watching smoke from the northern Colorado fires waft south along the Front Range Foothills. Then there was a whole new cloud of reddish brown smoke at the leading edge as yet another fire broke out to the southwest of Denver. Here in southwest Boulder, it's just like you described in Beulah. The Flatirons, perhaps 2 miles west of our home, are a ghostly apparition. It takes all night for the outdoor temperatures to reach 68-deg-F and we run an air conditioner in the bedroom so we can sleep. As we get older, we think more and more about whether or not we can live without a whole-house solution, but the wind makes me nervous about a rooftop swamp cooler and we don't have the cash to install A/C. Not to mention that Boulder, in its environmental self-righteous indignation, has such extreme building code restrictions on what you can install that the day is coming when only the wealthy will be able to live in a place we've called home for 44 years. You are right about our summers. Where can anybody go? The changes are taking place everywhere.
I always wind up in the same place - beyond the discomfort, the anger at how it didn’t have to be this way … I just wind up feeling sad. As for watching the wildfires, isn’t it weird that we now have a new pastime - watching wildfires? Thanks for sharing Evan, and stay safe - and cool.
We've had the same weeks of extraordinary heat (temps about ten degrees above normal) and dry that you have, though less of the smoke. Here in northern NM, we don't have big fires burning this year, but we had huge ones two summers ago. It is sad. And yet, today the monsoon rains rumbled back to life, and we got an hour of life-awakening rain, enough to cool the air so that the house is open now and the tile floors are nicely chill underfoot. (I don't have air conditioning or swamp cooling either, and I don't want it.) I wish I could share the blessings of rain and coolness with you there. Perhaps today's monsoon weather here is only temporary relief in the face of climate change, but it is welcome relief nonetheless.
We're back to dry here today, but the temps are down to the high 80s instead of mid-90s, a distinct improvement. May the rains come your way, and the smoke and heat subside!
Last summer started for us with smoke from the Canadian wildfires. I went to pick up the boys from the last day of school and the whole sky was a queasy pink and the air had an acrid taste. We got in the car and went to my mom's house an hour away because the air quality there was just slightly better. I want my boys to have summers like I did... but I know that won't be the case. Even on a day when there's nothing acute, the weather patterns have shifted. Rain storms in the afternoon with the humidity building and breaking. These are southern storms, here in New York.
When you strip away the statistics, the science, and the politics... that we are changing the climate - for the worse - is just so damn sad. I feel such sadness that our children's summers have so much more crap to deal with.
We were atop Mount Blue Sky yesterday afternoon (7/31) watching smoke from the northern Colorado fires waft south along the Front Range Foothills. Then there was a whole new cloud of reddish brown smoke at the leading edge as yet another fire broke out to the southwest of Denver. Here in southwest Boulder, it's just like you described in Beulah. The Flatirons, perhaps 2 miles west of our home, are a ghostly apparition. It takes all night for the outdoor temperatures to reach 68-deg-F and we run an air conditioner in the bedroom so we can sleep. As we get older, we think more and more about whether or not we can live without a whole-house solution, but the wind makes me nervous about a rooftop swamp cooler and we don't have the cash to install A/C. Not to mention that Boulder, in its environmental self-righteous indignation, has such extreme building code restrictions on what you can install that the day is coming when only the wealthy will be able to live in a place we've called home for 44 years. You are right about our summers. Where can anybody go? The changes are taking place everywhere.
I always wind up in the same place - beyond the discomfort, the anger at how it didn’t have to be this way … I just wind up feeling sad. As for watching the wildfires, isn’t it weird that we now have a new pastime - watching wildfires? Thanks for sharing Evan, and stay safe - and cool.
We've had the same weeks of extraordinary heat (temps about ten degrees above normal) and dry that you have, though less of the smoke. Here in northern NM, we don't have big fires burning this year, but we had huge ones two summers ago. It is sad. And yet, today the monsoon rains rumbled back to life, and we got an hour of life-awakening rain, enough to cool the air so that the house is open now and the tile floors are nicely chill underfoot. (I don't have air conditioning or swamp cooling either, and I don't want it.) I wish I could share the blessings of rain and coolness with you there. Perhaps today's monsoon weather here is only temporary relief in the face of climate change, but it is welcome relief nonetheless.
Ah, monsoon moisture. I’m happy to hear you are getting some. You are right, it is a welcome relief for sure! Be safe.
We're back to dry here today, but the temps are down to the high 80s instead of mid-90s, a distinct improvement. May the rains come your way, and the smoke and heat subside!
Yes, we are living in ecologically perilous and precarious times. It is sad.
Heard "I Guess He'd Rather Be In Colorado" yesterday, and thought of you.
(and me)
You are so right, it is so sad. I’ve always liked that song and it has been an on-again off-again part of my repertoire for decades.