this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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This isn't just stupid. Anyone over 20 remembers that it wasn't this hot for this long. This requires that they tell themselves that the heat is for some natural reason.
Or they pretend that that one really hot day that made the newspaper in 1972 is perfectly representative for the other 364 days, because it's always warm in summer.
True, but we need to get them to acknowledge that okay, it was 102° F one day in 1972. Yesterday and today were the first days in 2 weeks or more where the high was less than 100° F where I live.
It was not this hot for weeks in 1972.
hell, you don't even have to go back to 1972. I remember in my area growing up (90's), breaking 100 was something that would maybe happen one or two days out of a whole summer, and it was a whole thing - treated in the same way you might treat a really bad storm in winter.
This summer half of every week has been above 100 since July - our "breaks" from the heat are like mid-90's.
I wonder how bad it's going to have to get before everyone who isn't literally mentally ill will have to admit that this isn't normal
The average person, even in the southern US where it's warmer, seems to understand that it doesn't snow as much as it used to. I've heard numerous people mention it over the years. It's when you try to get them to consider why that might be the case that their brains start turning to mush.
It's not their brains turning to mush, it's their rational thoughts bumping right up against decades of propaganda by oil companies, the right wing media, and conservative politicians that have ingrained the idea in them that believing in climate change makes you part of the radical left.
And ultimately it's easy to get people to (especially conservatives, who - by definition - are resistant to change) not believe in climate change, because it's scary as fuck, and because solving it will involve huge overarching societal changes. Much easier to pretend it doesn't exist. That's not just climate change, that's just how the human brain likes to deal with unpleasant facts - hell, that's how most people cope with the concept of their own mortality
We grew up in the south, right on the edge of the Midwest though. I remember one time my wife’s grandpa talking about how when he was a kid they all had ice skates because the ponds would freeze in the winter and the kids would skate. I was like that’s cool but the ponds don’t really freeze that solid in the winter.
Much later I had a moment of realization.
It isn't that way everywhere though. My part of southeast Ohio has consistently been below average. I know other places have to be extra, extra hot to reach the increased global temperatures, but millions and millions of Americans simply are not extperiencing any kind of increased heat.