Yeah, but trying is hard so...

We're just cool with this now, I guess.

So what's kind of weird to me, weird and terrifying, is that the heatwaves plaguing the--wait, plaguing? We just got past (knock on wood) a pandemic, so maybe we need a word for an unrelenting cycle of heatwaves. A collective noun for heatwaves. Oh, wait, hold on, I've got it: an apocalypse of heatwaves. So it's weirdly terrifying that the apocalypse of heatwaves is being treated like just that, a heat wave. So it kind of suggests that they'll subside at some point. Which they will. But then come back next year.

Like, I get that each individual wave will, as waves do, crest and then calm down, but the point is that the average temperature for the year keeps going up, and has been for a few years now, so like, what's the plan here?

"Substantive change? Never! Our plan is to just run out the
clock until the rapture happens. Then it's so long suckers!"

-Kevin McCarthy's actual plan*

And without the cheap junk, how are we
supposed to not notice that capitalism has
made us serfs in a corporate feudal society?

I know I'm preaching to the choir here and since neither you nor I are the CEO's of Exxon, or the President of the U.S. or China, we're not really in a position to do anything substantive about it. And surely someone's going to do something eventually right? Right? I'm not a climatologist, but it's not going to stop getting warmer unless we do something. Or not do something as it were. As in drive and fly so much. Oh, and container ships. That's a big one. Which begs the question: without container ships, where are we supposed to get all the cheap junk we fill our homes with?

Hurray! A partial solution that kinda helps!

Well, we could try not buying all that useless crap, and rise up against our corporate oppressors, but I read somewhere that some shipping companies are trying out giant kites which reduce fuel consumption by helping to pull container ships and taking the load off of the engines. Yeah, it's a startup company, but still, less engine usage, so less fuel. It's supposed to do something like reduce emissions by 20%. And that's great. Not like nearly enough, but great. 

And there are other things we can do. Theoretically, anyway. We should all ride bikes to work. We don't, but we should. Oh, and there's that vat-grown cultured animal tissue that might someday replace meat and consequently relieve some of the strain animal agriculture puts on the environment. 

So all we have to do is give up driving and meat, and transform our entire civilization into 
to some kind of vegan retread of the age of sail? Cool. I'm sure everyone will go for it.

"If it creates more value for shareholders than 
not ruining the planet, maybe? No promises."

-business

But at least we're trying. Ok, we're not trying. We're foolishly fapping around in the vague hope that the free market will somehow solve all of our problems for us, blithely aware that that is absolutely not, nor has it ever been, what the free market's primary aim is. It's going great so far. I suppose the theory here is that the ultra-wealthy will eventually come around to the idea that if we all die of heatstroke no one will be around to crew their mega yachts, so maybe they'll grudgingly turn their resources towards fighting climate change instead of exacerbating it. Which, I wouldn't hold my breath.

I guess I've always taken some solace in the thought that on some level we're still an animal species and as such will probably try and survive. So for me it's never been a question of if we'll do something, but how many people have to drown before we bother. 

We should probably address this sooner rather than later if we have any
hope of saving the East Coast. Yeah, Florida too. You know, if there's time.

*Oh, but it is though.