MOUs and Heat Domes
As happens every so often, I had started a letter about Trump and Iran's memorandum of understanding, which was a heartbeat away from a peace deal, and it became irrelevant before I could get through the first paragraph. What I was going to say is that of course it would be wise not to consider the crisis averted, if for no other reason than that a lot of damage has already been done and a lot of that pain comes on a delay.
But, additionally, any deal made with Trump is not set in stone until the man himself is, and of course conditions have already changed. The memorandum included a ceasefire across both Iran and Lebanon, and of course Israel is in the middle of trying to make Greater Israel, stealing Lebanese territory and killing civilians, and of course they couldn't stop that. So memorandum done, Strait closed, ships attacked, war back on. But hey, gas is back down below $4.00 here.
I doubt any of you put much truck in this deal but I think you might have wagered that Trump would eventually kowtow to his billionaire brethren who wanted the economy to get back to normal–but perhaps he was content to goose the stock market every Friday and Monday and has thrown in some performative talks just to keep us from going "okay now, that's too obvious."
Iranians were rightfully skeptical of this deal, and I doubt that anyone on the ground did much of anything toward resuming a peaceful posture. Suffice to say that the world will continue to spasm in the absence of a full abundance of oil, and we can expect to see the full extent of these paroxysms later this year. This would rightfully take up headlines, but I imagine that we'll start talking about the midterms, or something, and forget why exactly we're having trouble feeding our families. And on a related note:
Heatwaves and Domes
You've surely heard of the European heatwave that struck last week. And rightly so–all-time records are being broken across the continent. And while records are a great way to let us know a thing quick; the real meat of the issue is that Europe is not at all adapted to this kind of heat. You might have heard 40 people drowned trying to escape the heat–I think it's worth sitting with that figure for a moment (it's risen, by the way). What percentage of your total population would jump into a canal or what have you to cool off? What percentage would do so not being able to swim, or to otherwise be incapacitated in the water? It's...small, right? A very small percentage? So, what's the number of people who just straight up died from the heat? I have yet to find a good guess–the last article linked says that emergency departments have recorded 55 deaths; that this figure matches those drowned leads me to believe it is a drastic undercounting. (I have now seen a 1,000 figure out of France, at the wire.)
Europeans don't have much in the way of air conditioning. There are various reasons for this, but mostly they just have not had to worry so much about deadly heat and have relied on older–more aesthetic and historical–techniques for cooling. Countries that cleave to this are going to see their body counts rise every summer until we stop counting entirely. It's not that I don't know air conditioners are part of the energy problem; it's that without them we're fucking dead. And when that's the math, I prefer we try to save the lives that are going to imminently perish than pretend we're saving more later–it may not even be pretend. Perhaps that's selfish, but if you want to balance the carbon budget, coming at me for saying "keep using air conditioners" while you aren't bricking private jets is a little silly.
Anyway. Europe isn't even the only place suffering right now. India has been experiencing intense heat since April. Tracking the impacts is difficult–and we can give Europe that same leniency, I suppose–for a number of reasons. You've got to define heatwave, account for or not account for humidity, account for or not account for deaths due to organ failure that occur less-than-instantaneously. But the figure for a five-day heat event is potentially 30,000 people. Considering heat has been so bad that schools across half the states in India have shuttered I think means we can assume five days is an undercount of the overall impact.
Finally, we've got heat domes coming here in the States. This week we can expect temperatures across half the continental United States to reach a heat index (the real feel) over 100°F. You're probably familiar with the function of a heat dome by now–it's a high pressure system in the upper atmosphere that squats over a region, preventing rain, cloud formation, and wind. Heat domes typically last days or weeks, and our current forecast has the Midwest baking for at least a week. Change the air filter on your AC, make sure your fridge and freezer are full, find out where your local cooling centers are, if there are any.
That's three disparate and populous regions experiencing deadly heat at roughly the same time, and El Niño has just barely kicked off. Heat being the deadliest type of weather in the States, I am disconcerted. You should be disconcerted. These heatwaves are exacerbated by climate change, El Niño is exacerbated by climate change, climate change is of course still ramping up.
Conclusion
You might be distracted by Love Island–which I'm finding pretty mid this year, though The Vampire Lestat is an bottomless source of joy–but the world is still spinning and still worsening. Israel is still committing a genocide–expanding it, even. ICE is still gestapo-ing. Protesters at the Prairieland Detention Center were just sentenced to extreme, chilling prison terms.
We're entering the times we were supposed to prepare for years ago; so if you haven't, you're behind. Things are only going to get worse. Catch up. Bring others with you–as many as you can.