miscellany

Something is going very, very wrong. Haywire. It’s hotter in Washington, DC and New York than it is in Lahore, Pakistan. London got more than a month’s worth of rain in a few minutes. Entire regions of Germany are flooded. California’s burning — again. Parts of Canada rivalled the hottest places on earth — and went up like tinder.

Something is very wrong. Not just wrong in a usual way, but wrong in a weird, off-the-charts way. These are “extreme events” which scientists have long feared. But they’ve even shocked scientists with how suddenly extreme and frequent they are.

Don’t take it from me.

“The far north of Europe also sweltered in record-breaking June heat, and cities in India, Pakistan and Libya have endured unusually high temperatures in recent weeks. Suburbs of Tokyo have been drenched in the heaviest rainfall since measurements began and a usual month’s worth of July rain fell on London in a day. Events that were once in 100 years are becoming commonplace. Freak weather is increasingly normal.”*