…but it is pretty hot here and it is much, much hotter in other parts of the world. The heat will be responsible for more than just a few deaths this summer (not to mention the loss of billions of trees to forest fires). The very hottest places (such as Arizona) are daily dancing around 110F/43C (they had something like three straight weeks above 110). I mention Arizona because it is not far from Death Valley which has been hitting 120F/50C and has hit even (they say) 55C/130F a few times.

Seems somewhere in Phoenix street people were getting 3rd degree burns from the pavement.

But we have been below 30C so far this whole summer with 29C/85F as our hottest. So far, the only downside for us is NOT being able to work in the heat of the day. Kind of a good thing, really.

Could this be the heat dome before the blast furnace? Is this some kind of harbinger? Should we all be afraid?

Clearly not! This not a harbinger. This is not a warning. This is not a threat. Don’t be silly. This more than that!

The warning came with Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring back in 1962. GreenPeace began singing from the same hymn sheet shortly after. And the Sierra Club. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change came a bit late to the party (1988) but they’ve been bellowing as only scientists can do – ineffectively. We’ve enjoyed a plethora of harbingers since then. Dead canaries, bleached coral reefs, whales, spotted owls, threatened species, droughts, increased forest fires. And do not forget #1 – altered weather patterns. This is NOT a threat. This is a clear and present danger. The days of doubt and wondering are over. Welcome to Hell.

“But, Dave, If this is Hell, we can survive this. And anyway, the winters are cooler. Don’t panic.”

My response to that is our water is just beginning to boil and we are just now feeling it. Soon it will be roiling. Then it will vaporize into steam. Then we all evaporate (they are even calling it the Great Sixth Extinction). Just ’cause this summer isn’t bad enough to kill us, does not mean it won’t get worse.

It will get worse.

“Dude, don’t bum me out!”

OK, there is a bright side. The truth is, with all five previous extinctions, some of the species survived (alligators, snakes, cockroaches, mosquitoes, ferns, climbing vines). I doubt very much all the humans and all the trees and all the animals will die. Extinctions, it seems, leave some remnants behind to start over. So, the good news is we ALL won’t die. The bad news is MOST of us will.

And this is the point of the blog: change is coming. We can’t stop it. We didn’t even really try. So, if we cannot stop the change, we may as well try to adapt to the change. Plan A: try and be a successful remnant. Make some changes so as to increase your chances. Jus’ sayin’.

Sadly, moving off the grid is not enough (is MY face red or what?). It may buy a little time but it is not gonna address the basic, core danger. The danger is still coming. So, what to do? Interestingly, a lot of people are making big personal changes and I am quite sure they would NOT attribute any of those changes to survival plans – not directly, anyway. They may call it going on ‘retreat’, ‘giving up’ or even ‘living different’. Some may even call it working from home……or early retirement……

A lot of peeps have kinda checked out…….

I am struck by the number of mainstream ‘Mericans leaving the USA. They are moving to cheaper, simpler, safer, freer countries (Malaysia, Vietnam. Thailand, Philippines as well as Mexico, Costa Rica and places European). I am also quite surprised by the increased nomadic phenomena of people living in vans, RVs, and boats – they may not have given up on the ‘Merican Dream but they are currently looking elsewhere.

Of course, some poor doofus moving into his Chevy and driving it to a levy to drink whiskey and rye is not really doing that as a well-thought-out-and-executed survival plan. Neither is the Wonder Bread couple from Wisconsin moving to Ecuador doing their relocation just to survive – they enjoy it. Good for them!

But, at some level, these folks are also ‘sensing’ something is a’ changin’ and they are taking off in their own way. These folks are the real-life equivalent of Canaries in coal mines. They may even be rats leaving a sinking ship. They are just a slightly better capitalized version of migrants leaving 3rd world countries-at-war. Put more succinctly, the species is on the move.

Unconsciousness is like that. You do things and you don’t really know why. These folks are not yet really THINKING outside the box but they are, in fact, MOVING outside of it. The species is unconsciously or even semi-consciously reaching out for an alternative……maybe…..

I like that….