Records Broken

The summer of extreme weather continues.

The news is constant about the extreme weather we are experiencing: hottest month of June ever, hottest July 3rd or 4th ever, extreme fires in Canada and the resultant smoke in the northeast and Midwest, and the extreme flooding up in the northeast, especially Vermont. Normally the extreme flooding in the northeast would be logged as some event coming around once every 500 years, although this one was once every 1000 years; the northeast already had such extreme flooding back in 2012 or 2013.

That’s just in the US.

Around the world, extreme weather is occurring, based on the news: Japan had some flooding weather, searing heatwave in Europe, India and China. Weird weather is happening not just in the US but all around the world. Ice capes in the north and south pole appears to be melting, maybe more rapidly than elsewhere.

So, this week, more temperature records stand to fall throughout the world, meaning each year as we breach a record, the following year we breach the record again. I think Death Valley is supposed to reach 130 degrees. Phoenix, Arizona is baking right now.

Unfortunately, extreme weather is not the only bad news. We may also deal with the potential increase in income inequality with the introduction AI in everything. If AI adversely impacts jobs as feared, then I don’t see how capitalism continues to exist. It has to break under the weight of inequality and mass unrest. I don’t know what would come after capitalism but we need to be thinking about another system that addresses inequities while maintaining competition.

I think in terms of capitalism, we are headed for some rough times.

And then there’s the rising division and violence. It kind of feels like we are living in an early parallel to Nazi Germany in the 30s with people talking about somebody needs to be executed, an entire party are full of pedophiles, so we need to take them out, and just the constant barrage of threatening gestures. The Supreme Court has opened up open season on gays and trans that is already playing out with one hair salon supposedly denying service to trans…just because the owner does not believe in trans, although I don’t think trans are asking the owner to say they believe in trans.

The danger is that this open season extends to gays, immigrants, blacks, Hispanics, Latinos, anybody non-white. It really feels like a parallel to Nazi Germany in the early 30s and I don’t think they recognize it.

So, our skies have darkened from the extreme weather, impending AI takeover, and the growing violence.