The Republic has a page one brief on the weather. Headline: 7 straight days of 110+ and now, summer starts. Reporter John Faherty writes, "Last year set a record when the high temperature hit or exceeded 110 on 32 days...On average, that happens 10 times per year." Oh, and there's an unhealthy air alert.
Sadly, this is the new normal. The summers have been getting hotter and lasting longer for years now. This is a man-made phenomenon: replacing agriculture with subdivisions, sprawling the urban island across 1,500 square miles or more, and throwing down asphalt, concrete and rocks with no thought to their consequences.
Sorry to say that miracle cool paving is about as likely and practical as a hydrogen car. The practical steps that would help, such as investing in shade oases, stopping sprawl and cutting concrete use won't happen. And what's mind-boggling is how the City of Phoenix keeps cutting down trees and eliminating cooling grass. The rock median on Camelback by the ruined Biltmore Fashion Park is an example.
And global warming hasn't even begun to be seriously felt, with its effects on the water supply, along with raising temperatures even more.
The swells who leave town for the summer make their living on continuing this gathering calamity. So nothing will change. Faherty's opening sentence is "It's OK to be afraid." Indeed.
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