As the South and Midwestern United States are gripped in a heat wave with high temperatures that have never been observed before, each locality has its own story of suffering. The city of Nashville, Tennessee, for instance, has had triple digit temperatures for twelve days in a row.
The heat in Tennessee, and the energy demand it causes, has been so extreme that an instrument that measures the flow of energy could not handle the strain any longer, and actually caught fire.
Locals are calling the heat “oppressive”. That’s an appropriate word, especially in consideration of the many scientific studies that indicate that rising temperatures around the world are due to human behaviors that right wing politicians have refused to bring under control.
We cannot afford to have right wing political leaders who continue to deny the reality of climate change even as they are mopping their sweaty brows. Do it for Nashville – vote to elect a progressive President in 2008.
(Sources: USA Today, August 22, 2007; Washington Post, August 22, 2007)
It’s not just for Nashville. I was just in Durham, North Carolina, where the average high is 87 in August, but which has had every day but one so far in August top that. Four days at 99, and four days above 100. Hot, hot, hot.