The Long Emergency: It's here, it's now

Needless to say, the Fourth Estate has faced some distractions of late, but there's no excuse for missing what may be the most important news of the week, the record smashing heat wave across much of the United States. Schools were forced to close in Ohio, Maryland and elsewhere.

We actually had a heat wave eve later in October in 2017, where temperatures were well over 100 degrees in much of Southern California. Temperatures in Los Angeles had never topped 100 after October 17 in records going back to 1877, but hit 103 that year on October 24.

These October heat waves are less dangerous to life than events that happen in the summer, because the nights are longer and night-time temperatures do not stay as high. When the body doesn't get relief overnight, the stress can be deadly. Heat waves in fact cause more deaths than any other category of natural disaster.

June of this year was the hottest month on record worldwide, ever. Paris hit 110 degrees. In the U.S., affluent people in hot climates have air conditioning and it is generally made available to others in emergencies, but a lot of Americans die from excessive heat anyway. No such luck in much of the world where air conditioning is rare - including some of the hottest places where most people just can't afford it. Which is probably just as well since air conditioning obviously uses energy, which is most produced by fossil fuel, and will just make our long-term problem worse. That also means that crops are failing, and many places are becoming uninhabitable. In fact an important cause of the Syrian civil war was desertification of croplands and the migration of desperate people to the cities, where they faced unemployment and destitution. Many people from places devastated by heat and drought are fleeing north to more affluent countries, and we see the social disasters that are ensuing.

That the occupant of the office of president is a traitor is bad, sure. But that's not the worst thing about him.