Photo editors get lazy in the heat - by Bill McKibben
This is not the most consequential newsletter I’ll ever write. In fact, it’s kind of grumpy and peckish. Chalk it up to the weather, which—since we haven’t quite reached the solstice—can only be described as a late-spring heat wave of staggering proportion. Across the U.S., about 150 million people have been dealing with the heat—and journalists, ever better at handling climate impacts, have been providing necessary and robust coverage. NBC, for instance, which is about as mainstream as it gets:
The Times has had installment after installment of on-point live updates, and some thoughtful pieces, including a feature on how heat affects the brain. You should read it for the information it contains. ( “ One investigation found that just a four-degree increase — which participants described as still feeling comfortable — led to a 10 percent average drop in performance across tests of memory, reaction time and executive functioning.” ) And you should read it for the hundreds of comments, incisive and often painful
My experience with high temperatures in the PNW heat dome included misery, anger, and desperation. The longer the heat went on the more obsessively focused on it I became. After three days all I could think about was how to cool down in an overheated house. I've never had my survival instincts be so present and insistent as they were after just a few days of heat threatening conditions. If it had lasted much longer I would have been forced to evacuate my uninhabitable house.
