The ambulance’s red glare
“Make America Great Again” is Donald Trump’s freighted message to a conservative political base longing for “the good, old days.” You know, when men were men, women were women, white Christians were dominant, non-whites knew their place, and the biggest worry on the Fourth of July was fireworks injuries.
Somehow, I don’t think MAGAstan is fretting about that last bit.
From CNN’s daily “5 Things” news summary:
Independence Day celebrations were marred by violence over the holiday weekend after several mass shootings took place across the US. At least nine people were injured in a shooting early this morning in Washington, DC, as the victims were celebrating the Fourth of July in the nation’s capital. In Philadelphia, a shooting Monday left five people dead and two others wounded. On the same night in Fort Worth, Texas, a shooting killed three people and wounded eight others. Separately, block parties recently turned deadly in Indianapolis and Baltimore, leaving investigators scouring the crime scenes for answers. Data shows the Fourth of July has accounted for the most mass shootings of any other day of the year in nearly a decade, according to a CNN analysis.
If you missed the memo that shooting your neighbors is now how “patriots” celebrate the holiday, you’re not alone.
Hot August nights in July
Another factoid about yesterday’s July Fourth festivities (Washington Post):
Tuesday was the hottest day on Earth since at least 1979, with the global average temperature reaching 62.92 degrees Fahrenheit (17.18 degrees Celsius), according to data from the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction.
As a result, some scientists believe July 4 may have been one of the hottest days on Earth in around 125,000 years, due to a dangerous combination of climate change causing global temperatures to soar, the return of the El Niño pattern and the start of summer in the northern hemisphere.
In the United States, 57 million people were exposed to dangerous heat on Tuesday, according to The Washington Post’s extreme heat tracker. At the same time, China was gripped by a sizzling heat wave, the Antarctic is hotter than usual during its winter, and temperatures in the north of Africa reached 122F, Reuters reported.
The heat record has stood since … Monday.
A “triple whammy” is on its way in coming months, says Myles Allen, a professor of geosystem science at Oxford University, “when so “when global warming, El Niño and the annual cycle all line up together.”
Meaning?
Meaning the world’s deadliest animal, the mosquito, is “on the move,” bringing with it malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases (Washington Post):
In June alone, five cases of locally transmitted malaria were discovered in Texas and Florida: the first cases acquired in the United States in two decades. These cases, experts say, are unlikely to have a connection to warming temperatures — conditions in Florida and Texas are already suitable for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. But as urban heat islands expand and temperatures rise, mosquito-borne diseases are expected to travel outside of their typical regions.
“Climate change allows the creeping edge of mosquito ranges to expand,” said Sadie Ryan, a professor of medical geography at the University of Florida.
Not just northward but into higher elevations.
Different mosquitoes thrive under different temperatures. The Anopheles mosquito carries malaria; the Aedes aegypti and the Aedes albopictus mosquitoes carry diseases like dengue and chikungunya. But the A. aegypti thrives at higher temperatures than the A. albopictus. As different parts of the world warm at different rates, some mosquito-borne diseases will thrive while others will be put under stress.
According to a study published in 2019, both species are expected to spread northward in the United States over the next 30 years. By 2050, the A.aegypticould increase its range in the Mid-Atlantic and the Midwest; the A. albopictus could make it as far north as Michigan and Minnesota.
The good news? It might not be sea level rise or gunfire that gets you.
(h/t CT)