Sometimes I stare in space
Tears all over my face
I can’t explain it, don’t understand it
I ain’t never felt like this before
Now that funny feeling has me amazed
Don’t know what to do, my head’s in a haze …
Just like a heat wave
Burning right here in my heart
— Holland-Dozier-Holland
It’s 8:30 on Saturday morning at Tobey Dog Park. Many of the regulars and their mutts are here. The humans, maybe nine of them, are gathered in the shade of the one appreciable tree. The dogs, maybe 14 of them, make brief forays out into the burnt-grass hellscape to chase a ball or wrestle or dry-hump each other or poop, but soon return to the shade. They are not stupid creatures. Neither are the humans, who don’t even try to wrestle or dry-hump each other or poop. They just stay in the shade and commiserate.
It’s the third or fourth week without rain in Memphis. No one here in the shade can remember the last time water fell from the sky. We all agree it’s been at least 10 days since the daily high temperature was less than 98 degrees, with many days reaching triple digits. On Friday, the day before my trek to the dog park, Memphis registered the highest “feels like” temperature in the United States — a balmy 114 degrees.
What the hell, y’all?
At our house, we have closed every curtain, shutter, and window blind. All the ceiling fans are turning at warp speed. We keep the lights off during the day. We open and shut exterior doors quickly so the satanic heat can’t get in. We’re now living in a dark bat cave just so our air-conditioning can keep up. Sort of. When it’s 114 outside, we consider an interior high of 76 degrees a victory.
If it’s any comfort (and no, it’s not) we’re not alone. Heat waves have been happening all over the Northern Hemisphere this summer — in Spain, France, India, the Middle East, parts of Africa, and elsewhere, leading to the usual attendant miseries of drought and crop failure. And also to forest fires like those that have ravaged the Western U.S. this year — where they’re running out of water because it doesn’t snow enough anymore.
At least we’ve got water in Memphis. For now. Unless Governor Lee decides to privatize the Memphis Sand Aquifer. Which I wouldn’t rule out.
The world’s legitimate scientists have long moved past debating whether climate change exists or even whether our addiction to greenhouse gases is the cause. In a recent New York Times story, some scientists said that the current trend to longer and more frequent heat waves renders the question obsolete. The climate has changed, and we’re going to have to deal with the consequences. Why argue about the obvious?
In the same Times article, climate scientist Andrew Dessler said, “The warming of recent decades has already made it hard for scientists to know what to call a heat wave and what to treat as simply a ‘new normal’ for hot weather. … As time goes on, more and more of the planet will be experiencing those temperatures, until eventually, with enough global warming, every land area in the mid-latitude Northern Hemisphere would be above 100 degrees.”
If this is the new normal, then summer is the new hell. And it’s not like we don’t have a few other things to worry about these days, including a major political party that can’t kick its addiction to a delusional con man, a country that can’t keep its young men from randomly gunning down dozens of strangers, and a Supreme Court apparently made up of faith healers, gun nuts, and (probably) climate-change deniers.
Where to turn? It all feels new and not at all normal. I would say we’re all going to hell in a handbasket, but it appears we may have already arrived. Which begs the question: Can you get out of hell in a handbasket?