Unspectacularly Normal

Amid all of this end-of-the-world…ism, you were probably surprised to find – in colleague Joel Bowman's weekend report – that the summer, 2023, so far, has not been particularly hot at all:

Current temperatures across the UK and Ireland are unseasonably cool, according to the Met Office, with London a fresh 66...and Dublin a rainy old 60. Over on the continent, it's... well, summer. Berlin is 73... Paris 69... Budapest 70... Prague 68... Vienna 62... Florence 84... Moscow 73... Krakow 75... 

Of the 50 European capitals, the average temperature today... during the "hottest July on record"... is a searing, sweltering, blood-boiling... 

...76.1 fahrenheit. 

In the United States, the summer so far (June 1 - July 19, 2023) across the Lower 48 states has seen unspectacularly normal temperatures of a mere +0.07°C above average. Readers along the mid-Atlantic, the Carolinas and the Ohio Valley are no doubt enjoying the relatively unextreme weather. Same for the Pacific Northwest. And the Northeast. And along the Prairies. And the Rockies. Sea to shining sea, as it were... and practically anywhere that is not Phoenix, Arizona... which was virtually uninhabitable before the advent of air conditioning anyway. Death Valley, too, has been pretty hot. Who woulda thunk?

But what about all these "extreme heat waves" we're hearing about? Perhaps some perspective might come in handy. The folks over at the EPA (the Environmental Protection Agency...that bastion of racist, transphobic, right-wing climate deniers) provide the US Annual Heat Wave Index going back 120+ years.

What the Annual Heat Wave Index shows is that the media is either mistaken…or lying. It turns out, the new normal is the old normal. So far, the summer of 2023 looks much like any other summer. It is hot in Las Vegas…and cool in Dublin. 

There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction. But that didn't stop mass mayhem…as wrought by the US military. There may not be any real facts that support the Global Warming Hypothesis either. But our guess is that that small inconvenience will not prevent the destruction ahead.  

Bill Bonner