Even the characters in the anime “Lucky Star” talk about global warming when the weather is hot.

These have been two hot weeks, despite a couple days with at least some hours of overcast. The heat just seems to build up, and by now I am reduced to wringing a thin shirt in lukewarm water and wear it. That way the water that evaporates does not come from my own body, at least.  Earlier years I have had bad leg cramps in the summer, which one doctor believed came from not drinking enough water. I am not sure about that, it seems I eat very few things that contain less than 90% water: Yogurt, yogurt ice cream, juice mixed with water, soda mixed with water.  Well, a couple bananas this weekend.  But mostly very watery stuff.

I can certainly imagine elderly, severely disabled people dying from this heat.  Although in Norway, it is mostly the winter who culls the elderly population.  As long as they stay indoors and keep the heating on and dress in warm clothes, they are fine, but of course at some point they venture outside and their hearts go poof.  In comparison, the summer is a minor problem, at least for now, and in most of the country.  But heat waves like these certainly do push the border.

An online friend rages today because most people don’t know the difference between weather and climate.  “It’s so hot, it must be the global warming!”  “No, there is no global warming, for it was so cold this winter.”  I kind of feel her pain.  But in America it is even worse, because not just opinions but even factual climate data depend on what party you vote for, and this again depends on your opinion of abortion and your grandmother.  I joke that if this continues, eventually one day they will wake up and find that everyone from the other party is just gone, kinda like the Rapture.  Because their two worlds will have moved so far apart that they can no longer see each other.  Wouldn’t that make an awesome SF story at least?  Perhaps there is a transition phase in which Democrats appear ghostlike and foggy to Republicans, and the other way around, and most people don’t notice because they habitually avoid them anyway.  And then they’re just gone. Woo!

What do you mean, heat gone to my head?  The voices in my head say they are just fine.

Happy 4th of July, by the way! I hope the terrain is less tinder-like than here if you’re having fireworks.