Heat, Drought, & Fires Disrupt USA’s 250th Anniversary — But We Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet

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Two days ago, I saw news that New Jersey towns were having to cancel 4th of July events to extreme heat. The irony struck me immediately. A country that is by and large ignoring global heating is having celebrations of its 250-year anniversary/birthday canceled because of global heating. “New Jersey is heading into possibly one of the hottest Independence Days on record, with the National Weather Service warning of heat index values up to 115 degrees just as the state marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,” NJ.com writes. “Hundreds of parades, fireworks shows and America 250 celebrations are planned across the state — and towns are now racing to postpone or scale back events before the weekend’s peak heat arrives.”

Then, this morning, I got new from my mom that there are a bunch of fires in the US West. She was concerned about my uncle (her brother), who she hadn’t heard from. He responded later, though, and isn’t being evacuated (yet). The article she sent to me about it has this title: “More than 1,700 personnel are battling 5 major fires in Colorado as hot, dry weather continues into holiday weekend.” More than 150 homes have now been burned down by the Aspen Acres Fire. Here’s a screenshot of where fires are (some of them, at least):

That’s a lot of fire.

No one wants to see this. And that’s what people who don’t want to believe the climate science don’t often understand — we’re simply trying to prevent this type of thing from growing, getting worse, getting more deadly and more destructive. If burning fossil fuels wasn’t frying our planet (and causing tremendous health problems), we wouldn’t have any problem with it!

Disrupting 4th of July celebrations is not cool, but it’s one of the smallest problems we’re going to have from global heating and climate disruption.

It’s time for clean energy independence — solar and wind power providing electricity for our homes, cars, heat pump AC systems, induction stoves, etc. — because we don’t want to increase extreme heat events, house-destroying and human-killing wildfires, more superstorms, more flooding, etc.

On the 250th anniversary of the US declaring independence from England, it’s time for more of us to commit to reaching clean energy independence.