High temperatures are the new pandemic

Do you remember the day back in 2020 when a CDC functionary down in Atlanta had the temerity to suggest that the death toll from COVID could get as high as 200,000?  The comment was made to a reporter in March or early April, and it was like the roof came off in Washington D.C.  Trump, who was still in his phase of stopping the embarkation of cruise ships to keep the nation’s case total down, had her reassigned to monitoring fur growth on desert hopping mice, or something like that.  Howls were emitted from the Republican sides of the House and Senate.  Nobody was willing to believe the number of deaths could get that high.

That February, Trump had been saying, “You know, a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat — as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April.”  By May, Trump was saying the coronavirus “is going to go away without a vaccine. It’s going to go away, and it’s — we’re not going to see it again, hopefully, after a period of time.”  In July, Trump promised, “It goes away, and it goes away quickly. The key is, we want it to go away without a lot of death, without a lot of problems.”

This afternoon it was announced that more than 1,700 people had died from heat-related causes in Spain and Portugal over the last week.  In Great Britain, a record temperature of 104 was set at London’s Heathrow Airport.  In Paris, temperatures reached 100 degrees, and in Southwest France, a record temperature of 109 was set in the coastal town of Biscarrosse.  In Nantes, the city with the 6th largest population in France, temperatures were over 107 degrees.  And in the Southwest region of Gironde, wildfires destroyed 34,000 acres.

Temperatures in the United States climbed past 100 across a broad swath of the country that included 20 states.  More than 100 million Americans were under excessive heat warnings today, the Weather Projection Center said.  Temperatures in Dallas are forecast to reach 111 degrees, a record, tomorrow.  Today Oklahoma City saw temperatures of 109.

Death tolls for other countries in Europe are expected to be high and heat-related deaths in this country are being predicted as well.

Here’s the thing:  none of this is new.  Heat records were set in Europe in 2003 and 2019.  Since that year, temperatures have exceeded 100 degrees four times in four years in Great Britain.  In this country, high temperatures have become the so called new normal.  Everybody knows why:  the yearly heat waves across the globe are climate related, and the climate is growing warmer. 

But in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, only one percent of Americans named climate as the most important challenge facing the country. 

One percent.

Remember what happened when the death toll from COVID passed the magical number of 200,000 that nobody thought would ever be reached?  It happened in September of 2020, and it has become such a non-event in the history of that pandemic, I had to look it up.  Deaths from COVID are now above one million in this country.  Do you remember when that milestone was reached?  I didn’t either, so I looked it up.  It was just two months ago, on May 17.

One million dead.

What’s going on with all these numbers – 100 degrees here, a thousand deaths there, COVID cases tripling across Europe with hospitalizations doubling and the same jump in COVID infections predicted in this country for the fall?

I’ll tell you what has happened:  the numbers ceased to matter.  200,000?  500,000?  A million?  Nobody even noticed.  What mattered was whether or not you cared, and one of our two political parties saw they could gain a political advantage in not caring and made the astonishing decision that vaccines (!) were somehow evil and by opposing vaccine mandates and even mask requirements – both of which were shown scientifically to save lives (!) -- they could win votes.

It's getting hotter and hotter, and no, the heat didn’t cause COVID or anything else to just “go away.”  People will continue to die from this terrible disease, and increasing numbers of people will die around the world and in this country from high temperatures which we know are being caused by our own blinkered political nihilism. 

But not caring about any of it has become a winner for the Republican Party, and they have turned the pandemics of COVID and climate change into a tool of political control by turning cause and effect inside out and backwards.  It’s the libs telling you to put on masks and get a needle in your arm!  It’s the libs telling you that you need to turn down your thermostat and get rid of your SUV and pickups and buy more efficient cars.

Heat is the perfect pandemic because it will never really affect the ruling class the way a disease can sneak into anyone’s body.  The people who die from the heat in sub-Saharan Africa or southern Europe or the southern United States will be the ones who don’t have air conditioning.  But their rulers do, so they can continue cynically using climate to keep people down and themselves politically up.

You know we’ve reached some kind of nadir when record temperatures and soaring death tolls are a good thing for one of our political parties because they are evidence that their political lies are working.

But here we are.