Sure, we’re in the middle of a heat wave — but you may want to think twice before cranking up the AC.
As
the Earth warms and summers become increasingly hotter, we turn to
pollutant air conditioners to cool down, furthering environmental
damage.
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As
many as 1,000 additional people each year along the Eastern U.S. could
die from complications due to higher levels of air pollution
from increased air conditioning use, researchers from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison said in a new study published Tuesday in the journal
PLOS Medicine.
On
top of that, the study found that about 13,000 people along the Eastern
U.S. could die per year by 2050 from the hazardous particulate
matter released into the air as a byproduct of burning fossil fuels,
and there could be another 3,000 deaths from ozone exposure.
Living in San Francisco, I’m very
lucky in that we don’t usually need a.c. The breeze coming off the
Pacific is usually all we need. Like mid-day today was 64 degrees.
It’s not like we’re burning up. I talked to Trina and it was 90
degrees where she lives (Boston). I can see the need for a.c. there or
in a state like Arizona or Texas. But here in San Fran, we do okay
without it. You really just need some ceiling fans and you’re set.
And, yes, it’s better for the planet not to use
a.c. (including in your car) but no one should make themselves sick by
not using it. C.I. used to never use it but she has diabetic nerve pain
and there are days when it is especially bad and she’ll use the a.c.
because pain pills don’t work for her – not
even the codeine ones. So if we’re on the road and you go into her
hotel room and it’s freezing, that’s why. She has the diabetic nerve
pain in her toes, her feet, her legs right below the calves and in her
fingers. I can’t imagine how painful it is.
She doesn’t complain. Because I see her speak so much, I can tell when
she gets a shooting pain while speaking. But otherwise, I wouldn’t
even know.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Madeline Albright is responsible for criminal sanctions that killed over 500,000 children in #Iraq. She told “60 minutes” it was “worth the cost.” She considered the #Baath govt to be #fascist. This kind of “#antifascism” is not Progressive.
Mad Maddie Albright is the one who should come with a warning label. Her actions should have resulted in a mass shunning. Instead, she's allowed to pose as a humanitarian and someone worth listening to.
People like Maddie destroy the world and then stand around as though they have done something worthy of applause. Booing is too kind for the likes of Maddie.
Returning to the topic of the drought in Iraq, Philip Issa (AP) reports:
Iraq has banned its farmers from planting summer
crops this year as the country grapples with a crippling water shortage
that shows few signs of abating.
Citing high
temperatures and insufficient rains, Dhafer Abdalla, an adviser to
Iraq’s Ministry of Water Resources, told The Associated Press that the
country has only enough water to irrigate half its farmland this summer.
But
farmers fault the government for failing to modernize how it manages
water and irrigation, and they blame neighboring Turkey for stopping up
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers behind dams it wants to keep building.
A water shortage in the summer? It's been a 118 degrees Fahrenheit day for Iraq today. And they suffer a water shortage.
The water issue is not a new one. So why didn't Hayder al-Abadi do anything over the last four years as prime minister to address the issue? Last February, some were sure that a hard summer would be avoidable due to some heavy rains that had fallen. Now that notion is so outrageous that we'll be kind and not name the non-Iraqi outlets that pimped that lie.
The big lie, of course, is that voting helps Iraq. Over and over, Iraq's prime ministers do nothing. The problems are known. They are identified. Then four years fly by and nothing has been done. Over and over this happens. Starting to grasp why so few bothered to vote last May?
#Iraq's treasured amber rice crop devastated by drought
iraqdailyjournal.com/story-z17408425
How does this happen?
As Patrick Cockburn observes, this is a human-made drought.
It did not happen overnight.
Nor was it a surprise.
In other news, Margaret Griffis (ANTIWAR.COM) notes, "Unidentified gunmen killed a top aide to Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr at his home in Najaf. Shawqi Hadad was also a commander of Saraya al-Ashura, one of the Shi’ite militias."
Moqtada's bloc came in first in the May elections. Partial recounts are currently taking place. Apparently, there are no real changes because Kirkuk is the only thing anyone's pointing to.
And any issue with Kirkuk's votes would not be a surprise. They were questioned the day of the election by the governor of Kirkuk who imposed a curfew and called for a manual recount.
So the partial recount appears to be producing no real changes.
Which means the politicians will have less excuses for foot dragging. We're now nearing two months since the election and still no government has been formed.
Lastly . . .
US Iraq war veteran: ‘To prevent veterans’ suicide, US should stop waging wars across the globe’ on.rt.com/995t
Check out the RT article.
