Have you tried driving through Connecticut lately? Or NYC? Or Chelmsford, MA on a Friday afternoon on I-495? Or, most likely, any other thickly settled, highly populated area of the United States?

Did you have a moment when you thought to yourself, “This is insanity. Where are all these people headed? Where will they park once they get there? How close are we to irreversible, permanent gridlock?”

Did you read a while back that NYC is floating the idea of levying an entrance fee on people coming into Manhattan? Twenty-three bucks! Did you know it cost $17 as an out-of-stater to cross the George Washington Bridge? It’s much more if you’re driving an 18-wheeler.

Our nation is crying out for suitable public transit but we still don’t have the stomach for parting with our own vehicles. I’m as guilty as anyone on that score. What we’re seeing possibly has us saying to ourselves, “This can’t be sustainable.”

Multiply the congestion one sees in their own neck of the woods by a factor of, what, a thousand, five thousand, ten thousand? Then extrapolate to include similar scenarios all over the planet.

And yet, people can, with a straight face and much passion, say that we are having no effect when it comes to an accelerated warming of the planet’s atmosphere. Truly remarkable.

It’s the average global temperature for this past Thursday, the third day last week that a new record high was set, as half the planet experiences winter.

The topic du jour is the weather, normally the go-to conversation filler when nothing else comes to mind. What makes it front page news at the moment are the merciless heat and scorching sun being endured all over but felt most acutely in the south and southwest.

It’s foolish not to associate these things with decades of burning coal and petroleum products, which have released tons of CO2 into the air. Turns out there are consequences for this of which we’ve long been aware. We’ve known long enough to have heeded the warnings of scientists and environmentalists. Long enough to have curbed the damage done to the air we breathe, and to have reversed or at least significantly slowed the upward trend in air temperatures that is wreaking havoc on ice sheets, and ocean water, and storm formation and intensity.

And, who knows, hastening our demise as a species? Nah, that’s just the crazy talk of the liberal media, and Democrats who eat babies and love Communism and float all sorts of theories and want to take away everyone’s freedom.

Nanny state, my ass, right? The people who are truly in the know would love to invite you to their bunkers in the hills, where there are plenty of AR-15s to go around and enough MREs to satisfy the hunger of even the hardiest foil hatter. It doesn’t matter what the weather is when you’re waiting for Armageddon.

Or when you’re the mega-rich CEO of a fossil fuel behemoth and millions of people keep eating out of your hand, keep consuming what you’re more than happy to keep selling.

I seem to be a glass-half-empty kind of guy. Cynical, probably somewhat depressed, often incapable of seeing silver linings or expressing even a modicum of optimism. So, in keeping with those themes, let me opine on the current situation as I see it.

In the macro, we’re fucked. Environmentally, societally fucked, because it seems we are not capable of listening and learning. We are motivated primarily by self-interest. We are stubborn, proud(!), loathe to admit mistakes, petrified of losing, and, when push comes to shove, uninterested in self-improvement.

There. How’s that for a dim view of humanity?

Don’t get me wrong. There are those who take this life seriously and recognize the obligation of shared burdens and relief from suffering. But the people in positions of power and influence are not even close to being on the same page when it comes to an understanding of what it means to share the same planetary living space.

To some, life is merely transactional, one big power grab. To others, it is a privilege, maybe even a gift, where we are obligated to avert our gaze away from ourselves and toward the needs around us. It’s stunning, somehow, to see this play out, to witness the dichotomy, the coldness, the unwillingness to face certain realities together.

It’s no wonder people pray there is a God, because apart from divine intervention, there seems to be not much hope for us as a species. We’re at the apex of the food chain, yet it’s looking like we’re going to devour ourselves.

We can keep being grateful for small victories, though. Snippets of progress. They’re all we have.

There was a time when the heat of July was just something one would expect in July. And August.

Little did we know, apparently, that what we were doing back in the day was laying the groundwork for what we suffer through currently. And now every hot day is tinged with a certain angst, brought on by constant reminders that this isn’t just Summer being Summer, but more the latest reminder that we are witnessing a dangerous warming of the planet because we’ve behaved badly, without regard or forethought. We’ve moved from ignorance and lack of awareness to knowing full well what we’re doing, and just not caring.

We’ve arrived at a point where excessive heat doesn’t come and go—it sticks around for days on end, with records being broken all the time, power grids taxed by relentless demand, vulnerable people dying, and still way too many who remain intentionally clueless as to why it’s all happening.

The summer of ’23 will go down as the one with the smoke and haze and heat, and chances are that people will little note nor long remember why, in no small part, it has unfolded this way.

Thirty people shot, 2 dead at a block party in Baltimore.

Fantastic. Just the kind of headline we all want to see when we wake up on a Sunday morning. Must have been plenty of alcohol and a 2-gun minimum? A real shit show, I’m sure. A free-for-all that so predictably spiraled downward because people get liquored up and have no self-control and get angry at the drop of a hat and need to protect their “honor” and their territory and they’re just plain aching for an excuse to hold a weapon sideways in their hand and look like a fucking gangster. Maybe a drug deal gone bad, maybe something else.

Fine. Let them have at it. It’s an old, tired script, though. A skewed battle of attrition, where people die for absolutely no good reason, and the survivors ache for the rest of their lives because the clock can’t be turned back.

This country is a real cesspool sometimes.

Looks like the summer air will be tainted by haze off and on, from the fires that are burning across Canada. We’re dealing with another round of bad air here in PA, unsure of when it will improve.

Where will all this smoke go? Is it here to stay, just getting caught in the jet stream or some other steering current, traveling around the planet forever? Can it dissipate? It looks like all of Canada is on fire!

Glad we had those good days in Maine last week. I look at the pictures and the sparkling air quality is one of the first things I notice. The air here is ugly now—not just haze but a tinted haze, indicative of being laden with who-knows-what sort of pollutants and carcinogens.

But there is no climate change, no global warming. We’re having no effect on any of this. This isn’t our fault. Stuff like this just happens every now and then. Right, ExxonMobil? Right, Mr. Tillerson?

One might think the burning Cuyahoga would have taught us something, commanded our attention. It did for a bit. But now we’re running out of warning signs, getting lazy again.

I haven’t really felt strong emotions over Mom’s death, though just saying “Mom’s death” is still a bit jarring.

It was hard to see her in such a compromised state, reduced to uttering stroke-induced gibberish, vulnerable to “caregivers” who may have been doing triage in their heads and figuring, due to her age and condition, that she was not really a priority in the bigger scheme of things. It was hard to see her struggling with obvious discomfort and pain toward the end.

I guess my grief works itself out over time, as it often does—like when I think I should be giving her a call and then realize that she’s no longer with us. Or when I think about what it means to no longer be able to ask her questions about her life, or someone else in the family she’d likely know something about.

I think this is the aspect of her loss that hits home with added impact—the realization that the generations rise and pass away before us, and we lose a connection with the past. We lose a resource, a voice, and now in some ways we assume her role, take on her mantle. Maybe people will be turning to us with their questions, but some questions from here on out will either go unanswered or we must become sleuths who have to do more research than we used to.

There’s also the realization, in a gallows humor sort of way, that we’re next. Doesn’t seem like it took all that long to get here.

A more exciting product.

This seems to be the goal now. Major League Baseball has a pitch clock, and a batter clock. And professional golf has LIV, with its blaring music, bermuda shorts, complicated graphics catering to the wagering crowd, and scripted player-fan interaction. Both are tailored to a younger audience, which apparently has a much shorter attention span than preceding generations.

I’ll admit to lamenting the changes, considering them to be more contrived concession than innovation. Refinement and patience seem to be getting crowded out of the picture, making way for the tired, boorish, got-to-have-it-now behavior associated with alcohol consumption and people who are unaccustomed to having to wait for anything.

This makes me an old fuddy-duddy, but that’s OK.

It might have already dawned on many just how bald-faced have been the lies of Donald Trump and others. AND, because the two realities can’t exist without each other, just how ignorant and naïve and stupid are those who continue to believe those lies.

Or is it just intentional stubbornness, more calculation and “owning the libs” than gullibility and irrational fear?

Regardless, it seems a recipe for disaster, or at least unrest and turmoil. Dueling realities, opposite ends of a spectrum, cross purposes, nightmares disguised as dreams. After all that’s unfolded, to still be willing to put all your eggs in the Trump basket seems way beyond stupid. It’s a waste of time and votes. A settling for the dregs, the bottom of the barrel. It’s irresponsible, at best.

Trump and others like him should not be taken seriously. He is not who we want to be. He should not be the face of America, unless we’ve decided to just pack it in and be a laughingstock.

Beware the person who claims to be the only one who can fix things. Donald Trump and those who STILL support him don’t want to fix anything. They just want the power.

We’re all learning the lingo: unsealed indictment, piercing of the attorney-client privilege. Thirty-seven counts.

Trump is in trouble this time… ya, we’ve heard that before. I like what Jack Smith said yesterday, though—that there is one set of laws for everyone, no exceptions.

Hear that, Donald? He’s talking to you. But you’re so steeped in arrogance and stupidity and victimhood that it’s hard for you to hear. Or you’ve heard it loud and clear and wear it all as a badge of honor.

Either way is messed up.