We are having the mildest, coolest summer since I’ve come to this region. We still have extremely hot days but we also have normal days. Kids haven’t been cooped up inside for months. In the evenings, they play volleyball in the backyard, which is normally unheard of in this area from May till late October. I’m very glad because usually they get prison pallor in summers.
I’m not saying this to make a political statement but simply to express gladness in response to surrounding reality. However, when I mention the nice weather to people on campus, the reaction is almost always a panicked “But this doesn’t mean there’s no global warming!!”
No, it doesn’t. I wasn’t saying it did. In fact, I was making absolutely no generalizations about the state of humanity. I was simply remarking upon something that we all know is a big problem in this region. Everybody who lives here knows that we have very specific geographic conditions that create the high heat / extreme high humidity problem. People who are healthy as horses start having blood pressure issues when they come here. It’s a bad local climate, and one should be able to mention it without being drawn into a debate on global climate.
People are so afraid of unorthodox acts of speech that they freak out when they suspect they are about to witness one. But even the fact that they jump with fear when a colleague says, “Hey, nice weather today” doesn’t help them see that something is very wrong.
Clarissa's Blog 
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