Summers Are Only Getting Hotter, But This Blazing Future is NOT Inevitable

We could turn it all around — but will we?

Photo by Khushi Gandhi on Unsplash

“Summer is not only getting hotter, but also longer and more intense across much of the world” according to a new study published in Environmental Research Letters as reported by The Weather Channel. Over the next 50 years, scientists anticipate summer extending by an additional month with less time spent in the milder seasons of Spring and Fall. Record high temperatures could lead to more droughts, uncertain growing seasons, and more frequent wildfires, even in parts of the country that don’t normally see wildfire activity.

In other words, hell is a place on Earth, and we’re getting closer to living in it every single year we ignore the realities of climate change and continue living as we are right now.

Living in the Deep South already feels like experiencing hellfire every summer season. Although I am Southern born and raised, a Tennessee girl at heart, the Georgia summers have me questioning if I’m truly meant for scorching high temperatures and unrelenting sun. Combine that with the early onset of perimenopausal hot flashes, and I am enraged at the idea that this summer may be hot, but future summers will be hotter.

The Costs of Climate Change

Since people will not be swayed by dying bees or fireflies or animals going extinct, I’ll talk about the one thing that people do universally care about: their money. There’s a real cost of climate change that will hit our wallets fairly equally. Higher temperatures mean a higher demand for air conditioning units, and while nearly every home in the Southern U.S. of A. has one already, I know that’s not true for everywhere else. Imagine spending hundreds of dollars a month on a cooling bill because shopping fast fashion was fun for few hours of retail therapy.

The cost will apply elsewhere, too. If we start seeing wildfires where there are none, we can expect home and car insurance rates to skyrocket, along with life insurance. We’ll feel the squeeze in our budgets because we kept opting for the latest and allegedly greatest over the ecofriendly and sustainable options.

As regular costs go up for the average citizen, corporations will start passing on more of their costs to us, too, in order to maintain their record-high profits while we’re suffering under record-high heat. They’ll find new ways to manipulate us into buying more things we don’t need because they don’t see the value in investing in clean energy until the old ways burn their homes to the ground. Even then, they’ll probably find someone or something else to blame.

The Unseen Costs of Climate Change

The rich will get richer, and the poor will get poorer, and someone out there is probably ready to argue that it’s already the way things are now, so why should the future be any different? But the costs of climate change are enormous, often unseen, and incredibly heartbreaking.

They’re happening already.

Glaciers are melting, and sea levels are rising as a result. We’re losing polar ice caps, which means we’re losing precious habitat for all wild creatures who call it home. Weather events are becoming more severe and will continue to do so.

We’re going to lose so much if we don’t turn this thing around. It’s not just extinctions. It’s crop loss, too. The world will just keep getting worse, and the hottest season on record will just be a preview of things to come.

Turning It Around, Together

Scientists are clear: If we stop contributing greenhouse gas emissions to global warming, we can reduce the impacts of climate change. There’s much we can do as individuals to help turn the tide, but it’s going to take a hell of a lot of us doing it to really turn things around.

Here are a few things we can do to start taking steps in the right direction:

• We can support renewable energy initiatives and advocate for our government to focus on clean and renewable energy projects.
• We can choose fuel efficient vehicles or opt to carpool or use public transportation if that option isn’t available to us.
• We can reduce food waste through composting.
• We can support regenerative and sustainable farms where we live over big box stores and factory farming.
• We can reduce our meat consumption with plant-based alternatives.
• We can use cover crops and compost in our gardens, covering with mulch to help protect our crops while feeding the soil.
• We can switch to renewable energy when possible or purchase only energy efficient appliances when necessary.
• Skipping single-use items and plastic when possible and opting for sustainable materials in the things we buy can also make an enormous impact.

If we all did our part, we could stop the elevating temperatures in their tracks. We might not be able to fix everything we’ve broken, but we could help keep it from getting worse. It’s my greatest wish — that we would do that for each other.

Turning It Around, Alone

I can’t sit back and wait for other people to join me. I have to do what I can, even if I’m doing it alone. I’m responsible for my own impact. That’s what I’m focused on right now.

Already, I’m composting and tending to a regenerative garden. I’ve reduced, reused, and recycled to eliminate waste. I’ve focused on sustainability in my life, and even knowing how much time I’ve spent in this effort, I know I can do more and do better. I am always adding a new sustainable switch to my life. As I know better, I do better, and that’s all we can do.

I badly want solar panels, but since I cannot afford them at present, I plan instead to paint the metal roof of my storage building a reflective white that will work to make the building more energy efficient, thereby reducing my energy costs and usage. That $40 paint can will save me thousands of dollars on the solar panel that would be the most efficient option, just not the most accessible. I do what I can because that’s all I can do.

I’m also trading in the idea of the suburban lawn for a wild and wonderful garden instead. Every year, I plant more native crops, fruits, and vegetables because I do not see the point in maintaining a monoculture landscape. Instead, I am providing the pollinators and other area wildlife a habitat while growing my own food, raised organically and ethically on my own property. I am doing my best to make an impact on my little plot of land, no matter how small it might seem to be when compared to the acreage around me.

I know we could do more together, but if I have to go it alone, I’m willing to do that. Not just because I know I’m not truly alone, I know others out there care, but also because I know that I have to be responsible for what I do on this Earth, and I can’t just pass the buck of responsibility to everyone else for what I am capable of doing myself.

Hot Girl Summer is Every Summer Now

This isn’t virtue signaling. This is a shout into the void that I am tired of Hot Girl Summer becoming hotter every year, not in the way that trend intended. I am tired of navigating hot flashes with rising temperatures and droughts alternating with floods. I don’t want to watch the East Coast consumed in wildfires the way we’ve always watched the West Coast, and I don’t want to see storms get worse because people don’t care enough about the consequences to ever inconvenience themselves for a single moment.

I’m tired of companies shirking responsibility and greenwashing their products rather than abiding by ethical principles. I’m tired of living in a culture where ads are so pervasive I can’t just stand and pump the expensive fuel into my vehicle without being exposed to them. I’m tired of the me-first mentality and fast fashion and fast food and factory farming and a culture that will only start to care when it’s far too late to save anything at all.

I’m tired.

Maybe that’s the whole point. I’m tired. I’m doing what I can, and I won’t stop. But sometimes, just every now and then, it pisses me off to be doing everything I can while I see so many people doing nothing at all to turn the tide, not even caring a little about the direction it’s taking us or what it means for the future.

I want to stop them, one by one, and tell them that what they do matters, but I am too busy trying to turn the tide myself, one woman against the world, and I don’t have time to stop and try to convince anyone to care about things they should care about already.

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