S1E81 - This Month in the Apocalypse: July, 2023

Episode Summary

On This Month in the Apocalypse, Brooke, Margaret, and Inmn talk about a lot of really bad things that happened in July, from the intensifying heat, to floods, to medicine shortages, to Antarctica's ice melting, to grain shortages, to terrifying new laws. But also, there are some hopeful things that happened, and as always the group finds ways to stay positive and for communities to prepare for what's to come.

Host Info

Brooke can be found on Twitter or Mastodon @ogemakweBrooke. Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery. Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy.

Publisher Info

This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness.

Transcript

This Month in the Apocalypse: July, 2023

Margaret 00:14 Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm Margaret. Now one of you says, "Hi."

Brooke 00:22 Hi, Margaret.

Margaret 00:26 No, you say "Hi," like you say who you are.

Brooke 00:29 Oh, hi, who I am. Brooke.

Inmn 00:32 And I'm Inmn.

Brooke 00:34 Did I do good? Was that good? Alright,

Margaret 00:37 Y'all did great. I'm joined by Brooke and Inmn today for another episode of This Month in the Apocalypse. And this is an extra special extra apocalypsey month that we're going to be talking about because we're talking about July, 2023, the hottest month in the history of humans being alive. Unless you're listening to this in August, in which case maybe you're like, "July that was some fucking amateur hour shit." But for now, hear us at the end of July, hottest month ever. And you know what else is hot is the Channel Zero Network, the network of anarchists podcasts. There's nothing wrong with this comparison. We are a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcast and here's a jingle from another show on the network. Da da da da duh daa [Humming a melody]

Inmn 02:12 And we're back. And to start off today, we're going to talk a little bit about global temperatures and the heatwave that we are in the middle of experiencing right now. So this July was quite possibly the hottest--or I mean, definitely the hottest month on record in, you know, a recorded historical way--and possibly one of the hottest months on the planet in a very long time. So I live in Arizona, and in Phoenix, the ground temperature...There were daily record breaks in the in the heat where the hottest day on record was...it was 117 degrees. And then the next day it was 118 degrees. And then the next day, it was 119 degrees.

Margaret 03:09 They won't even make it to that 20. Like come on. Just give us the round number.

Brooke 03:15 No, no, don't. Stay less.

Margaret 03:19 Oh, interesting. Okay. [dryly sarcastic]

Inmn 03:21 There is I learned, a really horrifying thing that happens at 120 degrees. So I really hope that it doesn't get to 120 degrees. Do y'all know what happens when the ground temperature reaches 120 degrees in the sun?

Margaret 03:35 Does Mothra break out of the cracked Earth and fight Godzilla?

Inmn 03:41 Sort of. Propane tanks spontaneously combust.

Margaret 03:49 That's bad.

Brooke 03:51 Oh my gosh,

Inmn 03:53 It's really bad. So in actuality, the temperature did reach 120 degrees because an enormous propane tank near the Sky Harbor International Airport exploded along with a bunch of like five gallon ones and it caused this huge fire. A bunch of cars were destroyed. And yeah, which you know, is by itself not like some huge world ending thing. But if you live anywhere where it might be 120 degrees on the ground, possibly in Arizona, take your propane tanks out of the sun because they might explode.

Margaret 04:35 Normally, I would say don't put them inside because in general that's a really bad idea. But, it's probably better than like popcorn kernels in your yard.

Inmn 04:46 Yeah, yeah. And I say this for people who like, you know, if you have a grill outside that just has the propane tank attached to it and it's not in the shade or anything. Um then, yeah, it could just explode and destroy your house.

Brooke 05:06 But only if it's 120 degrees. If you're at 119, you're perfectly safe. Leave those propane tanks just right out there in the middle of the sun on the asphalt, right? [sarcastically]

Inmn 05:16 No, don't do that. [laughing]

Margaret 05:18 Place them near the following people who run the following companies.

Brooke 05:29 Do you want to know about the the average overall temperatures in the month of July in Phoenix while we're talking about Phoenix?

Margaret 05:36 I mean, no, but tell us anyway.

Brooke 05:39 Okay, for the month of July, in Phoenix, the average high temperature, daily high temperature, was 114 degrees. And here's the really fun one, the average low temperature like the coldest it got was 90 degrees.

Margaret 05:56 There was also a new low warm record. There was a night in Phoenix where it didn't get below 97 degrees.

Inmn 06:04 Oh, golly.

Margaret 06:06 Which is too hot.

Inmn 06:08 It is too hot.

Margaret 06:09 And, I didn't write this number down because I forgot. Massive..Like there was also a record for the most electricity the city of Phoenix has ever drawn because everyone was running their air conditioners, for good reasons. This is not a "Don't run your air conditioners," this is more of a, "There is a limit to what the grid can handle."

Inmn 06:31 Yeah. And just to, since we're hyper focusing on Phoenix, in the last, I think--I don't think this was last month-- but in the last couple of months, the governor did halt a lot of new housing developments that were getting built due to concerns over the future of water in Phoenix.

Margaret 06:57 And it seems like there's two ways to read that. There is the like...I am notably on the record of feeling like people who are...That Arizona is in trouble. I am on the record for that. And I don't want to get into specifics. But the more kind way to read the lack of expansion is that it was less like these places are out of water and more that, I believe in Arizona, or in the Phoenix metro area or something, you have to be able to prove that there will be water access for the next 100 years in order to build. And so it is a little bit less like these places are out of water and more like, "We cannot guarantee this water." I think that's the kinder way...No, not the kinder...That is one way to read that. The other is that Arizona is in fucking trouble.

Inmn 07:55 Yeah, and you know, it stems from these like larger issues of the Colorado River having these like all time lows in water flow, and just due to Phoenix being this like huge, sprawling place that is like under constant development. Like I think it's where...Outside of Phoenix is where Bill Gates is trying to build some like new smart future city. Which is really confusing.

Margaret 08:27 Has fucking Elon Musk gotten into him or something?

Inmn 08:29 Yeah, like it's supposed to be this like huge self contained smart city that's outside of...it's in the larger Phoenix area, but like is separated from Phoenix. And my first thing that I thought was like, "Why? There's no...Where are you going to get water from?" Which I guess if you're really...If you're Bill Gates, you maybe have to worry less about where your water's coming from. But...

Margaret 08:57 I mean, eventually. Other heat stuff from this month, let's see, we had...I was looking at a bunch of maps of where all of this heatwave stuff hit right, and overall, the hardest hit places were the coastal south, the southwest, of course--Phoenix gets a lot of the attention and for good reason--the coastal South got an awful lot, and then actually in terms of it being way hotter than usual, it also affected the lower and middle Midwest. The Pacific Northwest and central Appalachia--aka the two best places in the country based on the general disbursement of the three people on this call--were the least affected. And last weekend--sorry last week--thousands of people across the US went to the hospital for heat related illnesses. Only six states have laws protecting workers that say things like "You actually can't make people work when it's too hot out or they'll die." Only six states actually have laws that are like, "You have to provide like shade, and rest, and water for people working outside." I read a heartbreaking story about a young man who died laying cable trying to send money to his mother and work his way through school and all that shit. The federal government is working on a law about, "Maybe you shouldn't let people work where it kills them in the heat." That law has not..They've been working on it for years and nothing has happened. Yep. Got any more heat heat or move on to wildfire?

Brooke 10:41 Capitalism is so ridiculous. The fact that we have to come along and legislate like, "Hey, maybe don't work people to death in the heat." Like that shouldn't have to be a law that anyone has to have because we are fucking human beings. And yeah, we should treat each other better. Yeah, yeah, sorry. It's upsetting. So, the United States is not the only place that's super hot. Europe's going through another massive heatwave like they did last summer. And last summer's heatwave, you may recall from the news, was breaking record temperatures and was quite severe. And one report I read said something like 60,000 Europeans died last year due to the heatwave. Their average temperatures are currently much higher than they were last summer even...or are getting to high temperatures earlier in the summer than they did last year. That's what I really mean to say. And it's affecting lots of things. For instance, Greece is experiencing wildfires on a massive scale, which I guess they're somewhat prone to wildfires already like the Pacific Northwest. But, the amount of acreage burning right now is two and a half times the average that they've experienced this time of year. Particularly the island of Rhodes, which is a Greece Island. Greek. Greek island. [The island] has had to evacuate tens of thousands of people off the island due to the wildfires. There's something like 90,000 acres of wildfires currently burning in Greece, which is a really significant size of wildfire. And it's weird how much perspective shifts on this, especially being from somewhere like the Pacific Northwest where we're kind of prone to wildfires. And if we get one that's like 10,000-20,000 acres, I'm like, "Meh [disapprovingly]." I mean, that's huge. But at the same time, in the last few years, we've had ones that are at 90,000-100,000 acres. So, you know, perspective shifts on what a severe wildfire is, but 90,000 acres is just massive. So yeah. Greece is...Greece is not having a good time with the fires right now.

Margaret 13:03 And then, right before we hit record [on the episode], I was reading about how today, there's a third 300,000 person city in Sicily, whose name I forgot to write down, that is largely without water or electricity today because the 46 degree Celsius which I want to say is like 118 [Fahrenheit], or something like that, melted asphalt and fucked up all the infrastructure underneath. So no more electricity and water in a town of 300,000, that is also like experiencing a ton of wildfire. Apparently like the city is also surrounded by wildfire, but maybe that was a different city nearby.

Brooke 13:45 You know when you say that, Margaret, it does...I distinctly remember us talking last summer about the heatwave and how a lot of European towns, countries, aren't built for the high heats and things were melting like that. Like the asphalt and stuff.

Margaret 13:59 And then, yeah, I remember. And you had England, you had like the tarmac, which is the British word for asphalt, I think. I don't know. They don't do anything. Right. And then, speaking of places that Europe hasn't done right, Northern Africa is also completely fucked by the current heatwave. And in particular, wildfires. Algerian wildfires are fucking everything up. Like, as I'm...Like, as we're recording, unfortunately, they'll probably get worse by the time this comes out. Algerian wildfires, so far, have killed at least 38 people, including at least 10 soldiers who were doing wildland fire duty. More than 1,500 people have been evacuated from 97 fires around that country. Tunisia is also having some fucking times because, actually, it turns out that national borders are nonsense. And Algiers, the city of Algiers, had a fun 120 degree day. This I believe last week. And two years ago, Algerian wildfires killed 65 people in one week, including, a lot of those people are the people who are like, bravely fighting those wildfires. And I don't know, those people are fucking heroes and martyrs to climate change.

Brooke 15:17 Is the heat causing other kinds of problems in the world, Margaret?

Margaret 15:21 You mean the Antarctic ice that isn't there? Well hear me out. It's actually a solution because we're all going to move to Antarctica, which will be green. And there won't be any Lovecraftian temples with strange writing...in the mountains of madness. Someone's gonna yell at me about Lovecraft. Anyway. Antarctica is like having some real interesting times. I don't know if people have seen the news this week. Every now and then like climate change people like post the deviation from norms charts, where the like waves go up and down and stuff. And this year's, they're just not. Usually they're like, "Check it out. This wave is a little bit different. It's pushing the envelope. It's got some new records." There's no Antarctic ice. That's an exaggeration. That's hyperbole. Antarctic ice is lower than it's possible for people to easily conceptualize right now. It's winter in Antarctica right now. It's...When we talk about the hottest year on record, and we're like, "Oh, well, it's summer. Of course, it's hot, right?" Where I'm at, the hottest year in the fucking world, half of the world is in winter right now. Right? But, sea temperatures are rising, which actually are going to...Fuck I forgot to write this down..I was reading about right beforehand. There's a new study saying that the Gulf Stream, the thing that like cycles the fucking goddamn waters of the world, will likely stop somewhere between 2025 and 2100, with the average guess being about 2050 but as soon as two years from now. Which will have all kinds of changes. Ironically, one of them is that Europe might get colder. It's that movie, The Day After Tomorrow, is based on this concept of the Gulf streams disappearing.

Brooke 17:10 Oh, that movie.

Margaret 17:11 Yeah. That beautiful, wonderful movie. I barely remember it. We snuck into the theater. And I was like too paranoid the whole time. I was like afraid we'd get caught because we were like, really obviously dirty punks. And it was just like, so obvious. But, we didn't get caught. And I don't really remember much about that movie besides it's cold, and that people are willing to walk a very long way for their family, which is very sweet. So this event is, this is a historic low of ice following the previous all time lows of 2016, 2017, and 2022. But this is a five to six sigma event. Five to six--not like cool guys who'd go their own way--but five to six standard deviations away from a normal event, which is a meaningless thing. I had to spend like 20 minutes reading about what the fuck that means to try and explain it to people because you're just like, "Oh, it's a lot, right?" It's a lot, a lot. Statistically, a four sigma event, four standards of probability standard deviation thing, is now you're talking about something that is functionally 100%. Right? This is now so far...Basically, it's like imagine stuff is on a bell curve. The far edges of it are the sigma, are the standard deviations away from the norm, the norm is the center. When you get to the...When you get to like four, you're at functionally 100% of things don't don't fall into this, right? Or something that happens functionally 0% of the time, it's not actually 0% of the time. So it is...but it's often seen as statistically insignificant. For example, if you were to flip a coin 100 times, the odds of that coming up heads all 100 times is one in 3.5 million. That is a five sigma event. Right? The standard deviation, this the amount of Antarctic ice that isn't there this winter when it's supposed to be coming back, is more than that. It is about twice that. It is a one in 7.5 million year event, which isn't to say this happened 7.5 million years ago. It didn't. That's the odds of it happening randomly any given year. So it's really funny because scientists have to be very exact, which is part of what causes a lot of like climate change confusion, because if you ask a scientist like, "Is this man made?" a scientist has to be like, "We cannot to 100% certainty, certain that," right? Because they're like, because they're not certain, and science is based on an uncertainty. And so like a lot of the articles they're like, "Look, technically we're not sure. It's just really, really unlikely that it isn't." And I remember--one time I asked one of my science minded doctor friends--I was like, "What are the odds I am going to have the following health problem that is too personal for me to explain on-air?" He was like, "Look, that is possible. That is a possible risk vector. It's about as likely as you getting eaten by a shark, today, in Asheville, North Carolina." Which is to say, it was possible but not worth fucking worrying about. And this is the opposite of that. This is worth fucking worrying about. And ice decrease, of course, obviously, it makes the water get bigger, right, because it's not in ice form. But also, ice reflects back an awful lot of sunlight. There is a chance that the ice will be back next year. There is a chance that it won't. I was not able to find...I was able to find scientists being like, "We don't fucking know." I was not able to find scientists giving statistics. This is...I think..So I'm gonna go on a rant. I warned everyone--not you all the listeners--but I warned my co-host that I'm gonna go on a little bit of a rant today.

Brooke 20:58 And that was it.

Margaret 20:59 No, no, we're just getting started. Sorry.

Brooke 21:05 Let me buckle in for this. We buckle in for this. Okay, yeah, ready to go.

Margaret 21:07 Alright. So I think...I try really hard to not be like, the-sky-is-falling girl, right? I talk about preparedness and possible bad futures. Semi professional--actually, I don't get paid for this--but like, I do it a lot. It's like one of the main things. It's like, what I do with my time. And I try really hard to be like, "Look, we don't know. Don't put all your eggs into your savings for the when-you're-80 basket. But also don't put none of them in, right? Because the future is unknowable. And that is true. I think that this month marks a turning point where we can no longer in good conscience, talk about climate change as a possibility or even as like a certainty that's a little bit away. And we don't know how bad it's going to be. I think we have to talk about things from the point of view that this is happening. And this is really bad. And this is going to stay bad no matter what we do. That is not to say we can't do anything. And that's not to say we can't mitigate it. But I think that we need to just like...I know I will at least have to stop hedging some of what I say. And I think that this month is the most clear that we are in a really bad time--I don't wanna say "apocalypse," because it's a sort of a meaningless word--since we've been having the show, with the possible exception of March, 2020. And so I just like really quickly--and we'll get back to our regularly scheduled talking about some stuff--I want to talk about some of the stuff we can do really quickly and like what I think is really useful. And overall, what I believe is useful, is that we need to start working together in communities to build bottom-up solutions, not necessarily just to climate change--although that's true--but to preparing for and weathering the impacts of climate change. I don't believe that top-down solutions are coming. Prove me wrong government handler assigned to listen to this show. Prove me fucking wrong. I will turn in my anarchy card if you fucking stop global warming. Maybe. I might thank you and then still try to end you. But...

Brooke 23:25 Weather. Weathering climate change.

Margaret 23:31 I believe that working to create small, medium, and large scale communities that work from the bottom-up, that are horizontally organized, that work in federation with other groups to organize on as large of scale as is necessary, is our best bet going forward for how we can mitigate the worst effects of this, both in terms of our survivability, and in terms of having a culture that directly confronts fossil fuel infrastructure, that directly confronts, you know, the people who are doing this, right? There's that old, I think Utah Phillips quote, "The Earth isn't dying, it's being killed. And the people who are doing the killing have names and addresses."

Brooke 24:22 I'm gonna put that on my wall.

Margaret 24:24 I believe that we can build the kind of resilient communities that can allow more of us to live as long and healthy lives as is possible, considering what's happening. And I believe that the time to start thinking about that and doing that is now. I think that it is time for people to talk to their neighbors. It is time for people to work at like whatever your local community center is that is most aligned to your values. If you don't have one, fucking start one, and start having skill shares. Start prioritizing this. I think that people should make their decisions about where they want to live based on climate right now, and not just move away from the bad--obviously, that's going to happen--but also like where you want to live when/if the structures that currently provide for us are no longer able to do so. Like for myself, I didn't pick "I'm moving to where I think is going to be the least impacted by climate change." I moved to where my family is. Because that is a priority that I will make above my own personal safety every time, you know. But everyone's going to make those decisions differently. And then the other final thing is that I think that we have this problem where Al Gore government type people are like, "This is your fault because you didn't use fluorescent light bulbs, you used incandescent light bulbs," right? [Brooke laughs] To date myself to like 20 years ago when that was like a way that we were trying to get blamed as individuals, like, "If you don't recycle then like the world's gonna end." And it's like, "Oh, the world's ending. It's clearly because I didn't recycle enough." Like one, recycling is mostly fake. Although it shouldn't be. And I think it's still good practice for people to think about their waste, right? But, and so individual like so...[tails of and start over] So there's this problem where corporations are like, "Ah, individuals, that's the solution. We don't have to change anything," right. But we can accidentally fall on the other side of that. And we can say like, "Oh, well, since this isn't my fault. And my individual choices don't necessarily change things. I'm off the hook." And we the way we talk about the hook is wrong. There is a difference between fault and responsibility. It is not your fault, dear listener, that this is happening. Right? It is not your fault that you once got drunk and threw a car battery in the ocean. I have no idea why everyone uses throwing car batteries into the ocean as the example of horrible pollution that individuals can do. But it like comes up all the time. So, if you...[interrupted]

Brooke 26:58 I have ever heard that example before.

Margaret 27:00 Then you have different DMs than me. When you wanna talk about climate change, people are like, "I'm gonna throw my car battery into the ocean." I don't get it. If someone wants to explain it to me, you can send it to me by my DMs and I won't look. And but there is a difference between the fault and the responsibility. It is not your fault, right? But it is our--not your--our responsibility because no one else is going to fucking do it. Rather, the people whose fault it is, are not going to fucking do it. And we need to figure out how to do this because we're running out of time. And I think that...It's essentially liberalism in a bad sense. It is both liberalism to blame the individual, right? But it's also liberalism to be like, "Well, it's not my fault. So I don't have to do anything about it," because like, when you're being oppressed, right, like...For example, I, to use myself as an example as like a trans person, right? It is like not my fault that people hate trans people. But like, I don't want to be oppressed. So, I need to look at doing that. I need to look at solving my problems even though it isn't my fault. And it is a delicate balance to walk when we talk about this because we need to not blame victims. But we need, as collectively the billions of victims of climate change, to figure out our own power and work our way out of this. I think that's the end of my rant.

Brooke 28:31 Actually, I really appreciate that, Margaret, especially the end part there, just because like I, in my own personal life, have been struggling with a little bit of that lately, especially with the heat this summer, and that feeling like, you know, there's nothing I can do, this isn't my fault, so fuck it, I want to turn down my AC some more or something like that. And I haven't, but that like the mentality that I'm struggling with sometimes right now. So I really appreciate you saying that.

Margaret 28:59 Yeah, and like use your AC. Like, I mean when there's like...Sometimes you get these like warnings--there are individual structures that are currently top-down that I don't think are bad--like when they send out a text being like, "Look, if everyone could kind of lay off the power a little bit so we don't all have brownouts, that would be really good." Like you know, that's when we can all like pitch in. It sucks that we're all expected to pitch in while they still fucking clear cut, and drill, and burn everything in the goddamn world.

Inmn 29:29 Yeah, it's like the...Like this came up in Texas. Was it last year or like the year before with like the huge power outages in Texas? They were due to...There was like a huge heat wave. And the thing, one of the things that the grid collapsing was blamed on was people cranking their ACs because it was like 115 degrees outside. And which, you know, probably probably the ACs are not actually what caused the grid to collapse. It's like, the normal strain of the grid is supporting so many unnecessary and ridiculous things. But like, people were asked to turn off their air conditioners, right, during a heatwave so that the grid wouldn't collapse because the grid is not managed well and it's owned by private companies and they don't manage it well. And so the grid collapsed. And then people were like...People were getting heat sick. People were dying. And it's like, we can rely on things like ACs to cool ourselves. But we actually can't because of the mismanagement of utilities and stuff like that could be what causes grids to collapse, not because it is the individual's like fault, but that there's all this other mismanagement and strain from Capitalism, etc.

Margaret 30:57 Totally. And like, I think it's a good example too where, at the same time, it is not the people who want to turn up their AC's fault, right? But I want to be alive more than I want to not be at fault, right? So it's like, if I...[interrupted]

Inmn 31:15 Just because it's not our fault, it still might cause it.

Margaret 31:20 It's our problem. You know, someone else caused a problem. Like, the person who's hitting me with a stick, it is their fault that they are hitting me with a stick, but they're clearly not going to stop. And the AC example is like, if I get a text that's like, "Turn down your AC or everyone's power is going to go out. I'm going to turn down my AC because I don't want everyone's power to go out." And it's not because I'm like--I mean, it is a good like, we're all pitching in together to not die thing, right--but it's also like...It's hard, because it then becomes easy to blame people to be like, "Oh, you didn't turn down your AC. So it's your fault." It's like, "No, it's the people who fucking..." I mean, Texas is that brilliant example, where it's like cut off from the rest of America's grid because it's like, "We got to be Texas." And that's like, why it's so--and that and all the privatization--is why it's so precarious. And so we just build resiliency. It's like, I don't want to be pure fault. I want to be alive. And so like, I want to say like, "Okay, what will I do to keep cool if my AC goes out?" You know? Anyway.

Brooke 32:29 Can I point out that it's weird how we talk about AC because we talk about turning down the AC, which makes me think like turning down power. But actually, what we mean is turning down temperature. Yeah. And then I say, when I say like, turn up the AC, that means make it, I'm making it hot--in my mind, in my mind--if I turn up the AC. Anyway. Yeah, it's difficult. Yeah. Floods!

Margaret 32:54 All right.

Margaret 32:56 That would be really bad if there's more than one disaster at once. Can't wildfires be enough? Or have there been floods?

Inmn 33:02 There have also been floods. And I'm going to focus in on a couple of kind of specific floods that have happened this month in the United States. But there is this...It points to this larger problem and some of the things that I learned after digging into the floods in Vermont, kind of highlight some key issues that I think are worth exploring. So, the flood in Vermont that happened on like July 10th or 11th or something, where essentially two whole months of rain fell in two days. There was like nine inches of rain, which, I was curious how much water that is because, you know, we hear like, "Oh, one inch of rain, nine inches of rain." Like what does that mean? And nine inches of rain over like, over 20,000 square miles--which I don't actually know how big Vermont is, but this is the statistic that I looked up--is like two and a half not trillion but the next number, the next magnitude. Quadrillion?

Margaret 34:24 I don't really know what's above a trillion off the top my head.

Inmn 34:26 Yeah, it's like two and a half quadrillion gallons of water, you know. It's so...I hope I don't get at'd about this math, but...

Margaret 34:35 No, it is quadrillion. That is the...Well, you at least got the word right. I looked at that.

Inmn 34:41 Great, great, great. Yeah, it's like...It's that much water. So like when we think about like, "Oh, one inch of rain is falling." Like one inch of rain falling in one day as a lot. You know, like where I used to live flooded over an inch and a half of rain, you know? And so to put that in perspective, nine inches of rain fell in Vermont over a two day period. And in the first 24 hours, the river--and I am not going to pronounce this right--the Winooski River, it rose 19 feet in 24 hours. And then on the next day, in a couple hours, it rose to 40 feet. And they're measuring this on a 170 foot dam. And are there any guesses as to how high the water rose on that dam?

Brooke 35:41 70 foot damn. Water had nine inches....

Margaret 35:47 I'm just gonna be wrong. Seven feet.

Brooke 35:50 Oh, I was gonna guess like 50 feet.

Margaret 35:51 Yeah, I just figured I'd be wrong.

Inmn 35:54 It rose 169 feet.

Margaret 35:58 Nice. I mean...

Inmn 36:02 It came within one foot of the dam breaching, which it like, this dam sits over Montpelier, which is like one of the only cities in Vermont, and so the dam came within inches of breaching and...

Margaret 36:16 Oh, jeez, it would have flooded the city.

Inmn 36:19 Yes, it would have. Like, this already huge catastrophe would have turned into something several magnitudes higher if the dam had been breached.

Brooke 36:31 As an indigenous woman. I'm like, "Fuck you, dams." But at the same time, like I don't want them to break like that and kill a bunch of people.

Inmn 36:40 Yeah, and yeah. And so the dam did not breach. There was only one recorded death in the incident.

Margaret 36:50 A lot better than Pennsylvania did this month for floods in terms of deaths.

Brooke 36:55 But, wait, what happened Pennsylvania?

Inmn 36:56 Wait, wait, sorry. I got more. I got more. So, one of the other big concerns, and I think this ties in well to kind of preparedness, is locally, there were a lot of people worried about a rather large houseless population that was turned out of COVID housing, like a COVID housing program that ended in June, and so in July, there were like, a lot more houseless people kicking around areas--and houseless people, as some may know, love to congregate around like rivers and stuff because those are usually pretty chill places to hang out and like access resources and stuff. And so like, one thing that's noted is that like a lot of people experiencing housing insecurity tend to congregate in the most flood prone areas because those are the areas available to people to congregate. And so one cool thing that did happen is there was this shelter network, that when they heard about the severe storms, they immediately went and started doing outreach to people living by the river. And actually, they were able to do in evacuation of people on a bus. The bus actually ended up getting caught in floodwaters and was destroyed. But the people on it were not harmed. And people were able to like evacuate by other means. But yeah, just as like a wonderful thing you can do if you think your area might experience a flood is doing outreach to like houseless communities who might not know about the danger and might not have the resources to escape it themselves. Yeah. One of the other big things was that in Vermont--this isn't quite as true as in a lot of other places, but it's something specific to areas like Vermont, or like West Virginia, or like other mountainous areas--like they have that phrase like, "Well, it's only three miles as the crow flies, but it's going to take an hour and a half to get there on the windy mountainous roads." Well, Vermont has a lot of windy mountainous roads, and almost all of those roads became completely undriveable because of roads washing out, mudslides, and these like huge floodwaters. And so the populations of Vermont were largely left trapped in their homes unable to escape if things had gotten worse. Like people described being completely cut off on these little, you know, mini islands in floodwaters. And yeah, just things to think about if you live in these, if you live in mountainous areas, is like having these kind of early warnings to leave places because as much as you might be able to fortify your house as like a bunker for preparedness, if you get trapped in it and it floods then it didn't save your life.

Brooke 40:14 That goes back to what you [Margaret] were saying about community building earlier.

Margaret 40:20 As someone who often lives in the mountains, and currently lives in the mountains, and this is like...Mountains flash flood really bad. And a lot of mountainous areas, like in the mountains, people often build in the hollers in the lower areas between, you know, in the valleys between different pieces of the mountain and stuff. But...And usually it's like the town actually floods sometimes more than some of the rural houses outside of town. Not necessarily, right. But it's like, because you put all...If you have a bunch of houses, you put them in the low lying area. But, if you've got like two houses, you can put them up on the ridge. And there's like unfortunately...If you're randomly being like, "Man, I want to move to the mountains," you should think about buying one of the houses and that's up on a hill instead of down in the valley for that reason. And then the other weird random thing that I was like reading about is that apparently in a lot of flood prone places--this isn't like...this isn't gonna save everyone--but people put an axe in their attic because one of the ways that a lot of people die in floods is that they go higher and higher in their house. And so then, as it gets up to their second floor, or whatever the fuck, they then go into their attic. But if you go into your attic, you can't get out in a flood. And so some people keep an axe in their attic. I don't know whether that's...I'm reading about it in a book, but in a fiction book, you know?

Inmn 41:43 Yeah. Yeah, that is...that is weirdly relatable. Like me and Margaret used to live somewhere that was prone to flooding. And I remember the first time that we got a really bad flood, like this was when our eight foot wide stream turned into like a 70 foot wide moving current of water that was up to your chest...

Margaret 42:10 And bringing all kinds of shit down from...

Inmn 42:14 Yeah, and yeah, there's like trees floating by. And there's all these, you know, tiny houses and structures and stuff, and nobody there was all that concerned about it I think, except for me. Like, we were running around trying to save tools, and equipment, and like stuff like that, and make sure the cars were up on the highest ground possible. And I was like, "We have to leave because we might not be able to if we wait too long." And like, thankfully, I was wrong. But like it worried me how unworried people were about the flood in this like mountainous area that we could have easily become trapped in.

Margaret 42:59 I was a little bit like, "My house was on the hill." So I went down to help. Why don't we put our houses on the hill, which is not very community minded of me.

Inmn 43:12 No, that's fine. But sorry, just to speak to one other thing real quick. So another thing to think about with flooding is that--and I've never thought about this until I was reading about it to prepare for this--but if you grow food, either in a garden or on a farm water, like when there's these huge floods--especially when the wastewater management facility gets like flooded out like it did in Vermont--all of the water that is in this flood water is very dirty. It's filled with like...It's filled with raw sewage, like a stupid amount of raw sewage. It's filled with like oil, and like contaminants, and like chemicals, and like anything that was swept up in the floodwaters. And so, if you grow food and your garden gets flooded out, you can't eat any of that food, even if it's like root vegetables Like pretty much like all fruit and vegetables that get contaminated by floodwater are like completely inedible and like unsafe to eat. So, it's something that, you know, in a local area where a flood happens, it can cause a lot of problems for people and then like globally, it can also cause huge problems with food insecurity. Yeah. And, talking about another food insecurity thing that's connected to floods, so, in Ukraine this past month, a dam, like one of the largest water reservoirs in Europe, was blown up. And you know, a lot of people are like, "Oh, the Russians did it because they're in control of it." And the Russians are like, "We didn't do it, but the dam did mysteriously blow up". And it...

Margaret 45:10 Derek Jensen was running...Someone in a raccoon sweater was seen running from the crime, screaming about how trans people are bad.

Inmn 45:17 Yeah. And so like this...the water in Kherson rose 20 feet, and it destroyed all of these like irrigation systems. And it is expected to affect 600,000 hectares of farmland that produce over 4 million tons of grain and a huge amount of the world's vegetable oil.

Margaret 45:48 Okay, I was reading about how there's a vegetable oil shortage is expected. But I didn't get to the why. That explains that.

Inmn 45:55 Because a dam exploded in Ukraine.

Margaret 45:59 Because of the war that is currently localized but will eventually spread.

Inmn 46:04 Brooke, are there other things going on with food insecurity?

Brooke 46:07 Never. But maybe. I don't think I have anything on food insecurity.

Inmn 46:14 Oh, oh, sorry, I read the notes wrong.

Margaret 46:16 I made these notes ahead of time for everyone. And I put them in the chat. But then they lost all their--just so everyone knows behind the scenes and all the cool insider information--I put in the chat an agenda of what we're going to talk about, but it lost all of the formatting when I pasted it in. So, it's basically incomprehensible. But, I will tell you about medication insecurity. Ehh? That will make everyone happy. Because that's not one of the...Okay, just to be clear, like medication is obviously one of the things that people will get the most concerned about when it comes to preparedness and stuff, right? Because of the way that medication is gate kept--sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad reasons--It is not necessarily available to people to do anything sort of like stockpiling and things like that, right? And we rely on a lot of medications for very good reasons in our society. Tornado Alley. You're like, "Oh, obviously it's related to tornadoes." Tornado Alley is the alley...It's the the part of the US where tornadoes are sort of expected and normal, as if they're not fucking terrifying. Jesus Christ. There's very few natural disasters I'm more like... Because I feel like a tornado could just be behind your back and you wouldn't know. It's like a horror movie. You're driving down the road, and then everything turns green, and then all of a sudden there's this death machine just like, "Baaaah!" [makes a 'scaring someone noise] and it's coming at you--and it makes exactly that noises and sticks his tongue out. And people are like, not excited about tornadoes. At least I'm not.

Brooke 46:19 And they're green and have tongues.

Margaret 47:35 Yeah, well, the sky does turn green sometimes before a tornado. Anyway, so Tornado Alley is expanding thanks to climate change is the point of this. And there's been more and more bad tornadoes further east than there used to be. A tornado in Rocky Mount North Carolina, which is outside of previous Tornado Alley, at least according to the article I read. I've been in North Carolina when there have been tornadoes, but they weren't like, "This is totally normal." It was like kind of a bad thing. Well, do you know that there was one 1.4 million square foot Pfizer a manufacturing plant that was responsible for 25% of all of Pfizer's medications that it sends out to hospitals?

Brooke 48:24 Nope.

Margaret 48:27 Did you know that one tornado destroyed the entire fucking thing this month? A tornado of 150 mile per hour wind speeds--I wrote down the like classification, but then I deleted it because I didn't feel like looking at all the classifications and trying to explain it...A tornado. It was a bad tornado. And it fucked this thing up. It destroyed 50,000 pallets of medication. And more specifically than that, it stopped the ability for this plant to produce the medication. It was an injectable sterile medication place, so, a lot of anesthetics, so things that make you unconscious, and I think also some antibiotics, and other stuff that goes into like IVs, and stuff was destroyed and the capacity for Pfizer to make more of it was destroyed. The one silver lining is that the article used to have it wrong and say, "25% of the US's injectable medication." That was only Pfizer's percent, which is probably a lot still. Pfizer's a really fucking big name in medication. So medication shortages were already, before this, the worst that they've been in 10 years. In 2014 there were medication shortages about as bad as now. At the end of June, again before the tornado, there were 309 specific like named drug shortages in the United States. A lot of them are related to like chemotherapy and all kinds of stuff. So that's bad.

Brooke 49:52 I didn't realize the medication shortage was worse now than it was like during the height of the pandemic and the end of it because I feel like you don't hear about it.

Margaret 50:02 Yeah, I mean, well the pandemics over. So no one has to worry about anything anymore. [said sarcastically] I feel like this is the kind of thing where it's like, it's so hard because it's like...Well, it's like, as we talked with...Like, This Month in the Apocalypse is just a fuck ton of bad shit, right? Like and we're talking about or like some posi like little silver lining, like I saw cute monkey, kind of style stories, you know. Like, he's on roller skates. And, and it's like, it's hard to spin fucking this shit. It's hard to spin. Too much of our...I don't even want to tell them they're making drugs wrong. I don't know how to fucking make insulin, you know. But, obviously, there's some problems with centralization when there's tornadoes around, which I guess was like my Mothra-Godzilla thing I was talking about earlier. And I don't know, I mean...but it's the kind of thing that I wish we stayed more aware of. And I think it's the kind of thing that people mostly don't want to think about because we like to imagine that even if we'd go into debt to do so, if bad things happen, the existing system will be there for us. And, I don't want to knock the people who work really goddamn hard to make the existing system work, and the nurses, and doctors, and all the rest of the staff who work endlessly to make this shit happen. And so Pfizer is trying to move that manufacturing to other plants. But they haven't been able to yet. And they're basically like, "Look, it's not actually easy. You would be talking about moving..." None of the employees were hurt is the one upside of all of it. There's 2000 employees at that plant. And that's all I got. Besides...Are we ready for headlines like do do do [makes type write noise] headline time?

Inmn 51:49 I think Brooke has something about a murder wall.

Brooke 51:52 I know, but I don't want to talk about it anymore. Because it's so depressing. I want to talk about happy headlines.

Margaret 51:59 Should we just shout out that there's a fucking murder wall and it's bad.

Brooke 52:04 The great state of Texas. Yeah, that wonderful place, and it's a dictator du jour, Greg Abbott, decided to roll out some new measures in order to try and stop immigration across the border. So they got a whole bunch of buoys. Buoys are things that float in the water that are like wrecking ball size, which I actually don't know how big a wrecking ball is, but I assume they're massive,

Margaret 52:31 Bigger than a breadbox.

Brooke 52:38 Like the size of a car maybe? I actually don't know. Somebody, somebody comment and tell us how big wrecking balls are. I don't know big. Anyway, they got a shit ton of them and floated them out into the Rio Grande River and anchored them to the riverbed to basically create a floating wall in the middle of the river that's currently about 1000 feet long and make it longer. And then they also went through...As part of that project, there's lots of little islands that are on the Rio, and they tend to have grasses, and shrub brushes, and stuff like that. And they had the the Texas military go in and basically bulldoze everything off the top of the islands. So, they're just like dirt mounds in the middle of the river, and also,

Margaret 53:25 Some World War I shit is what's happening.

Brooke 53:27 Yeah, yeah, they bulldozed down the riverbanks on the United States side so that they could put up barbed wire along sections of the river there to, which you know, the river is at its low part right now because we're in summer, so I'm sure that taking away all of the vegetation and root systems won't have any problems with the waters rise later in the year. [Sarcastically]

Inmn 53:53 None at all. [Also sarcastically]

Margaret 53:54 Well, you know, it's just worth the trade off to economically destroy....Even if even if I was a fucking capitalist, I would be against the border wall. Like what the fuck? Like?

Brooke 54:04 Yeah, it's...There's several things that are wrong with it besides just the really obvious, you know, ethical wrongness of the whole fucking thing.

Margaret 54:14 The murderness.

Brooke 54:14 And, you know, as an indigenous person, I have really complicated feelings about that because borders and migration anyway, but like it was the state of Texas that did it. They didn't talk to the local cities and municipalities about the work that they were doing. So they just, you know, rolled up destroying this shit. And then it's also technically international waters because it's a border between two countries and they didn't talk to Mexico about it either or the federal government for that matter. So you know, Mexico is threatening to to take action against Texas, and the federal government has sued the state of Texas, and local governments are super pissed off. So fun on so many levels.

Margaret 54:59 I'm glad people are pissed off about it. So that's the one...I'm glad that murder wall has been a step too far for even some governments.

Inmn 55:09 Yeah, I mean, it's like, Arizona did a similar thing last year before the governor...Like when the governor realized that he was not going to get reelected, He started building this giant shipping container wall along the border. And he was actually ordered by the federal government to stop doing it. And he just didn't. And there were...But there were all these like interesting things that happened where there were local sheriffs and stuff who were enforcing that law against the governor, like the people building the wall. And then there were all these wild disputes about it, where it became very like a the US government versus the US government like situation.

Margaret 55:57 I don't hate that. I've played enough Risk. I know that when my enemies are fighting, it's time to sit back.

Inmn 56:04 Yeah, but a really cool thing that was able to happen was that a lot of people were, because it was not a legal thing, were able to stage some pretty large scale defense against the area by going and occupying the area to stop construction, but no one was going to arrest them because it wasn't legal for them to be building it.

Brooke 56:25 Oh, this river section also hosts a large annual kayak race that now can't happen because the buoys are in the way, so like a Republican kayaker guy who's like, you know, super into anti-immigration, is like, "But now that, you know, we can't do our kayak race here, I'm super pissed off about it." So like, even more reasons that people are angry about this that are ridiculous, but hey, let's, you know, let's be angry.

Margaret 56:55 Yeah.

Inmn 56:56 Yeah, golly. Is it time for headlines?

Margaret 57:00 It's time for headlines. Is that our wait, we got to come up with....[Brooke makes type write noise] Yeah, there we go. Alright. What I got. Okay, you know how there's this thing that like COVID and the flu and shit were all hitting and then there was also RSV, which like mostly comes up for kids, and adults...In adults who aren't old. I don't know how to phrase this. Without, okay, whatever. In some people, it just manifests as a cold and other people it is really bad, right? RSV I don't even know what it stands for. I didn't write down enough. This is my supposed to be my headlines. And now I'm contextualizing...They have an injectable antibody that the FDA just approved called Beyfortus. And it's the first time that there has been a good specific thing that is like a preventative for RSV that has become available. And so that's promising. I'm curious to see how that goes. Because I know RSV was like fucking over a lot of people I know. Apparently, cement is one of the biggest causes of climate change and damage. It is the 12th biggest cause of climate change. It beats out air travel, apparently. And it...And cement overall puts out more carbon than the entire country of India does. One company is working on a carbon negative cement that is just like manufactured very different from Portland cement. Portland cement is like the main way that people make cement, which both involves a lot of burning of carbon in order to create it because you need kilns. And also then it is slowly off gassing carbon for like, a very long time with the concrete. And so they're working on, and they've proven it to be like structurally sound, and who knows whether this will act...[interrupts self] I know that it won't see widespread adoption because there's no incentive for it because capitalism is the economic system that runs the world. But someone has invented a concrete that actually absorbs carbon. It just sort of passively brings it on instead of putting it out.

Brooke 59:15 I don't know if this is the same project, but I worked for a nonprofit a couple of years ago, or right before the start of the pandemic, that was doing research into this very thing. And they were putting really tiny amounts of wood fiber, cellulose, into cement and they were...They weren't doing it. They were funding, because it was a charity organization, they were funding the testing of this. And I wonder if this is maybe the next stage of that or even the same company.

Margaret 59:41 This company is called Brimstone, which is funny. They might be evil. They might not be. But, they're named Brimstone and we don't live in a boring world. And then my final little posi note is that some agricultural workers have been like...Well, some agricultural workers have been dying in the heat. And so another agricultural woman, agricultural worker woman, developed a cooling vest and has just been doing a lot of studies about like, just specific ways about like, how people who are working outside and are stuck working outside beat the heat with these hot new ideas. But it's like...It's one of those things where it's like, well, what if people just didn't have to do this fun work outside in the goddamn heat? But, it's still good for us to develop these systems. And I love that it is coming from people who do this work themselves. So, I think it's like kind of a swamp cooler style vest. It's like...And they just did a lot of studies about like, if a worker drinks water, versus a worker drinks electrolytes, the person who drinks electrolytes is going to have a substantially lower risk of hospitalization and heatstroke. And then even like, wearing a wet bandanna makes a huge difference. Obviously, like anything that relies on swamp cooling is going to be different based on your humidity levels. If you're in the southeast, it's going to be way harder to use passive cooling from water than if you live in the southwest. But that's what I got. Anyone else? De de deet deet, de de deet deet [making typewriter noises] Hot off the Wire.

Inmn 1:01:22 I have a bunch of headlines. They're not good. One is interesting.

Margaret 1:01:30 You're fired. I'm not actually capable of doing that. Okay.

Inmn 1:01:36 In the great state of Florida this month, it was declared by Rick DeSantis that middle schoolers will be taught about the personal benefits that slavery had for individuals as part of DeSantis' "War on Wokeness." He also was quoted as saying that he was really upset about the ways that--and he meant this in how Democrats are doing it--are criminalizing political differences, which is interesting because he's like the forefront of criminalizing political differences.

Margaret 1:02:16 So, it's almost like it's illegal to advocate the eradication of people based on their race.

Inmn 1:02:21 Yeah. And he passed some wild laws in Florida this month. This one, this one is...Like by itself, you might hear it and you're like, "Lack of sympathy," but like contextualizing it with other stuff that Rick DeSantis is doing is important. So, he passed a law that allowed for the death penalty in child rape convictions despite the Supreme Court having ruled otherwise. Which, you know, when I hear that I'm like, this is another Roe v. Wade situation of states like trying to get laws passed in the hopes that when federal rulings are overturned that they have these laws on the books.

Margaret 1:03:03 Yeah, I mean, this is so that he can kill gay people and trans people.

Inmn 1:03:06 Yeah, so then interestingly, in Texas last month, a lesbian couple was arrested for kissing at a mini golf course. And they were charged with "sexual harassment of a minor." So like, if we contextualize these things together and DeSantis' like war on trans people, we can sort of see where this is going is that he does probably want to make it legal to enforce the death penalty against trans people. He also signed a bill to end unanimous jury requirements in death penalty sentences.

Margaret 1:03:46 Sick.

Inmn 1:03:48 Now you just need an 8-4 in favor, which is a huge, huge spread. You know? Yeah, this is gonna go great. He was also involved in a car accident this morning in Tennessee and he was...not hurt.

Margaret 1:04:08 Dammit. That's fucked up.

Inmn 1:04:10 Right. In some other fun headlines, Robert Kennedy claimed at a press conference that COVID may have been ethnically targeted to spare the Jews in a absolutely absurd brand of conspiracy theories against Jewish people. Student debt forgiveness: people will be expected to pay back their refunded payments according to the student debt forgiveness being repealed.

Margaret 1:04:47 Have they met the blood and the stone? The ability to withdraw one from the other...

Inmn 1:04:57 Supreme Court ruling was like kind of...Not like overturned but an old ruling was over...like, not used in a case right now around stalking, where it's going to be a lot easier for people who are stalking people, especially on the internet, to not get in trouble for it. And it kind of boils down to this idea there that the more deluded the stalker, the more protected the stalking will be.

Margaret 1:05:31 It's like pleading insanity, kind of?

Inmn 1:05:34 Yeah. Being like, "This person was unaware of the impacts that it could have had on this person."

Margaret 1:05:40 Classic thing that should inform the law.

Inmn 1:05:48 It's weirdly situated like that to protect people like at protests, who might scream like, like, "I'm gonna fucking kill so-and-so," you know, in like a heightened state, and then that being weighed against that that person probably didn't mean that. But, it being used like that to protect people threatening to kill people on the internet while stalking them is, you know, clearly, clearly these things aren't the same thing.

Brooke 1:06:25 Laws are bad.

Inmn 1:06:26 Puberty blockers in England were disallowed on a large scale outside of exceptional cases. So like, trans kids in Europe will no longer be allowed to access puberty blockers.

Margaret 1:06:43 You mean, the UK. Technically no longer Europe, thanks to their right wing move to separate themselves. Yes, does not make it any better for the UK kids. I'm sorry. I'm being a pedant. I apologize.

Brooke 1:06:54 Yay, terf Island.

Inmn 1:06:59 Putin signed new legislation on like this past Monday, I think, which marked the final step in outlawing gender affirming procedures. So basically, you can't get any gender affirming, like surgical procedures in Russia any more. And the bill was unanimously approved by the Russian Parliament, which bans any medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person as well as changing any one's gender marker on their documents. The only exception will be for medical intervention to treat congenital anomalies, which I think probably refers to like, assigning intersex people genders. It also annuls marriages in which one person has changed their gender and bars, transgender people from becoming foster or adoptive parents. And yeah, so Russia is even more terrifying.

Margaret 1:08:03 Starting to not like Russia.

Brooke 1:08:07 Starting to?

Margaret 1:08:08 I don't know. Putin starting to seem like kind of a...I'm starting to develop a negative impression. [sarcastically]

Inmn 1:08:17 Yeah. And, you know, just to give people in the United States an idea of where we're headed, this was all in the name of "Upholding traditional family values." That was the main cause for this legislation.

Brooke 1:08:31 TFV. TFV.

Inmn 1:08:34 And my last little headlines, which I wanted to connect to talking about heat wave stuff earlier, a nine year old migrant died after having seizures due to heat related illness in Arizona. This past month, there were at least 10 recorded migrant deaths in southern Arizona due to heat related complications. But, Border Patrol claims to have rescued 45 people from the scorching heat of the desert. But interestingly, in Ajo, Arizona, which is like west