{"id":3475,"date":"2010-08-20T22:16:11","date_gmt":"2010-08-21T05:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/?p=3475"},"modified":"2010-08-20T22:16:11","modified_gmt":"2010-08-21T05:16:11","slug":"heat-waves-and-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/2010\/08\/20\/heat-waves-and-ice\/","title":{"rendered":"Heat waves and ice"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the temperatures in my part of the world have plummeted (again), returning us to our usual sweater-weather-on-August-nights, world temperatures overall continue to rise. Here’s a map that shows “global land temperature anomalies for July 2010 from average July temperatures of 1951-1980 – Above-average temps are in red; below-average temps are in blue, while gray areas indicate insufficient data. Image courtesy of NASA-GISS.” Via Mongabay<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

As you can see, “my” part of the world (west coast of North America, particularly the Pacific Northwest) is nicely fanned by a cool light blue. Some other parts of the globe are burning up, however (see the dark red\/brown\/orange).<\/p>\n

Folks sweltering in the Northeast should console themselves: the summer highs are barely registering “salmon” (the color). Does that mean it’s not really hot, and that it could be worse?<\/p>\n

Nope, it’s hot, but now imagine that it’s 1896 and you’re sitting in a NYC tenement while a killer heat wave strikes the city.<\/p>\n

We’re mesmerized by spectacular disasters and think they have to happen with a bang (see my post<\/a> from yesterday), but then there are the silent (and unattractive) killers that move slowly. In “Hot Time in the Old Town”: New York City’s Deadly Heat Wave of 1896<\/a> Edward Kohn describes a ten-day heat wave that descended on New York in 1896. Haven’t read the book (would love to, however), but here’s a point that struck me: in an attempt to alleviate suffering and to save lives, Theodore Roosevelt made the decision to distribute ice to the tenements, a move that Kohn identifies as a first stitch to weave a social net that eventually grew to encompass many more entitlements.<\/p>\n

Ice. Imagine that. Not a program, not something in writing. But something as tangible (if impermanent) as ice…<\/p>\n

See The Takeaway<\/a> for an excerpt, and find the book on Amazon here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the temperatures in my part of the world have plummeted (again), returning us to our usual sweater-weather-on-August-nights, world temperatures overall continue to rise. Here’s a map that shows “global land temperature anomalies for July 2010 from average July temperatures of 1951-1980 – Above-average temps are in red; below-average temps are in blue, while gray […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[203],"tags":[20134],"class_list":["post-3475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","tag-heat_wave"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3475"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3482,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3475\/revisions\/3482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}