What's HOT: History Won’t Judge. Nature Will.

History Won’t Judge. 

Nature Will.

By Bruce E. Johansen

We seem to have reached that point in humankind’s husbandry of the Earth when it’s really not all that tough to realize that something peculiar is going on in the atmosphere. Anyone with the slightest sliver of common sense and a few reports from the news media can see it.

A Good Day for a Swim? 

Massive floods and other problems have been reminding us nearly every day that we are in big, fat trouble. Even so, we still have a an embarrassingly large number of people, some of them with a lot of power, drunk on lots of power and an incredible amount of self-interest, as well as a huge shortage of gray matter, who are still looking at massive floods in the Texas Hill Country (and elsewhere) watching 139 people die in it, and telling us that it’s a perfect day for a swim.

In some places, the water rose as much as 30 feet in one hour, sweeping away several children in vacation campgrounds. Several news reports described a “colossal burst of rain.”

We know who one of those best-known power drunkards is, and there is a 99.999+ per cent chance that he has never heard of the Nebraska Report, much less anyone who reads it. 

Before I get to the weather reports, however, bear in mind that our Dunce in Chief and his minions have repealed legal rulings (quite a few of them, in fact) that allow the federal government to issue climate regulations. Gosh! Hey! In our federal government’s legal milieu, climate-caused problems no longer exist. Our president and his legal toadies have told us so. Two plus two now equals five, or whatever else MAGA says it ought to mean. Hello Big Brother! 

Well, enough of that. It’s time to hang up on the fake world of MAGA-izing, and try a few words of real-world climate change – but not quite yet.

MAGA’s new reality has rescinded a 2009 declaration that determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.

Rescinding Reality

The “endangerment finding” is the legal underpinning of several climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants, and other pollution sources that are heating the planet. The federal government will soon be out of the carbon dioxide regulation business.

In the meantime, the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will continue to raise temperatures and intensify storms. Anyone who has been watching and reading the news knows the practical outcome. Nearly every day, we see news of more flooding, heat waves, and so forth. When I started researching and writing about this subject about 30 years ago, most of the anticipated outcomes were theoretical. Now they are affecting our daily lives, and getting worse.

And what does our government do under the hand of our denier-in-chief?  It declares that, in the face of all evidence, climate change does not exist, at least not for legal regulatory purposes. He still calls it a “hoax” and urges that we pump (and mine) more oil and coal. Mr. Trump, history will judge. 

“The Largest Deregulatory Action in the History of America” 

In the meantime, the new rules for nature were announced by Lee Zeldin, administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Remember, dear reader, we now live in a world in which protecting the environment has no legal force.

“Repealing the endangerment finding ‘will be the largest deregulatory action in the history of America,’” Zeldin said on the Ruthless podcast.

So, we ought to junk all that talk about history judging anything. What’s going to judge us, ultimately, is nature.

Now, for a visit with nature:

We have heard a great deal recently about a war between Israel and Iran, in which the United States has played a part with a squad of B-52 bombers. In fact, if you looked up after a roar over Omaha or Lincoln a month or two ago, you may have seen a set or two of very broad, very dark batwings heading for Offutt Air Force Base.

The B-52s got the attention, but Iran has bigger problems than that, many of them having to do with a surplus of heat and a severe shortage of water. These things have been tending to escape the war games played by human beings until their corner of civilization collapses.

Witness, please, the following headline, from the New York Times:  “Tehran Is at Risk of Running Out of Water Within Weeks; After a Five-year Drought and Decades of Mismanagement, a Water Crisis is Battering Iran,” By Farnaz Fassihi, Sanam Mahoozi, and Leily Nikounazar. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/world/middleeast/iran-water-crisis-drought.html

The piece begins:

“Some of Iran’s deepest reservoirs have shrunk to shallow ponds. Water pressure is so low in some cities that taps in apartment buildings run dry for hours on end. People desperately search for water tanks, and hoard every drop they can find.

Temperatures are so high that one day last month, a part of Iran saw a heat index of 149 degrees Fahrenheit, according to sites that track extreme weather, making it one of the hottest places on Earth.

While we are at it, try the following from NASA, August 29, 2024:

Earth’s Highest Heat Index Recorded in Southern Iran During Historic Middle East Heatwave

On August 29th, 2024, a weather station near Qeshm Dayrestan Airport in southern Iran recorded a staggering heat index of 82.2°C (180°F), potentially marking the highest heat index ever documented on Earth; as shared by US-based Meteorologist Colin McCarthy on X. The heat index combines air temperatures and humidity to estimate how hot it feels. The extreme conditions were logged with an air temperature of 38.9°C (102°F) and a relative humidity of 85%,

No, a heat index of 149°F is not a typo. This is life on today’s Earth, in Iran. This report arrived a few weeks after Israel and the United States rained bombs and missiles on and near Tehran on suspicion of developing a nuclear weapon. That captured the headlines. The end of Iran as we know it was set later, in smaller type, with minimal commentary from any of the parties to the other apocalypse.

My favorite mercury monitor is in Fairbanks, Alaska. One day late in the Spring of 2025, the high was 85 degrees F., record heat. On July 6, the forecast high was 89. 

Among those suffering from Spain’s heat was U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who posted on X from Seville, where the temperature hit 42.6°C (108.7°F).

Extreme heat is no longer a rare event — it has become the new normal. During the summer of 2025, readings of 108 degrees F. became common, from Spain to France, to the Western United States, China, and elsewhere.

It’s Getting Tough to Find Ice in Iceland

Summer-like weather arrived early in Iceland, where for more than a week in May 2025, temperatures soared well above average for the time of year. According to the Icelandic Meteorological Office, the heat wave was notable for its early arrival, longevity, and geographic scope.

The heat settled over the island nation from May 13 to May 22, marking 10 consecutive days in which the temperature reached at least 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) somewhere on the island. On May 17 and 18, during the heat wave’s peak, more than half of the country’s weather stations recorded temperatures at or above that mark.

The warmth on May 18 is depicted on a map, which shows air temperatures modeled at 2 meters (6.5 feet) above the ground. It was produced by combining satellite observations with temperatures predicted by a version of the GEOS (Goddard Earth Observing System) model, which uses mathematical equations to represent physical processes in the atmosphere. The darkest reds indicate areas where temperatures reached at least 18°C (64°F). Note that temperatures appear somewhat cooler near the region’s ice caps, including Vatnajökull.

A ground station in Húsafell, a historic farm and church estate in western Iceland, measured 25.7°C (78.3°F) on May 18 and became the site’s hottest day on record, according to the meteorological office. The highest temperature of the heat wave, 26.6°C (79.9°F), was recorded at the Egilsstaðir Airport, in eastern Iceland, on May 15.

Nature is judging us already. Will humanity’s history catch up before it’s too late?