When Forecasts Call for Falling Skies
How heatwave panics remind me of Doomsday.
First, I wanna talk about the weather, and then I wanna talk about the End Times. That’s just fair warning beforehand. The thread between these themes is tenuous, but I sat down to write today and here’s what happened.
This week’s gonna be warm—like maybe break 100º—and nerves are crackling because Oregonians are flashing back to last summer and the three hottest days in state history…
…or possibly the Summer of 2020, when Estacada almost caught fire and we sweltered and choked on smoke. The last few years were harrowing, though those weeks were uniquely miserable.
So, yes, for a city with minimal air-conditioning, heatwaves are unpleasant, and lamentation is a natural aspect of human expression. Why, then, do I so often feel as though the world is riddled with Chicken Littles?
Like, today the predicted high was 99º. Tomorrow, 101º. Headlines and social media are breathless with caution. Gonna be hot next week!
A high of 101º is certainly warm, but it’s also part of a standard Oregon summer. In recorded history, Portland usually gets multiple 100º days per year. While last year’s dome was horrific, the longest stretch of heat in the city’s history—five straight days over 100º—occurred in 1941.
I recognize this complaint could ring of climate change gaslighting, but I’m no denier. There’s clear evidence our planet is steadily warming. Scientists and Holy Scripture agree: the weather will get wilder. I’ve little reason to doubt either.
What I’m saying is the scorchers this week are typical, and there’s a downside to panic. The cost of flooding ourselves with adrenaline and outrage and worry over the commonplace is lessening our capacity for recognizing real, resonant tragedy. This isn’t just a problem in weather speculation. Look at this nutty tweet!
“All of the twentieth century in two years”? I’m loathe to use a bad tweet to illustrate such a broad point, but this lady’s bio says she’s a historian! I guess I missed the month where 80 million people died from world war?
There’s a cost to this sort of obnoxious hyperbole. Back to the weather angle, for instance: even the most stubborn climate deniers and fossil-fuel advocates recognize some form of climate change is occuring. It’d be cool if the rest of us didn’t annoy them into entrenching further.
The topic of apocalypse prophets and their detractors is especially intriguing because of how these paradigms have flipped completely during my adult life.
During the ‘80s and ‘90s, for example, the Religious Right’s obsession with End Times held court over American culture. Hal Lindsey’s The Late, Great Planet Earth was the bestselling book of the ‘70s and the Left Behind novel series owned the NYT through the late ‘90s. The Left mostly mocked those depictions.
Yet now, a little over twenty years on, it’s Progressives waving signs in the street, warning of annihilation unless we repent. And the Right mostly waves off visions of doom, or blames shifting weather on God like we aren’t the ones sinning.
In the aggregate, each side of the Culture Wars seems to expect the end is nigh, and maybe they’re both right? The End is coming, and always has been, whether Sol goes supernova or Christ comes back.
Maranatha.
Yet considering how many human beings wondered about witnessing the Last Days—almost all—and how many actually have—none—the odds are in favor of time rolling on awhile. We’re more likely in an End Times than The End Times, is what I’m saying. And that’s alright with me! I’m only up for watching a third of the Earth’s trees scorched, freshwater poisoned, stars blotted out, and the sea turned to blood if the result is life flourishing like never before.
I’d be glad not to die, but I’m okay with finishing work here, and maybe living long enough to play in a park with my grandkids. In any case, I don’t get much say in the matter.
Your will be done, Abba.
I loved this piece, Jordan, reminding us of catastrophic thinking, when Portland faces a heat wave, not unreasonable in terms of history.
We had a warm humid spell here reminding me of how used I've become to having cool air on demand in the Southeastern U.S. Yikes, here in Quebec, we have to open windows, the basement doors, etc. And so there's a tradeoff between our noise-cancelling acrylic window inserts and airflow (we've left our window inserts in), with just a few windows and doors for fresh air.
But today the cool air was back, highs in the upper 60's, although I hear the highway noise as I write, through the open screen door.