San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Scorching hints of what’s to come
EL PASO — Like the air, Mount Franklin is omnipresent in this town.
The mountain range stretches northeast to southwest, from one end of town to the other. Fourteen miles long, 3 miles wide, the range makes El Paso; without it, the town would be drab and dreary, a flat, barren landscape that makes the moon seem lush.
Ah, but with the range, El Paso is a town that forces you to admire two landscapes, one below, one above; the one above as rich and absorbing as the one below. Especially during dawn and twilight. The sky is bleached pink and lavender in the morning, red and purple in the evening, the shades of color so breathtaking that townspeople stop whatever they are doing, whether work or play, to savor the daily light shows.
No, the mountains are not everywhere. It only seems that way. Everywhere you look, everywhere you turn, the mountains are there, a presence without which El Paso would not be El Paso.
If you grew up here, and if you are of a certain age, you remember summer nights so cool that you had to slip on a windbreaker to keep warm. Warm? During the summer? Yes, because the nights were as cool as the days were hot.
We viewed the sun as a heat lamp in the sky. If you could find a shield from the sun —
under a tree, an awning, even an adult or a taller friend — the shade would protect you. It was outdoor AC. And in the evenings, the heat lifted.
Those days are gone. The heat, it seems, is everywhere all the time. It envelops you … it pounds you … it can kill you.
A brush fire broke out on the western side of the mountain recently. Officials said it may have been caused by sparks from a nearby electrical pole. No one was injured in what officials termed an “isolated incident,” but some residents panicked, calling friends and relatives to beware.
Climate change has done that to people, made them wary. Some, not all. There are still deniers, and there will always be, but if you do not believe the science, look at the weather throughout the country — the Fourth of July was the hottest day ever recorded on Earth, according to the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine, a record broken the next day.
Experts say this will likely be the “coolest” summer we will experience from this point forward. A scary thought. The Earth will become a cauldron, with the sky, once vast and
inviting, turning into a lid that keeps the heat from escaping.
“Concentrations of carbon dioxide are at their highest in least 2 million years,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said. “The climate time bomb is ticking.”
They call El Paso the “Sun City,” and it is living up to its name. We celebrated the Fourth of July with the 19th straight day of 100-degree weather. The record was 23, which we had reached in 1994.
We tied that record four days later, but what was tied was soon obliterated. Twenty three became 24, and 24 became 25, and the oppressive heat may continue through July.
“We’re asking the community to stay very safe out there, especially those who have to work outside or those who have to be outside for any reason,” El Paso Fire Department spokesman Enrique Dueñas said.
The warning is real. Dehydration can lead to heatstroke and death. If you are not careful, stepping outside could mean stepping into eternity.
Climate change threatens life, but it also threatens that which makes life worth living. Imagine a world without the Franklin Mountains — or countless other natural wonders throughout the world. It would be a dreary environment, a dank cellar with nothing to inspire us, nothing to ennoble or elevate us.
“The somewhat good news is that there is hope for addressing energy insecurity now with recent world events including the COVID-19 pandemic, global social unrest and the war in Ukraine, which may spur further investments in renewable energy,” Diana Hernandez, an associate professor with the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, said in a statement.
We have faced crucial crossroads before, but none, perhaps, with such monumental consequences — the survival of the planet.