The red hot hounds of summer continue to be running loose

(Continued From Page A4) set 49 years ago.

Southern Europe has also experienced record temperatures this summer. In mid-July, daily temperatures “topped 104 degrees (40 Celsius) in parts of Spain, France, Italy, Greece and Bosnia. Sicily saw temperatures as high as 115 degrees,” reported the Washington Post July 18.

The heat wave was given the alltoo-perfect name “Cerberus” that, in Greek mythology, is the “multiheaded dog that guards the gates to the Underworld to prevent the dead from leaving” their blistering hot eternity. In short, Cerberus is the hound from hell.

Greek myths aside, there’s nothing mythical about Europe’s recent history of heat. A month ago, the journal Nature Medicine, estimated that 62,000 people around Europe died from “heat-related illnesses” in 2022. This year, the estimated death toll is pegged at 68,000 and,

Sutherland

(Continued From Page A4) was to be left ajar, or better yet, wide open, at all times. if that two-year streak becomes a trend, 94,000 people a year could die by 2040 across Europe. China. And it’s not the only part of the world baking in unprecedented heat. One of history’s oldest cultures, China, was slammed with record heat already in May. That month, 446 weather stations around “the nation registered temperatures that were the same as, or greater than, the highest ever recorded for the month of May,” reported The Guardian June 2.

His sleep was haunted by nightmares, at times causing his wife harm before awakening. He had no patience for the typical complaints of a very young daughter, knowing as he scolded her for small things she was blameless. His standards were from an entirely different world, beyond the grasp of most mortals of any age.

Life unfolds for each of us in incredibly varied ways. When I find myself impatient with others, I recall having spent days with Lt. Col. Kari, who was often agitated by seemingly tiny infractions. Though impossible, when I at least attempted to view the world through the lens he did, I could find acceptance and understanding. It proved powerful.

My life was changed by getting to know this man and writing his life story. I carry this life lesson with me, and always will.

As if to prove the point, the Shanghai Meteorology Bureau reported “that the city had recorded a temperature of 36.1 degrees Celsius,” or nearly 97 degrees Fahrenheit, for the month. There was another record.

All of this arrives on the heels of last year’s major drought, the worst in 60 years, that clipped 6.1 million hectares (15 million acres) of Chinese farmland with “economic losses reaching billions of yuan.”

In early June, China reported that at least 3 million hectares, or about 7.5 million acres, had already been hit by drought in 2023.

Time for change. As overwhelming as this short, incomplete weather review is — I left out the record flooding that recently clobbered the northeast U.S., Japan and India — it’s only the nose of the really big, growling dog, climate change, dominating today’s global weather and tomorrow’s global agriculture.

The trouble, of course, is that we appear to be perfectly happy to fund and operate a food production system more suited for 1923 or 1973 than one for 2023 or 2053. When exactly are the world’s leading food growers and sellers going to adopt more weatherproof agriculture?

We need to hurry because the dog days of summer are a lingering, steamy reality, not a myth.

(The Farm and Food File is published weekly throughout the U.S. and Canada. Past columns, supporting documents, and contact information are posted at farmandfoodfile.com. ©2023 ag comm)