It’s over 100 today in Portland while I sit on the porch with a Second Sight ale from Black Raven. It’s a scotch ale and while it has a slightly more roasted note in the finish than I would like, it’s cold and even in the shade of this porch, cold is welcome.
The malty quality of the Second Sight makes it less appropriate for today: this beer is thicker and sweeter than what I’d like to have. It’s not bad, but it’s a bit like using a rock to hammer a nail. It’ll do, but you’d rather have something else.
It’s hot enough that I can smell it: dry, dusty, like crumbled leaves. An inverse petrichor. It’s doing wonders for my lawn (which I hate and should die).
It’s supposed to be 115 degrees tomorrow. And Monday, as you read this.
That’s Death Valley numbers.
There’s no spin on this. No smart take that makes this shit, sugar. That kind of heat should not exist in Portland, and before anyone gets on their nonsense about how ‘temperature is cyclical and we’ve had heat waves in the past’ let me just advocate for you to shut the hell up.
This is the fourth summer in a row where temperatures have been unusual, the third that I’m aware of where there’s been a drought. I like beer. You can’t get beer if there’s no water.
In the meantime, Detroit apparently had 6.5 inches of water fall in 24 hours and is flooding. Tornado warnings are hitting Chicago. Hurricane season is getting longer and more intense.
Something is wrong and I, for one, am exhausted with unserious people trying to ‘well, actually’ any of this. We just had a pandemic acutely demonstrate how badly we need to be in this effort to survive together.
Climate crisis is the chronic condition shoving us towards that.
And we deserve better than this shit.
A pint for Dionysus 