The high in my part of Los Angeles has hovered around 40ºC this week and cracked it a few times. To say things have been hot feels like an understatement. It’s a heat that’s exhausting, a heat that strains my poor aircon (and the city’s power grid, if yesterday’s rolling blackouts were any indication).
There’s probably a ramble here about a changing climate and having to take steps to stave it off. But there’s also the counter argument that my struggling air conditioning pales in comparison to emissions of car traffic (which in turn I am complicit in due to to Los Angeles lacking much in the way of actual, practical public transport). Or that of everyone’s favorite dogpile, private jets. Or even the obscene amount of power used by generative intelligence making error filled google results. You can’t individual action yourself out of a systemic issue and all that.
It’s a lot, it’s what I’m saying. And maybe it’s exacerbated by the heat, by the knowledge that in trying to find some comfort I’m also making it worse. Or maybe it’s hot enough out here that my brain’s tired and overthinking the fact that I’m in the middle of a record breaking heatwave.
Whatever. I’m going to go play Battlegrounds.
Essays, Not Rants! 