NBC News’s story on drought conditions in the American Southwest actually mentions a number of cities, but Jeff Nesbit was particularly taken with the article’s description of Phoenix, Arizona, which it calls the “bull’s-eye of global warming.” The thing about global warming, though, is that it was to take into consideration the temperature of the entire planet; that’s why politicians’ bold ambitions are to keep the change in the earth’s temperature within two degrees Celsius. But it looks like Phoenix is the bull’s-eye.
Phoenix is the "bull's-eye of global warming, heating up and drying out.”
https://t.co/HNsyWZGaSL— Jeff Nesbit (@jeffnesbit) June 12, 2021
Phoenix is the “bull’s-eye of global warming, heating up and drying out,” said Andrew Ross, a professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University and author of a book about Arizona’s largest city called “Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World’s Least Sustainable City.”
Before it was Phoenix, the Hohokam Indigenous people lived on the land for centuries. “They had a wonderful irrigation network system, and they subsisted in the desert with their canal network for more than a 1,000 years,” Ross said, but severe drought forced them to abandon the site. Phoenix is built atop the ruins of the Hohokam people’s city, and the canal system that brings water to Phoenix was built on the path first used by the Hohokam.
“The allegory is built into the city,” Ross said. The test is whether history repeats itself.
If it’s a case of history repeating itself, was it the widespread use of fossil fuels that killed off the Hohokam people’s city?
It's in the desert, genius.
— AdamInHTownTX (Freedom Loving Neanderthal) (@AdamInHTownTX) June 12, 2021
Hahaha, yep. Supposed to be like 117 here early next week, but I can remember it being like 122 my second summer here, which was the summer of 2000, so it's not like it's anything new.
— Soap Salesman (@BTC500k) June 12, 2021
🤡 riiiiight — the desert in Phoenix has never been dry or hot before — local weather is not global weather, Skippy
— JWinABQ (@JimW_in_NM) June 12, 2021
If it was this dry 1200 years ago, how could it happen with no evil SUVs?
— Liberty’s Outlook (@falcontac55) June 12, 2021
It has been that way for a millennia or more. Prove me wrong.
— Rob McCray (@clanmacrae9) June 12, 2021
And yes, I realize that a millennia by far underestimates the length of time the desert has gotten dry in the Southwest
— Rob McCray (@clanmacrae9) June 12, 2021
Deserts are funny like that.
— Sierra3 (@ctrssierra) June 12, 2021
Breaking news: it's hot in the desert. More at 11.
— Steve Detmer (@DetmerSteve) June 12, 2021
The earth has been around for billions of years and you know what "normal" weather is.
— Jim (@jim25770) June 12, 2021
Hello, it's Phoenix.
— Mom (@4xy2xx) June 12, 2021
BREAKING: Local desert is hot and dry!
— Justin Lane 🍅🤠🌾 (@ChristGardener) June 12, 2021
Just stop
— Just here (@patriots_fight1) June 12, 2021
Related:
Writer wonders why Hollywood can’t make good movies about the biggest story on earth: climate change https://t.co/ya9uL8jBAk
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) April 23, 2021
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