Hot enough for ya?

That used to prompt a smile when I was a kid picking melons and tomatoes in Manzanola. It’s not funny as more than 10,000 people in Europe drop dead from the heat, above the normal amount of heat-related deaths.

Records keepers expect the 1,200 or so normal U.S. heat-related deaths will swell this year, too.

While climbing into a 120-degree car to go home from work is certainly a sharp reminder of what we’ve done to the planet, being hot and uncomfortable is not even the tip of the iceberg of when it comes to the existential threat human-caused global warming has and will bring down on our economy, health and lives.

For flat-earthers like President Donald Trump and Colorado GOP Congressperson Lauren Boebert, who calls all this bad weather, reality will be just as harsh.

These people and their minions are the idiots who say months-long killer heat waves are just problems created by woke thermometers.

The Trump administration’s climate strategy is to lie, deny and disparage.

This is a man so stupid he not only believes that windmills cause cancer, but he thinks it furthers his case of denial by repeating it.

Trump continuously calls climate change “a scam.” His administration has now revoked the EPA’s landmark finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health. It’s been the legal cornerstone of federal climate regulations for the past 17 years.

It’s like repealing the law of gravity because ladders make him nervous. The awkward part for Trump is that reality refuses to sign his nondisclosure agreement.

Scientists, the real ones, those irritating people who insist on measuring things over and over before tweeting about stuff, have spent years studying the connection between climate and human health.

More than 29,000 peer-reviewed studies have examined the issue. More than 5,000 focused on the United States alone. Most were published in just the last five years, the Associated Press reports.

Their conclusions aren’t subtle. Real peer-reviewed scientists are convinced that climate change is already making people sicker, killing more people during extreme heat, worsening air quality, increasing disease risks, and displacing communities because of fires and storms.

And while that’s unnerving in real life during a horror movie, for those who shrug it off and think they’ll just turn up the A/C, there’s a very real cash cost that comes with all this.

The farmers and ranchers who don’t go out of business because of climate change have to find ways to keep their crops and cattle alive during endless heat domes amid increasing droughts. Don’t think for a second you won’t pay the price at the grocery store.

Loving that cheap, cheap house insurance here in Colorado? Oh, just wait.

And your already stupidly unaffordable and increasingly worthless health insurance? The cost of treating climate-change illnesses in increasingly expensive hospitals will make Trump’s disaster trip back to the White House seem like the good-old days.

The administration’s response to all this science and reality is lies, denials and when even Fox News runs the heat-wave death reels, it’s just “la la la, I can’t hear you.”

Meanwhile, back on Earth, scientists continue documenting connections between rising temperatures and illnesses ranging from heat stroke to waterborne disease and mental health problems. 

Sure, Boebert. It’s just a scam.

If you’re like her, shrugging and saying, “sucks to be them,” half of the state we live in is covered in combustible growth. And for those who don’t care about life in a burning state and being downwind of endless fires, remember back to the Marshall Fire in December 2021 that burned up 1,084 suburban homes on the plains.

Mid-term elections are coming up, and while all of the whack, sick, dangerous and unfathomable things Trump and his crony Republicans pull out of their orifices every day can’t keep you from looking away, take the time to push for answers about climate change. 

Remember that atmospheric physics doesn’t care about wrestling matches on the White House lawn.

Carbon dioxide has never attended a campaign rally, although there’s rarely a shortage of hot air at those things. Heat waves don’t “like” woke memes on social media. Wildfires don’t pick paths based on whether they want to burn through red districts or blue ones.

We aren’t arguing over tax rates, highway funding or whether poor people can use SNAP benefits for Snickers bars.

We’re arguing over whether decades of measurements, thousands of scientific studies, and observable events occurring in real time should be believed. Climate deniers don’t want better science, they want better slogans because slogans poll better.

Trump’s climate change denial and his insistence to step on the gas and make it worse is astonishing.

“It’s akin to insisting that the world is flat or denying that gravity is a thing,” Dr. Howard Frumkin, a physician and professor emeritus of public health at the University of Washington told the Associated Press. President George W. Bush appointed him to the National Center for Environmental Health. “Study after study documents that climate change endangers health, for one simple reason: It’s true.”

 Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or [email protected]

Read more Russian barrage in Ukraine’s capital region kills 17 as air defenses fall short

Read more Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan Senate primary in major victory for Democrats’ progressive wing

Read more Drone with an explosive device found at a German airport and detonator removed