The News Not Noise Letter: Too Hot To Handle
Understanding the hottest month on record. Plus: the need-to-know info on the new Trump charges, and why Taylor Swift has us shook, literally.
For regular updates, follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. And now you can find me on Threads, Meta’s new alternative to Twitter.
I always look for uplifting stories to share on Fridays and today is no exception. But it would be bonkers to ignore the fact we are extremely hot as we write this newsletter. My phone is filled with texts (mostly complaints and gallows humor) about #ClimateChangeSummer. So let’s address this:
July 2023 is almost certainly the hottest month in recorded history. Records date back to the 1940s, but scientists at the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service believe that this is the hottest period in more than 100,000 years. They calculate that based on studying things like tree rings and coral reefs. Here’s a graph:
On Thursday, over half of Americans were under heat advisories. It’s so bad that highways are buckling in the Upper Midwest and the oceans off Florida hit a feverish 101.1°F. This isn’t just a US phenomenon — temperatures are still soaring worldwide, with European heat waves nicknamed “Cerberus” and “Charon” after Ancient Greek mythological figures associated with the underworld.
President Biden announced new policies to help protect people working in the heat. The Labor Department will issue a “hazard alert” to employers reminding them of workers’ heat-related rights and protections. OSHA will increase inspections in “high risk” industries like agriculture and construction. The Administration is increasing investment in NOAA to improve weather forecasts. The Department of the Interior will take steps to ensure greater availability for drinking water in drought-stricken areas.
You can track current heat advisories and keep up with government actions and advisories about heat at HEAT.gov.
We gathered resources to find cooling centers around the country here.
And of course we can’t discuss any of this without acknowledging the urgency of moving corporations and governments to dramatically reduce human impact on the environment.
Here’s where heat waves are changing most in the US:
To understand how heat waves are changing across the country and over time, check out USAFacts’ data on heat wave patterns. You’ll notice that the US cities experiencing the greatest change in heat waves (intensity, duration etc) ARE NOT necessarily the places that are currently experiencing the nation’s hottest temperatures. It’s a sign that places we think of as more temperate are also undergoing meaningful change.
Philadelphia shows the greatest change in heat wave intensity since the 1960s. Nowadays, heat waves in Philly are an average of 1.51°F hotter than they were in the 60s.
Heat waves are lasting longer in New Orleans, where the average duration of a heat wave has increased by 4.1 days since the 60s.
San Francisco is experiencing the greatest change in heat wave seasons, defined by the number of days between the first and last heat wave of a year. San Fran’s heat wave seasons are 111 days longer than they were in the 60s.
Want to see how heat waves are changing in your city? Check out the data at USAFacts here.
USAFacts is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization dedicated to communicating government data clearly and comprehensively. They are a News Not Noise content partner.
Here’s the deal with the new Trump charges:
We know you’re sick of Trump news. Everyone has already formed an opinion on the former president, and we live in an era where new information is unlikely to change many minds. But this is important stuff to keep track of. We’ll keep it short:
On Thursday, Special Counsel Jack Smith released a superseding indictment in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case. This indictment added new charges and a new defendant. The Special Counsel has now charged Trump with showing a sensitive document (believed to be a plan for potential war with Iran) to people who did not have security clearance. And he acknowledged he had not declassified the document. Smith also charged another low-level Mar-a-Lago employee, Carlos de Oliveira, with obstruction. De Oliveira allegedly tried to delete Mar-a-Lago security footage that the federal grand jury asked to see. The new superseding indictment suggests the Special Counsel has loads of surveillance footage evidence. You can read more about it here. For a thorough explanation of the original indictment, read our newsletter breaking it down here.
Now a palate cleanser – a little News That Doesn’t Suck:
Groundbreaking Birth: In a triumph of medicine, for the first time outside of clinical trials, a woman with a uterus transplant has given birth to a healthy baby. The mother, a woman named Mallory, was born without a uterus due to a rare condition called Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser Syndrome. Mallory was the first woman to receive a uterine transplant at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital, which operates one of only four uterine transplant programs in the US. Through this program, Mallory was able to carry her own baby to term. She delivered a healthy baby boy via cesarean section in June.
Paying subscribers get an additional item – today, we’re including a bit of News That Doesn’t Suck about the phenomenon shaking the nation: the Swift Quake – and a few fun social posts. To those who signed up, thank you for your support! It truly makes all the difference in the world.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to News Not Noise to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.