Currently — July 28th, 2022

July 27, 2022

The weather, currently.

A brutal Pacific Northwest heatwave continues, centered on Portland, Oregon.

Temperatures in Portland dipped a bit on Wednesday after hitting 99°C (37.2°C) on Monday and 102°F (38.8°C) on Tuesday, but wildfire smoke streaming northwards from California has significantly worsened air quality locally. However, temperatures should surge back toward the triple digits in Oregon and eastern Washington for the rest of the week and into the weekend. A slightly uplifting side-effect to the oppressive weather has been brilliant sunsets over the past day or two as smoke tinges the sky red and orange.With perfect timing, the Biden Administration announced a brand-new heat.gov portal this week — aiming to reduce the effects of the number one severe weather killer in the US: heat waves. The increasing severity and intensity of heat waves, like the one that hit the Pacific Northwest last summer, is one of the clearest consequences of the climate emergency.

-Eric Holthaus

What you need to know, currently.

We have a new story up today from Anna Abraham on the efforts of the Chilean people to reclaim the country’s water supply from the extractive industries and other private enterprises.

“Climate change plays a significant role in the matter,” writes Abraham. “But so does the country’s free-market water policy, which inadvertently prioritizes the needs of extractive industries over a community’s right to access water.”

“They stole everything from us, they even took away our dignity,” Zoila Quiroz, a local resident from Petorca, Chile told EFE, “There was a time when we had to choose whether to take a shower or wash our clothes. We had no choice but to fight.”