Are We There Yet?

As the impacts of global warming slam into the present, are you the frog or the boiling water? While you contemplate the metaphor, a brief round up of Notnecessarily the climate-related news:

Temperatures in Seattle reached into the nineties this weekend:

The main reason for the heat watch is because it will not cool down much in the evenings, causing homes to retain more of that heat.

The last excessive heat watch for the area was issued July 29, 2009 when it was 103 degrees.

Oregon is baking under the same heat with highs in the mid to upper 90s forecast in Portland, Salem and Eugene.

Seattlelites were in search of public decks to hang out on to catch the breeze on the waterfront which, in a twist, only the tourists knew about.

The University of Miami (FL) continue to distinguish itself, this time by selling about 88 acres of globally imperiled habitat to Walmart:

To secure permission for the 158,000-square-foot box store, plus an LA Fitness center, Chik-fil-A and Chili’s restaurants and about 900 apartments, the university and the developer, Ram, agreed to set aside 40 acres for a preserve.

Ram also plans to develop 35 adjacent acres still owned by the university.

But with less than 2 percent of the vast savanna that once covered South Florida’s spiny ridge remaining, the deal has left environmentalists and biologists scratching their heads.

“You wonder how things end up being endangered? This is how. This is bad policy and bad enforcement. And shame on UM,” said attorney Dennis Olle, a board member of Tropical Audubon and the North American Butterfly Association, who wrote to Florida’s lead federal wildlife agent Friday demanding an investigation.

You definitely wonder about that, among other things.