I recently began reading the excellent book The Heat Will Kill You First, by Jeff Goodell.
Executive summary: We’re doomed.
The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet is a 2023 book by environmental journalist Jeff Goodell that is published by Little, Brown, and Company. The book details the dangers to the environment from rising global temperatures due to global warming, particularly the devastating effects on human health.
Wikipedia
Goodell dedicates some of the book to discussing air conditioning and how this technology has allowed people to live in hotter climates but also has become a major contributor to global warming. Goodell explains how societies have become over-reliant on air conditioning, with 20% of all total electricity used by buildings coming from the units and he notes that the number of air conditioning units worldwide is expected to skyrocket from 1 billion in 2023 to more than 4.5 billion units by 2050.
Wikipedia
WLBOTT Wonders:
Q: ¿Cómo se dice “Positive Feedback Loop” en la lengua española?
A: Bucle de retroalimentación positiva
About Jeff Goodell
Jeff Goodell’s latest book is the New York Times bestseller The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet. He is the author of six previous books, including The Water Wi ll Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World, which was a New York Times Critics Top Book of 2017.
He has covered climate change for more than two decades at Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, and many other publications. As a commentator on climate and energy issues, he has appeared on NPR, MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, ABC, NBC, Fox News and The Oprah Winfrey Show. He is a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow.
Jeff Goodell’s Web Site
But the most important thing you need to know about Jeff Goodell is:
He lives in Austin, Texas with his wife Simone Wicha, the director of the Blanton Museum of Art.
Jeff Goodell’s Web Site
BTW: The Blanton Museum is very cool, and a highly recommended WLBOTT destination. It is cool in the sense that it is delightfully air-conditioned, and also has a lot of fascinating exhibits. It is free on Tuesdays.
Will There Be a Buffet?
If you can hang on just one more year, the Blanton Museum will be opening a new cafe run by Justine’s Brasserie (not to be confused with Justin’s Brassiere [100–c. 165 C.E.]).
Justine’s Brasserie
Web site here.
I don’t think the Elders of WLBOTT fits into Justine’s Barasserie’s target demographic. Target demographic: Gros portefeuilles et appétits maigres.
Justin’s Brassiere
To avoid confusion, we wish to differentiate the Justine’s Barasserie restaurant with the brassiere that Saint Justin the Martyr ( c. AD 100 – c. AD 165) may or may not have worn.
Please note: Microsoft’s prudish CoPilot wouldn’t touch this image prompt with a ten foot diode.
Justin, known posthumously as Justin Martyr (Greek: Ἰουστῖνος ὁ μάρτυς, romanized: Ioustinos ho martys; c. AD 100 – c. AD 165), also known as Justin the Philosopher, was an early Christian apologist and philosopher.
A case is also made that the relics of St. Justin are buried in Annapolis, Maryland. During a period of unrest in Italy, a noble family in possession of his remains sent them in 1873 to a priest in Baltimore for safekeeping. They were displayed in St. Mary’s Church for a period of time before they were again locked away for safekeeping. The remains were rediscovered and given a proper burial at St. Mary’s, with Vatican approval, in 1989. It is now asserted that the bones were of St. Justin of the third century who was martyred during the persecution of Maximus
Wikipedia
Anyhow….
The intro to The Heat Will Kill You First quoted a line from a Yeats poem, The Second Coming.
This made me curious, because I knew nothing of Yeats, or The Second Coming, or poetry. The poem turns out to be very creepily relevant to today, as we shall see in a follow-up BLOTT.
First, a bit about Yeats.
William Butler Yeats (13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist and writer, and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and along with Lady Gregory founded the Abbey Theatre, serving as its chief during its early years.
He was awarded the 1923 Nobel Prize in Literature, and later served two terms as a Senator of the Irish Free State.
He began writing his first works when he was seventeen; these included a poem—heavily influenced by Percy Bysshe Shelley—that describes a magician who set up a throne in central Asia. Other pieces from this period include a draft of a play about a bishop, a monk, and a woman accused of paganism by local shepherds, as well as love-poems and narrative lyrics on German knights.
Wikipedia
He was into some whoo-whoo new age stuff:
Mysticism and occult
Yeats had a lifelong interest in mysticism, spiritualism, occultism and astrology. He read extensively on the subjects throughout his life, became a member of the paranormal research organisation “The Ghost Club” (in 1911)
Wikipedia
The dude had an interesting relationship with the ladies….
Lady Gregory
Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory (née Persse; 15 March 1852 – 22 May 1932) was an Anglo-Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre manager. With William Butler Yeats and Edward Martyn, she co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre, and wrote numerous short works for both companies. Lady Gregory produced a number of books of retellings of stories taken from Irish mythology. Born into a class that identified closely with British rule, she turned against it.
Wikipedia
Maud Gonne
By 1916, Yeats was 51 years old and determined to marry and produce an heir. His rival, John MacBride, had been executed for his role in the 1916 Easter Rising, so Yeats hoped that his widow, Maud Gonne, might remarry. His final proposal to Gonne took place in mid-1916. Gonne’s history of revolutionary political activism, as well as a series of personal catastrophes in the previous few years of her life—including chloroform addiction and her troubled marriage to MacBride—made her a potentially unsuitable wife
Wikipedia
Maud Gonne (far right) with relief agency members in Dublin in July 1922
Georgie Hyde-Lees
That September, Yeats [51 years old] proposed to 25-year-old Georgie Hyde-Lees (1892–1968), known as George, whom he had met through Olivia Shakespear. Despite warnings from her friends—”George … you can’t. He must be dead”—Hyde-Lees accepted, and the two were married on 20 October 1917.
Wikipedia
An Amusing Look Inside the Marriage of Georgie and William
After Gonne’s husband died, Yeats proposed to her again. She, again, turned him down, because good for her. Then Yeats turned right around and proposed to Maud Gonne’s daughter.
Some women would have decided this made Yeats a less-than-ideal husband and moved on to, I don’t know, literally any other man. But Georgie was a resourceful dirtbag, bless her, and she took matters into her own hands.
Rapscallison
Allison Epstein
Historical fiction author of A TIP FOR THE HANGMAN and LET THE DEAD BURY THE DEAD. Punster, pope fact enthusiast, extremely amateur historian. She/they.
– Substack
So here’s the idea that Georgie was trying to sell to William thru her “automatic writing”:
Perhaps closer to reality…..
