We're in Los Angeles for the weekend to attend a wedding and it's scorch­ing­ly hot. I took this photo of the car's dashboard while we were at a stop light in Topanga Canyon. It reads 109°F (43°C). I actually saw the tem­per­a­ture briefly reach 111°F. I've ex­pe­ri­enced the low hundreds before, but I don't think I've ever felt 109°F.

June was the 14th con­sec­u­tive month of record-breaking global tem­per­a­tures. Even Ireland is getting in on the act, with tem­per­a­tures soaring to 30°C (86°F) the other day.

While the Northeast is being hammered with a major snowstorm, we've enjoyed some un­sea­son­ably warm weather in the Northwest. Yesterday, it was 63°F (17°C) in Seattle—a record high tem­per­a­ture. The flowers are blooming. I smelled some glorious blossoms yesterday and today. One friend dubbed it “sumter”.

We've had record heat in Seattle for the last two days. It hit 91°F today.

If I wanted to live in Arizona, I'd live in Arizona.

Christy at Fire­DogLake has written a post about this year's hurricane season, which officially started on June 1st.

New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf is still a disaster area: watch the video linked to above. Disaster pre­pared­ness is far from where it should be. The levee im­prove­ments are inadequate. Re­con­struc­tion is mired in bu­reau­cra­cy and stalled in in­com­pe­tence. The money promised has not ma­te­ri­al­ized. Only one-third of New Orleans residents have returned.

Christy links to a report put together by Nancy Pelosi, detailing the in­com­pe­tence and cronyism of the Re­pub­li­cans, both in the …continue.

As I implicitly promised here, we went to see Al Gore's new doc­u­men­tary on global climate change, An In­con­ve­nient Truth, when it opened in Seattle last night. We brought some friends too.

Gore lays out a compelling case that global climate change is real, that it's been happening for decades, and that it's spiralling out of control. He backs it up with plenty of statistics and graphs.

• The ten hottest years on record have all been since 1990.
• The glaciers are in full retreat everywhere. The "snows of Kil­i­man­jaro" are almost gone.
• At current rates, the Arctic ocean could be ice-free by 2050.
• If either the ice covering Greenland or the ice …continue.

A front group for Big Oil is putting out ads denying the reality of global warming, in a pre-emptive bid to undermine Al Gore's new doc­u­men­tary, An In­con­ve­nient Truth.

The first ad portrays global warming science as a vicious smear campaign against carbon dioxide. The ad, which despite ap­pear­ances is not an SNL parody, helpfully reminds us that carbon dioxide is “essential to life” because “we breath[e] it out.”

"An In­con­ve­nient Truth" opens in Seattle on June 2nd, 2006.

Via DailyKos, Will Ferrell as Dubya making a Special An­nounce­ment on Global Warming.

A few hours ago, Emma sent this email out to our friends:

After long thought and a lot of heart searching, George & I have decided to take in a family from Louisiana. We are now starting to look for someone who can help us make arrange­ments to get people here. Meanwhile, we need anyone who wants to volunteer to help us clean out our basement and fix it up to house people. We have a guest room on our first floor, but we also need to rearrange the entire house to allow us to add 4-6 people to our lives for up to the …continue.