Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of

postscript: a disclosure S 217
was mostly bone dry. Throughout the Ozarks that summer, springs
never known to go dry disappeared.
As the summer days ticked by, the changes in the land, vegetation,
animals, and people became daily more evident. Around
the limestone bluffs that rimmed the valley, the red oaks turned
brown by early August. The smell of smoke from dozens and then
hundreds of fi res was constantly in the air. One of our cows died,
most likely from heatstroke. Twice I saw birds fall from the sky,
apparently from heat-induced heart failure. Rattlesnakes seeking
water migrated from the ridge tops to the valley fl oor, leaving
serpentine trails in the thick dust as they crossed dirt roads. People
became lethargic, and a few became violent. Heat madness was
said to be the defense in a shooting nearby.
Heat has a particular smell to it, not altogether unpleasant. You
can feel heat in your bones. Exposed day after day to high temperatures
and humidity, with little relief at night and without the
luxury of air-conditioning, the body’s core temperature elevates.
Heat can scour your mind, leaving only an obsession with coolness
and water. If you work outdoors in extreme heat, you learn
to linger in the shade, avoid midday sun when possible, move
slowly, and drink lots of water. But if you work indoors under the
anesthesia of air-conditioning, it is possible to avoid the experience
of heat or drought or the changes in the land. On a day that
summer on which some rain was forecast, I heard a DJ on a Little
Rock radio station complain that he might miss his golf game.
I laughed, but not entirely in mirth. By late September temperatures
were cooler, but the rains held off for another month. The
fi rst measurable rainfall we had in the valley came at the end of
October and felt like manna from heaven. The smell of rain on
parched ground is still about the sweetest smell I know.
There were other hot and dry summers in the 1980s, notably
that of 1988. On a fl ight from Memphis to Little Rock I recall
seeing a barge stranded in the Mississippi. The river was so diminished
that it looked as if a person could jump from the barge to