From my point of view, the weather has been pretty typical for the end of July around here. Keep in mind that this is only my third August living here. In the summer of 2020, we were going back and forth between South Dakota and Washington and spent some time in this area. So, my experience is limited. Yesterday’s high was in the low 70’s. The church in Bellingham, which doesn’t have air conditioning in the sanctuary, was a little bit warm when we first arrived, but after windows were opened and fans were turned on, I was quite comfortable during worship. Later, at an after-church meeting, I turned off the air conditioning in the meeting room because I was getting chilly. In general, heat bothers me more than cold, so I generally believe that if I’m cold, so is everyone else in the room.

However, some of my friends were complaining about the heat. One friend commented, “I don’t do well when it gets hot. I moved from the east coast to get away from the heat.” I didn’t bother to point out to her that I think that it is still milder here than in New York City. I think they saw highs in the 90’s last week in New York. The point was that this friend is certain that it is hotter this summer than usual. There is a bit of a heat dome over the area. The high pressure is giving us clear skies, which are welcome. We have noticed that the garden needs a bit more water and we’ve allowed the grass to go dormant in some places to conserve water. But as former South Dakotans, the weather has seemed pretty pleasant for us. We walk outdoors every day and haven’t been suffering from the heat.

Despite the fact that summers her are cooler than any other place we have lived, we do have air conditioning in our house. I don’t think we’ve ever had to run it overnight, however, and it doesn’t get turned on until mid or late afternoon. When we do turn it on, a couple of hours is sufficient to cool the house for the day.

Things are much hotter in eastern Washington. Several wildfires have been reported and are growing. One has crossed the border and is now burning in both Canada and Washington. Closer to home, a wildfire was reported in North Cascades National Park, burning in a rugged remote area in the southeast part of our county. The lightning-caused fire is burning on a mountain that is visible from Highway 20. About 30 acres are burning above the North Cascades Learning Center on Diablo Lake. We enjoy driving up that section of the highway for the beautiful mountain views and are familiar with the area. According to news reports the highway remains open but fire officials have asked drivers not to stop to photograph the fire as they want to keep traffic moving on the narrow, winding road. There is an historic fire lookout at the summit of Sourdough Mountain that is on the National Register of Historic Places, but there is no information on whether or not the structure is threatened. There are no other structures threatened by the fire. Most of the surrounding area is National Park or part of an adjacent wilderness area.

From what we can tell, we are in a pretty fortunate place when it comes to global warming. Although many places are experiencing increasing extremes of weather, the effects in our particular location are pretty mild. Our winters are not too cold and our summers are not too hot. There are occasional storms and king tides have increased erosion near the water, but rising ocean levels will not be a big factor even for the homes that are built down near the beach. Our bay is shallow and the homes built around it are raised high enough to not be threatened by the predicted raises in ocean levels as the planet warms.

Still, it is likely that there are serious discussions about air conditioning happening at meetings of the trustees of the church. On argument about air conditioning has to do with the fact that it would make the building available as a severe weather shelter. The city is seriously looking for places where those experiencing homelessness can go during periods of extreme heat. Because our building already houses a drop-in day center for homeless youth, there have been conversations about opening the building to others. The youth drop-in center is located in the church basement. It probably won’t need any kind of air conditioning. The offices and several meeting rooms have mini-split units that cool the air. The remaining areas in need of air conditioning are the sanctuary and the fellowship hall.

In some parts of the world, air conditioning contributes to global warming. The increased energy required to run air conditioning often comes from burning fossil fuels, which results in more carbon in the atmosphere contributing to human-caused warming. In the case of our church, the increased electricity would have less environmental impact as the installation of solar panels later this summer will decrease the building’s consumption of outside energy. Solar panels will be at their peak production during heat dome events. Should the building require additional electricity at those times, the major source of electricity in our area is from water-driven generators at area dams, which is considered to be renewal energy and does not require the burning of additional fossil fuels. In that way we are once again fortunate because of our location. We have options that don’t exist in other parts of the world.

Like the church, we are on the wait list for installers to complete a solar system for our home. The system we are having installed will produce more electricity than our current consumption, though we will be sharing energy with the grid during the summer and using electricity from the grid during winter months.

For now, I’m not among those complaining about the weather. I guess I’ll have to get a few years older and gain a few years more experience before I join their ranks.