Bad Air: Our New Normal

The air is bad up here, y'all.  Truly it is.  It started yesterday/Wednesday afternoon, just like the forecasters said it would.  I usually go out to my car to take a nap, and when I stepped outside, the sky looked apocalyptic -- haze everywhere, so much so that you know that the sunlight is giving the haze its brightness even though you can't see the sun.  I couldn't sleep.  I tried to sleep with my mask on because I couldn't stand the thought of breathing that air without some sort of filter (even if a surgical mask provides none), but I think I am such a hypochondriac that even that didn't ease my mind.

I want to say that this is the worst its been up here.  But then I remember the evening of the 2021 NBA Draft, where, as I blog posted, the air was so damn bad that I felt like passing out driving home.  It may not be all-time worst right now, but it's up there.

Yesterday afternoon and evening we had the worst air in the continental United States.  I think we hit the worst category, "hazardous," where no one should be out.  This probably partial list of events in the Twin Cities that were cancelled due to the bad air might prove some of us took this warning seriously.  Unfortunately, it's going to still be bad (though it may not be as bad) today/Thursday.  The meteorologists say the winds should finally kick out this bad air tomorrow/Friday, but on Tuesday night they said the Air Quality Warning was going to go only from noon until 8 yesterday/Wednesday in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, and now they've extended it all the way to tomorrow/Friday.  I'm not going to yell at the weatherpeople; circumstances change, and as they change, they need to inform us.  But it seems as if unlike, say, Winter Storm Warnings, the issuance and extension of Air Quality Warnings come abruptly.  In a day, what was supposed to be an eight-hour Air Quality Warning became a 48-hour one.  That probably is the nature of the beast, and maybe the meteorologists should acknowledge that capricious winds prevent longer-term accuracy of when Air Quality Warnings will end.

That time where I almost passed out driving because of the awful air was two years ago.  I know that I complained about the bad air in summers before 2021.  What's going on right now is further proof that this is, sadly, Our New Normal.  We will have to deal with toxic, harmful air every summer here for the rest of our lives.  I don't think I'm being hyperbolic when I say that.  I'm just glad that I have bought masks and am used to wearing them -- because of the pandemic, where people said staving off a millions-killing virus is Our New Normal.

The End Of Civilization is dawning, I just know it.