It’s hot here.  Like, really hot.  So much that I’m typing and sweating at the same time.

But I also have the option to walking to my living room where there’s an air conditioner that I can afford to run and sit next to it.  I can also take a cold shower, and I can avoid going outside if I need to, let alone do any physical labor out there.  

Many people don’t have that option.  

You can call what I have privilege, or you can call people struggling against heat globally oppressed, or unlucky.  It doesn’t really matter.  All that matters is that we collectively take action towards a cooler world.  Climate cancer is real, and we need to deal with it. 

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I didn’t talk about this earlier in the week as I needed time to process, but while heat definitely kills, so does police violence. Black Lives Matter. And if we actually believe that they do, we need to change the system. That means reallocating funds for police to community social workers. It means demanding accountability to law enforcement workers, and remembering that property<human life. Police brutality seems like a US problem, but is a global epidemic.

Remember in Avengers: Age of Ultron, you get all happy when you realize that everyone (except a certain speedy meta) makes it off Sokovia alive, and that even though the city gets blown to bits, at least everyone is safe?

Why don’t we feel the same way about property damage in protests against a policeman shooting a Black man in the back 7 times?

We’ve got multiple pandemics going on – COVID, climate cancer, police brutality – and while some countries have responded better than others, institutions are failing us.

This may feel political, but these are human lives at stake. It might not change overnight, but it’s never going to change if we don’t do something about it.