Climate change: what do more resilient cities look like?

Just putting a handful of thoughts together here.

When I was reading about Arcosanti to prepare for my visit, some of the materials I read emphasized that the guest rooms don't have air conditioning, so guests should come prepared accordingly. So I was a little surprised when I showed up and discovered that my particular room did have air conditioning, after all. Thanks to the monsoon storm, I didn't actually need it at right that moment, but if it had been hot I would have needed to use it to help keep Emma and myself cool at night. Otherwise I would have left the door open and tried to use other cooling strategies; Arcosanti is sufficiently high-elevation and rural that it isn't Phoenix-hot.

Anyway, I finally just finished reading a NYT article about impacts of extreme heat waves, and also just finished reading another blogger's article about preparations for stay-at-home emergencies, and between the two of them, am doing some thinking.

From everything I've observed from the West Coast fires and more, regardless of where one lives, it seems certain types of preparation would be wise: be prepared for an extreme heat event/events where the power grid fails.

I don't completely know what this preparation looks like, just yet, but in part it involves knowing about things like sleeping porches, and also maybe setting up habitable* basement-type spaces where basements are popular/possible. Home solar arrays and power storage might also be a component; I'm personally iffy on gasoline-powered generators.


*Our current basement is absolutely NOT habitable! I would go so far as to say it's almost unbelievably uninhabitable!

Current community transmission levels: HIGH [Covid]

I am seeing signs all over the place that administrative people have gotten too tired to do their jobs and administrate about the pestilence, leaving other people to pick up the slack or risk getting very sick.

Our county's current community transmission rate is HIGH; this index lags behind what's actually happening. When the community transmission rate is HIGH, people should wear masks indoors, preferably tight-fitting ones.

I would advise against lingering indoors with strangers, too.

I have two questions, in the context of variants:

1. Is there still a (positive) correlation between a person's exposure level and the severity of illness?

2. For those who do recover without developing Long Covid: Is there any correlation between the severity of illness and subsequent immunity/antibody response? A friend who has been tracking the pandemic science much more closely than I have has concerns about waning immunity.

I will be teaching in a mask this fall. We are supposedly going to return to crowded classrooms. I will be holding my breath for the first two weeks of classes. Public schools here are reverting to 3-foot distances between students, and installation of plexiglass barriers. If you read any of the science on what plexiglass barriers do to aerosols and airflow, well.

Maybe we should all get good room air filters for Christmas this year?