Letter From America

It is high summer in those parts of the globe that lie north of the equator, not that those battling the heat in Western Europe recently without air conditioning need reminding. Here in the state of Minnesota in America’s Upper Midwest, it has also been hot, very hot indeed, these past few weeks, and even this perennial sceptic is beginning to wonder if climate change—manmade or otherwise—is more than a mere hoax to force Western nations to deindustrialize, give an advantage to so-called developing nations like China and India, bring about the destruction of capitalism as we know it, and return the developed world to an imagined pastoral past, like a self-inflicted Morgenthau Plan that proposed to deindustrialize Germany after World War II. No doubt my global warming denialism will return with a bang when the blizzards of November auger the beginning of the six-month-long hard freeze that constitutes winter in Minnesota.

Moreover, it has been unbearably humid, with dewpoints—that all-important gauge for those of us afflicted with the need to sweat profusely—that have been tropical, especially in Minneapolis and its suburbs, one of which, Chanhassen, my American-born wife and I, an immigrant from England who moved here in 1983, now call home. Minnesota’s nickname is ‘Land of 10,000 Lakes’, and, as usual at this time of year, the best place to be is by a lake, or preferably standing in one.