November at 35°C: Logging a Future We Didn’t Choose
The temperature reads 35°C in November—a number that would have felt impossible five years ago but now feels inevitable. I check the thermometer three times, not because I doubt the reading but because I need to document another data point in the collapse I’m witnessing daily.
Every weather observation has become forensic evidence. The unseasonably warm winter morning. The delayed monsoon. The unprecedented storm intensity. Each atmospheric event gets catalogued not as weather but as symptom, proof of planetary systems failing in real time.
“Remember when November used to be cool?” I ask Happy, but the question carries weight beyond nostalgia. We’re not just missing pleasant weather—we’re mourning the predictable seasons that organized human civilization for millennia, the climate stability our children will never experience.
The anxiety lives in the intersection of personal powerlessness and global crisis. I can predict tomorrow’s temperature with reasonable accuracy, but I can’t predict whether my grandchildren will experience winter at all. The weather apps show next week’s forecast while climate models show next century’s catastrophe.
Walking outside becomes involuntary research. Is this heat normal for March? Are these rainfall patterns shifting? Every pleasant day feels borrowed from a future that will have fewer of them. Every harsh weather event feels like preview of the new normal we’re creating through accumulated individual choices that feel insignificant until multiplied by billions.
“At least it’s not raining,” strangers say during conversations about weather, not recognizing that “not raining” might be the problem. Drought becomes relief from flood risk. Heat waves become break from storm damage. We’re grateful for catastrophes that aren’t immediately catastrophic.
The particular sadness of climate-conscious weather observation: you can’t enjoy beautiful days without calculating their environmental cost. The warm February afternoon that feels lovely but represents polar ice melting. The mild winter that reduces heating bills but signals ecosystem disruption.
Children ask why seasons are changing, and we explain atmospheric chemistry while avoiding the deeper truth: we’re conducting an uncontrolled experiment on the only planet we have, using our daily weather as laboratory conditions.
Some people check weather to plan activities. I check weather to track apocalypse, accumulating evidence of changes I’m powerless to reverse but unable to ignore.
Tonight’s temperature will be recorded in databases that future climatologists will use to map exactly when everything shifted irreversibly. Tomorrow’s weather isn’t just weather—it’s historical document of the moment our species chose comfort over climate, convenience over continuity.
Every forecast now comes with existential weight: not just “will it rain?” but “what kind of world are we creating, one weather event at a time?”
