Temperatures Rising

One huge advantage of living in Bakersfield is that we don’t have to fear global warming.  The way I see it, we’re about 30 degrees (or approximately four million years) ahead of most of the world when it comes to heat-pain tolerance.  On the global warming evolutionary scale, Bakersfield residents are alpha predators.  East Coast cities virtually shut down when the summer thermometer hits 90 degrees. We turn OFF our air conditioners at 90 degrees because that’s twenty degrees cooler than an average day at the Fair.  Other cities suffer from weather extremes.  Big deal.  I once left Bakersfield at 119 degrees and arrived in Nipomo an hour later at 62 degrees.  After years of living in the Central Valley my body effortlessly handled the 57-degree weather change.  Sea levels rising a couple inches per decade? At that rate it will take the ocean about a billion years to get over the Grapevine (or about the same amount of time it takes to drive through L.A just to get to the beach).  In a thousand generations my ancestors will thank us for all of our Earth-searing carbon emissions as they sip artificial water on their decks in Arvin beach.