We officially set new record high and high-minimum temperatures yesterday, getting to 28°C (82°F) around 4pm and not dipping below 20°C for 24 hours. More autumnal weather seems likely tomorrow, but today we're still having more of a June-like day—except for the 5 fewer hours of daylight.
As for the coyotes, apparently around this time of year, coyote parents kick their pups out of the nest, so we should see more juvenile canis latrans in the area until the young-uns establish their own territories or, ah, fail to do so. We have some in the park 400 meters from my house, and they regularly use the UPRR embankment as a highway, so I'm looking forward to seeing a few.
Forecasters predict a high temperature of 27.2°C (81°F) in Chicago today, 1.6°C (3°F) warmer than the previous record of 25.6° set in 1999. Moreover, the temperature last night only got down to 19°C, just a smidge warmer than the high-minimum temperature record set in 1946, which will likely stand as tonight's low will probably stay above 20°C.
Those are normal temperatures for mid-June.
Even better: those are 1991-2020 normals for mid-June, which are slightly warmer than the normals in use when I was a kid.
On the other hand, we've had a really lovely, warm autumn this year. If we continue to have slightly-warmer summers followed by much-warmer autumns and mild winters, as we've had for a couple years now, I think we might be OK. But wow does it suck for Arizona.
The only reaction to last night's debate that I need to share is Cassie's:

Talk about on-the-nose commentary!
Right. Anyway, in other news since yesterday:
Finally, the New York Times dips into the history of chicken tenders, an American pub staple that (allegedly) turns 50 this year. Love me tenders, love me sauce...
President Jimmy Carter turned 100 today, making him the first former president to do so. James Fallows has a bit of hagiography on his blog today, and the State of Georgia has declared today "Jimmy Carter Day." I hope I make it to 100, too, but I don't expect the State of Illinois to declare that day a public holiday.
In other news:
Finally, yesterday the UK turned off its last operating coal-fired power plant, ending a 142-year run of burning coal to generate power. XKCD points out that in those 142 years, the UK burned the equivalent of about 3 inches of its land surface generating electricity.
And of course, I'll watch the Vice-Presidential Debate tonight at 9pm Eastern, but I don't plan to live-blog. Reactions tomorrow, though.
I can scarcely believe I took these 10 days ago, on Friday the 20th. I already posted about my walk from Borough Market back to King's X; this is where I started:

You can get a lovely snack there for just a few quid. In my case, a container of fresh olives, some bread, and some cheese set me back about £6. Next time, I'll try something from Mei Mei.
Later, I scored one of the rare pork baps at Southampton Arms. Someone else really wanted a bite, too:

Sorry, little guy, I can't give you any of this—oh darn I just dropped a bit of pork on the ground. (Lucky dog.)
Finally, this screen shot shows why I love Europe so much. (It's in French because I switched my phone's language settings to help practice while I was preparing for the trip.) The blue dot in the center-left shows where my train was at 20:06 France time (18:06 UTC) on Saturday the 21st. The stuff in the upper-right corner shows my phone's GPS utility. If you look at the left side of that box, you can see "Vitesse 303;" i.e., a speed of 303 km/h, or 190 mph. And that isn't even the train's top normal operating speed.

If we elect people in this country who actually care about climate change, we could have trains like that here, too. But given the proportion of the electorate who plan to vote for the convicted-felon rapist demented geriatric XPOTUS in five weeks, I am not optimistic.
National Geographic examines the characteristics that make some cities better bets than others for surviving climate change:
Immigrants tend to migrate to neighborhoods that meet their cultural and linguistic needs, but the exodus of climate migrants to Buffalo wasn’t solely due to that established community. Months before Maria struck, the city’s mayor declared Buffalo a “climate refuge city,” noting that Buffalo has, “… a tremendous opportunity as our climate changes.”
Since then, the city has launched a relocation guide advertising the advantages to living in Buffalo, including how its average July temperature is a comfortable 71˚F. Anticipating a possible population uptick, the city revised zoning codes in 2017 to encourage development in existing city corridors and began upgrading its dated sewage infrastructure.
And Buffalo isn’t alone. Planners in cities such as Cleveland, Ohio; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Duluth, Minnesota; and elsewhere are beginning to map out what a future with thousands more residents could—and should—look like.
I'd like to add Chicago to the list. We have nearly-unlimited fresh water, moderating winters and beautiful summers, and non-stop flights to every Western European capital (except Lisbon).
I haven't visited Duluth, but I hear it's lovely—three months of the year. Not to mention, Michelin reviewers don't go up there yet, nor to Cleveland or Ann Arbor.
I have painters painting and I'm coding code today, so I'm just noting a couple of interesting stories for later:
- The New York Times explains how the warming climate could send seven systems over the tipping point into unrecoverable damage.
- Bloomberg CityLab climbs through the $80 million effort to make Chicago's Merchandise Mart last another 90 years.
- National governments trying to protect their own railroads have derailed private cross-EU night-train service, hurting passengers.
- The City of Chicago could have to pay over $100 million to the thieves who stole our parking meters in what continues to be the stupidest, and possibly most corrupt, municipal contract in the city's history.
Finally, a pilot ferried a Cessna 172 from Merced, Calif., to Honolulu in 17½ hours last Tuesday, a feat that I would categorize as "stupid risky" rather than "brave." I have a policy never to fly beyond gliding range in a plane with one engine, which means even around Chicago I don't fly more than a few kilometers off shore. Sure, a Cessna 172 can easily get from Chicago to Grand Rapids on a standard load of fuel, but why on earth would you risk ditching even 10 km offshore. This guy flew over 2,000 km from the nearest shore. And it wasn't his first time.
The hot, humid weather we've had for the past couple of weeks has finally broken. I'm in the Loop today, and spent a good 20 minutes outside reading, and would have stayed longer, except I got a little chilly. I dressed today more for the 24°C at home and less for the cooler, breezier air this close to the lake.
Elsewhere in the world:
- I was waiting for Russia expert Julia Ioffe to weigh in on last week's hostage release.
- The Chicago White Sox failed to set the all-time record for most consecutive losses in the American League yesterday by winning their first game in the last 23.
- Of the $1.2 trillion Carbon Reduction Program funds allocated to reduce fossil-fuel emissions, $130 billion has been spent so far: but only $26 billion on rail, and $70 billion on highways.
- Even though Deutsche Bahn has faster, timelier, more convenient, more comfortable, and just more trains than the US, Germans say their national railroad is on the wrong track.
- Deadhorse, Alaska, which lies at 70° north latitude, set an all-time record yesterday with a high temperature just below 32°C.
- After CrowdStrike told Delta Airlines to go pound sand a couple days ago, Microsoft told the carrier off yesterday.
- Be careful taking dogs to fresh-water swimming holes: warmer weather has made blue-green algae blooms more common.
Finally, today is the 60th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. If you don't know what that is, read up. It's probably the most direct cause of most of our military policy since then.
A combination of a mild winter and the decline of natural predators has led to a rabbit explosion in Chicago:
The abundance of rabbits could be due to the milder winter Chicago experienced this year, said Seth Magle, director of the Urban Wildlife Institute at the Lincoln Park Zoo.
The brutality of a cold winter and limited food availability during the snowy, frigid months can take their toll on the rabbit population. But if winters are mild, then with spring comes abnormal population growth, Magle said.
And now, with summer produce season in full swing, the overabundance of rabbits can cause headaches for gardeners, whose crops often fall prey to hungry bunnies, Magle said.
“These are species that are very well-adapted to cities. We’re planting stuff all around that they love to eat. Then you add in these mild winters — I think you have a bit of a perfect storm for rabbits,” Magle said.
As Cassie can tell you, they're everywhere in my neighborhood. I'm a bit disappointed in the local coyote population as well, though they may simply have too much food to eat right now.
One of my co-workers and I got into a good-natured debate about the efficiency of my Prius Prime. In addition to boasting that I used no gasoline at all last month (and only 41.6 L—11 gallons—all year), I pointed out that Illinois gets a majority of its power from nuclear fission, so yes, my car is net-positive on carbon emissions. He challenged me on that, saying that Illinois uses a lot of coal and natural gas, obviating the benefits of my car's electric drive.
Well, the New York Times has a really cool interactive piece today showing how each US state's electricity generation mix has changed this century. And it turns out, I was right:
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Nuclear energy has been Illinois’s top source of power generation for much of the last two decades, accounting for about half of the electricity produced in the state during most years. Coal was long the second-largest power source, briefly surpassing nuclear as the top generation fuel in 2004 and again in 2008. But coal’s role in the state power mix has declined significantly in recent years as older coal-fired power plants have retired or been converted to burn natural gas. Both natural gas and wind generation have grown over the past decade, and last year gas surpassed coal as the second-largest source of power in the state.
So, in fact, Illinois gets 68% of its power from renewables and only 15% from coal—and wind power is going up while coal and gas go down. And down at the bottom there, it looks like solar is finally making a debut, at about 2% but going up.
Vermont's graph, though, surprised me. It turns out that all of Vermont's power generation has been renewable for since 2001. But since the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station closed in 2014, the mix went from 76% nuclear/16% hydro/7% biomass to 51% hydro/19% solar/16% biomass/15% wind today.
We really need to start building more nuclear power plants, though:
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