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The worst of the heat has passed for now in the Southwest, where I am this week. Phoenix, which saw a record six straight days above a hundred and fifteen degrees, hit a mere hundred and thirteen over the weekend. Thereâs a haze of smoke in the sky around Flagstaff and a faint smell of char in the air, but, on the âReady, Set, Go!â evacuation pyramid, residents were downgraded to âReady,â which is increasingly a permanent position for human beings on a heating planet; relaxation seems less advised all the time, as the natural world moves from backdrop to foreground in human affairs. The heat has moved to the Northwest and to Canada, where a heat dome is rewriting the record book, day after day, with temperatures that take cities from Portland to Calgary into uncharted territory. In fact, as the climate journalist Brian Kahn points out, the only thing that may dampen the heat at all is the âsmoke from wildfires sparked due to hot conditions currently racking the West dimming the sun.â