It is so dry in the Midwest that the trees are bribing the dogs. So goes the joke from the dust bowl era of the 1930s. In the past two weeks, the US has broken a record number of heat records. And in the past 12 months the average temperature has beaten any since US records began – including 1933, the hottest year of that overbaked decade.
Nor are the weather gods victimising America. According to Nasa, nine of the 10 hottest years globally have occurred since 2000. And so on, from one statistical milestone to another, until we reach a nagging dilemma: evidence of global warming has never been stronger but the public appetite to respond has rarely been weaker. Nowhere are both observations truer than in the US. Yet in few places do the list of alibis stack up so impressively.
To the surprise of many, President Barack Obama in April told Rolling Stone magazine that he would make tackling climate change a second term priority. Were Mr Obama to regain the White House and pick up on that stray promise, he would face three challenges that were either absent or weaker than when he was first elected. The odds of him creating some kind of carbon regime would surely be lower. As the recent wildfires in Colorado and the drought in Texas attest, continued inaction will hit Americans as well as foreigners.