How Global Heating’s Red Glare Spoiled America’s 250th, with Trump’s Help
Juan Cole 07/04/2026
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In 1850, the anti-slavery, unionist President Zachary Taylorspoke at Fourth of July celebrations in Washington, D.C. Afterwards, he walked along the Potomac. Hot and sweaty, on his return to the White House he drank a lot of milk and ate a lot of cherries. He died a few days later. Likely, he had contracted cholera, which kills you by dehydrating you. When I lived in Eritrea as a teenager, I knew someone who got cholera, and it wasn’t pretty, with liquid coming out everywhere. Taylor’s gastrointestinal malady may have been exacerbated by dehydration from being out in the sun all day. But while cholera has rather been tamped down in the U.S. in the subsequent 176 years (until RFK, Jr. gets around to promoting it the way he has measles), the dangers of dehydration and heat stroke are growing into a national emergency. Indeed, human-caused climate breakdown, with ever-rising temperatures because of burning coal, fossil gas and petroleum, managed to ruin the Fourth of July this year for a lot of people.
Amtrak had to cancel dozens of trains this week. The Great American State Fair had to close Friday for the afternoon. Since 2018, some 13,000 Americans have died from heat. Trump’s promotion of coal burning and cancellation of wind turbines make him the Benedict Arnold of America’s current struggle, not its George Washington.
Francis Scott Key in his lyrics for the National Anthem was not praising American arms when he spoke of the “rockets’ red glare.” Those were British rockets, threatening Ft. McHenry in Baltimore in 1814. He was relieved to see at the end of the battle that the flag was still there.
Trump is helping climate change accomplish what British military might could not, putting in question the future of America in places like Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, at least in the summers.
CNN reports that over a dozen towns and cities in the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic equaled or surpassed their all-time record temperatures on Friday. According to meteorologists Briana Waxman and Mary Gilbert and reporter Kate S. Petersen, Washington, D.C., hit 102 degrees F. [38.9º C.], breaking the record of 101º F. set in 1872. The Washington Post went further, reporting a high of 105º F. [40.6º C.] on July 3. (The high temperature depends on where exactly in the city they report from.)
If it were just a matter of varying temperatures, that would be weather. But we’re seeing a pattern here, which is climate. For instance, the past decade in the nation’s capital was the hottest 10-year period on record. Even the trees know it is heating up. Back in the 1930s through 1950s, the peak first bloom date of cherry blossoms in D.C. was April 6. It is now April 1.
Those of us who have lived in the DC metro area know that its summers are humid. Like, you could swim down the sidewalk humid. And here’s the thing. We humans cool off by sweating. When it is very hot and humid is is harder for us to get cool. So scientists combine the humidity percentage with the temperature to get a wet bulb temperature. A temperature of 122º F plus 80% humidity is fatal if you are exposed to it very long. Washington D.C.’s wet bulb temperature these days is in the danger zone of 86º F. Climate Check reports, “recent research indicates that in practice, a wet bulb temperature of 88 degrees Fahrenheit can be hazardous even for young, healthy people.”
The bad news is that this is only the beginning. Summers in the capital are going to be more dangerous every decade unless we halt dangerous carbon emissions.
Photo by Jacob Creswick on Unsplash. Modified by Juan Cole.
The average summer temperature in D.C. could be 97º F. in the 2080s if we go on farting out CO2 at our current rate. Humidity will also increase, as the Atlantic heats up and puts more water vapor in the atmosphere. The ability of the atmosphere to hold water vapor increases 7% with every 1º C. increase in temperature.
In short, we’re looking at more and hotter and longer-lasting heat waves.
D.C. will also see more downpours and storm surges and sea level rise,
threatening low-lying areas along the Potomac in Georgetown and Southeast.
It is possible that Washington, D.C., will be unlivable in the summers within the lifetime of my younger readers. Climate breakdown could accomplish regularly what the British military only achieved once, in the War of 1812.