Last week there was a day when the AQI went over 50. I have asthma and noticed I was having trouble breathing. It was burning my eyes and giving me a headache and a stomach ache. I ended up spending most of the day inside, and if it had even been a little bit worse I would have just called out. A mask didn’t really help. You could see a smoky haze in the clouds, obscuring the mountains a bit, and even hanging in some of the bigger fields.

That’s at 50. The highest I’ve seen it is somewhere around like 120 to 140, which makes my breathing bad enough that I just seal up my room, crank my carbon filter and air purifier, and stay inside until it passes.

Then I look at the AQI maps and scroll over to India and China. Yikes.

I can’t imagine what 400 must be like. I don’t think I’d survive. I would never be able to go outside.

Oh no! Not our capitalism! Where will we get all our poverty?!?!

Somebody forgot to center their edgy graphic.

I love reading, but the moment an author tries to guilt me into reading their particular viewpoint as though I’m just a slave of the system if I don’t, I check out. I have better things to do, and this person doesn’t have any right to my time.