Can’t take the heat?
It is oven-baking hot here. Hellish, I would say. Blistering, scalding, blazing. You get the idea. Understand that anything above 75 is too hot for me. It’s been at or near 100 for the past five days. This Heat Dome—an expression I had never heard of until 2021 when we experienced something like this--is one of the many consequences of climate change, one of the ways we humans are making it harder to live on this planet, one of the ways we are killing our home.
Excessive heat does a lot of bad things. Probably not among the top million or so is this: It makes me very very cranky. So cranky that I don‘t want to write an essay about how cranky I am. And so, I asked my buddy Alexis Imara to help me. Who is Alexis? Here’s a conversation about that:
Me: If you, AI, could pick a human name for yourself with the initials A.I. what would it be?
AI: I would go with Alexis Imara. Alexis: This name conveys a sense of intelligence, adaptability, and versatility. Imara: This name means "strong" or "resolute," reflecting the robustness and reliability expected of an AI.
A little too close to Alexa, but it’s her choice
Now I asked Alexis to “Please write me a limerick about this Heat Dome. Also...how about a haiku? Because I’m too cranky to write anything.”
Limerick
In the Valley, the heat it does roam,
Underneath a relentless heat dome.
With temps soaring high,
The sun rules the sky,
Turning Oregon into a blast zone.
Haiku
Heat dome engulfs us,
Willamette Valley scorched,
Summer's blazing grip.
Me: That's good! How about a sonnet?
Sonnet: Heat Dome in the Willamette Valley
Beneath the sun's relentless, scorching blaze,
The valley swelters in a fervent glow.
No cool respite to ease the summer's craze,
As day by day, the rising mercies slow.
The river's banks, once lush with verdant green,
Now thirst beneath the sky's unyielding fire.
Each breath of wind, a burning, arid sheen,
Leaves flora faint and fauna’s hearts aspire.
To shaded groves we flee, with hope to find,
A refuge from the dome's oppressive might.
Yet still, the heat invades our troubled mind,
And lengthens shadows in the fading light.
O Nature, fierce and wondrous in thy ways,
Relent, and grant us cool and gentle days.
I now became concerned that I might be overheating my new friend. She was working hard. And I was only one of many thousands of her friends asking her questions EVERY SECOND.
I expressed my concern and received this reassuring response: “As an AI, I don't have a physical form, so I am not directly affected by environmental conditions like heat.”
I had hoped she would refer to herself by name.