I remember many years ago, one girl who was on the academic team with me asking me how I knew all the stuff that I did.

I said, “I read more than anyone you’ve ever met. I read two books today already.* Will probably read a couple more when I get home. I just read a lot.”

At that time, like Ian Welsh, I’d sometimes finish three or four books a day. I often was reading 10-15 books at a time. I could do this because I used my own and my sister’s library card to check out that many books, and sometimes my mom’s card, too. That’s how by the time I was 12 I’d read well over 3,000 books, and nearly every book in the library that I had access to. Seriously, there were entire 20-foot long shelves that I’d read literally every single book on it.

I don’t read at that pace anymore, or rather, I don’t read full books as much. More articles, scientific papers, and the like these days. Since the internet is getting worse, though, I find myself returning more to books. I doubt I will ever exceed the frantic pace of my youth, however, as the books I read then were mostly easier and I think more deeply now when I read. Also, I suspect I actually was smarter in many important ways then and I just could not read like that now.

*This is when I used to read books in class rather than paying attention or doing schoolwork. Could usually knock out a few books a day just in school. Sometimes, I would not even bring schoolbooks to school so I could fit more books I actually wanted to read in my bookbag.

When I was a kid, I could hold my breath underwater for a really long time. My sister was envious but she didn’t have the discipline and perhaps the lung capacity to get better at it. With the idea that she’d stop bothering me about it, I told her that my secret was that I could breathe underwater like a fish.

I also told her how to do it — that is, breathe underwater. That’s how my sister almost drowned herself. I didn’t think she was quite naive enough to believe me, but she was in fact incredibly naive (even taking the age difference into account).

Of course, as I was for anything that happened with my sister, I was blamed for her half-drowning. It didn’t help telling my parents that “I can’t help if she’s just stupid.”

No, that did not make things better at all.

About climate change, there will be a significant portion of the population that denies it’s occurring even as their cities are flooded, their relatives die, and their world comes unhinged. I’d say 20-30% because that’s about how many religious fundies there are, and though those don’t necessarily overlap, the number of people who believe or disbelieve anything against all evidence is always about that much.

We’re not built for the society we’ve created. I know that conservatives don’t believe that humans evolved at all and that liberals believe there was no evolution above the neck, but we evolved in far different conditions and we just can’t handle the much larger-scale messes we’ve made.