Staff writer Erin Grace is today's guest columnist. Tell us what you think by leaving a comment at the end of this column or emailing dave.kotok@owh.com.

***

So you might have noticed it's been a touch, shall we say, hot.

And the upside has been no-mosquitoes hot. Lots-of-Elmwood-Pool-time hot. Put-the-lawn-mower-away hot.

Then reality. Stuck-indoors hot. Broken-water-mains hot. Drought hot. Wildfires hot.

A hot-that's-really-freaking-me-out hot.

There are certain truths I think we all push to the corners of our minds out of self-preservation or the front-burner daily grind of getting the kids dressed and the bills paid, of putting the dinner on or watering the dregs of what once were tomato plants.

This leaves precious little time to dwell on Dark Scary Subjects.

Like the environmental horror show otherwise known as climate change. It's not coming on some far-off date when I'm dead and they've fixed Social Security.

It's here.

A new study links climate change to extreme weather.