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The City Famous for its Oil Museum is Now the Hottest in the Country

Sweet, depressing irony. Hill City, the Kansas town profiled in the New York Times' token "it's really really hot outside" piece, is clocking in with temperatures of 115˚F. Yes, 115 degrees. It's also famous for its oil museum.
Image via The Rice Gallery.

Hill City, the Kansas town profiled in the New York Times’ token “it’s really really hot outside” entry, is clocking in with temperatures of 115˚F. Yes, 115 degrees.

That’s hot enough to make the town “unlivable” and “unfarmable.” That’s hot enough to kill you. Farmers are either fainting amongst their crops or selling their stock so they can get the hell out of the heat—the weather is expected to continue for two months. The story, which is actually pretty well-written, nonetheless neglects to reference in any way this idea that some 97% of the world’s climate scientists have as to why Kansas is turning into the Sahara.

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Yes, climate change is kicking the nation’s ass right now, but the Times doesn’t bother even to mention it. But it does dispense with this little irony-rich detail—Hill City, that “town on the parched plains, best known for its bountiful pheasant hunting and museum of oil history, recently earned a new, if unwelcome, distinction — the center of America's summer inferno.”

Sweet, depressing irony. And there’s more! Head to the oil museum’s website, and you’ll find this snippet, too:

“The Hill City Chamber of Commerce Office is located at the Oil Museum. The Chamber of Commerce office hours are Tuesday 9:00-12:00, Wednesday 9:00-12:00 and Thursday 9:00-1:00. Stop by during office hours for a tour, or call to schedule an appointment.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is perhaps the most powerful lobbying force that opposes climate and clean energy laws. In oil states, they’re often powerful anti-climate lobbying forces on the local level, too—and this town’s branch is actually inside the oil museum. It doesn’t get much oilier than that.

We can only hope that there, in hotter-than-hell Hill City, inside the Chamber of Commerce that’s inside the Oil Museum, someone is thinking long and hard about the way things are.

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