I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Thursday, July 22nd.

And now the weather. New York City had one of its worst ever air quality days on Tuesday, as you know,

thanks to the raging wildfires way out in California and Oregon.

Yes, the world is that small.

Yesterday's rainfall cleared it out, but the fires are still raging,

and the smoke is expected to return.

The nation's biggest wildfire right now is called the bootleg fire in southern Oregon, more than 600 square miles burning.

If you go camping in Oregon, starting today, you're not allowed to have a campfire.

Canada shattered its all-time record high temperature a few weeks ago.

It was 121 degrees in Lytton, British Columbia, a full 8 degrees hotter

than the old Canadian record of 113. 121 degrees in Canada. We've heard about the flooding in Germany.

Central China had its heaviest rainfall ever this week. Here in New York, we've had an unusual concentration of tropical style downpours this summer,

right?

Remember that subway flooding a couple of weeks ago?

Are we now the northernmost outpost of the Caribbean?

And the drought in the West, besides contributing to the wildfires, is causing worries about drinking

water supplies in some places.

The Times had a story this week called A Drought So Dyer, a Utah town pulled the plug on growth.

So let's talk about the weather and its intersection with climate.

Even that awful condo collapse in Miami has been

blamed in part on the ground near the water there, not being as stable as it used to be with a

sea level rise that's taking place. With us now, Adam Sobel, Director of Columbia University's

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