The US mid-Atlantic states have been issued warnings for a coming heat wave in the next couple of days with temperatures expected in the triple digits.
National Weather Service meteorologist Rick Watling: “Heat, of course, is a cumulative effect. One hot day people can tolerate, but a couple, that’s when you start seeing people getting sick because they can’t cool off, they can’t get a break.”

In Japan, environmentally “cool” clothing is offered in an annual energy reduction campaign: Among them is lingerie manufacturer Triumph’s “Super Cool Bra.” The bra’s cups are filled with a gel which, after being placed in the freezer for a few hours, will help keep the wearer’s body cool while remaining soft at the same time.

(Illustration found here).

Meanwhile, down in Brazil, humanity can’t get a break, or a chillin’ bra.

Starting yesterday, the UN’s Conference on Sunstainable Development, the so-called Rio+20, is in session in Rio de Janeiro with the heads of 130 countries attending (less the big shots, like President Obama) in attempts to bolster the horrible, deteriorating environment of the planet.
And from all signs, the meeting is a bust.

From the UK’s Guardian:

Barring a last-minute rejection by one of the main negotiating blocks, the draft that will be presented to the 100 leaders attending the summit will contain almost no timetables, definitions or ways to monitor new sustainable development goals, nor will it strongly commit nations to move to a “green economy” that integrates environmental and social costs into decision-making.
Instead, civil society groups say the new text simply acknowledges the world’s dire environmental and social problems without spelling out how to deal with them.
“It’s pathetic,” said Jim Leape, the head of WWF.
“If this text proposed by Brazil is accepted, then the last year of negotiations has been a colossal waste of time. If you saw this document without knowing what it was supposed to be, you might think Rio+20 was convened as a seminar.”

A learning seminar?
I think not.
Apparently, it’s business as usual for those who want power, and that power is gained through greedy growth without a thought of how this planet will support this horrible aim, which is in reality, a high-tech, high-volume suicide — without the consent of the way-vast majority of the world’s peoples.

Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International Executive Director (via DeSmogBlog):

“The future we want has gotten a little further away today. Rio+20 has turned into an epic failure.
It has failed on equity, failed on ecology and failed on economy.
“We were promised the ‘future we want’ but are now being present with a ‘common vision’ of a polluter’s charter that will cook the planet, empty the oceans and wreck the rain forests.“
“This is not a foundation on which to grow economies or pull people out of poverty, it’s the last will and testament of a destructive twentieth century development model.
“The only sensible thing left on the table until today was the launch of an Oceans Rescue Plan for the High Seas. This too has now been killed by the US, Canada, Russia and Venezuela who want to mine the seas for private profit with impunity and exploit the resources that belong to all humanity.
“World leaders will begin to descend on Rio today and we have to ask why? We were promised a green economy, the Future we Want, but all we can look forward to is three more days of Greenwash.”

This is the future?