Memories Taken by the Heat🔗

I've just come back from my morning dog walk. On the streets here, you can smell the nearby forests. The sea is only a couple of kilometers away. Clouds towered over our heads.

The cool breeze and the scent of water vapor in the air brought back memories from years ago.

After my divorce, I moved to a small flat in the downtown of Budapest. It was 2020, and I managed to buy a neat apartment that had previously been used for Airbnb. It became unprofitable for the owner after COVID-19 undermined tourism.

Not far away, there was a street with shady trees and designer fashion boutiques. The smell of coffee, with a sugary hint of pastries, came from the artisan bakeries.

Before and after the pandemic, the street was full of life. As we walked past the café terraces, my dog always got a few smiles. His fluffy seriousness and playful elegance were simply irresistible. Those smiles weren't meant for me, and yet for a fraction of a second I felt like part of the lively commotion.

Sometimes we bought a pastry at a dog-friendly bakery, and on some Sundays, we went for breakfast at Babka Deli.

The Danube was practically a street away. On those morning dog walks, when it was less sunny, we strolled along the riverbank. My dog could sniff the lingering exotic scents left there by people who visited the city aboard hotel ships, stopping on their way from Germany to the Black Sea, or on the way back.

I loved living there.

Now, the Danube is shockingly smaller. The country where I was born is facing heatwaves, just like most of Europe. The heat will last for weeks, and people are only a hair’s breadth away from electricity and water shortages.

Carl Sagan, one of the defining figures of 20th-century science, gave a speech to the US congress about climate change in the year I was born. It was forty years ago, and almost nothing has changed since. How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates has been out for five years. Decision-makers simply don't get it or don't care. And now, the AI bubble is making everything worse even faster.

Burning fossil fuels has taken away the snow I used to play in as a kid in winter. Today's children in Hungary grow up without seeing even close to the amount of snow I saw in a single year over their entire childhood.

A couple of weeks ago, I played a game by Nova-box titled End of Lines. It is set in a world after a climate disaster where food and water are scarce. I don't think the disaster will arrive as a single cataclysm. Things are going south quietly, one good thing at a time. This year, it was a shock to me, but next year, it will be familiar. We've come closer to the world the game depicts than I ever imagined.

I think this feels right to no one. Are we really powerless to do anything?

The original version of this post is part of the Blaugust 2026 series on my blog along with:

• Bombanana!
• Blaugust 2026