The dark side of the sun
We Brits will have to reassess the way we think about our climate as heatwave heralds a very different future
IN recent days my social media feed has kept showing that sketch by comedian Peter Kay.
You know the one – it’s a skit on the British reaction when there’s the first sign of hot weather: ‘Oh, I like it warm but I don’t like it this warm. It’s too warm for me. There’s warm and there’s warm.”
It’s actually a clip from years ago but in baking hot 2022 it’s never been more appropriate.
Or less funny. Because it’s now very apparent that the ferocious heat we’ve experienced to one degree or another (no pun intended) is not an aberration.
This is the way it’s going to be now thanks to climate change – we have to understand its impact quickly.
While we Brits joke about ‘enjoying the sun’, Solero in hand, the reality is extreme heat is dangerous; it kills both productivity and people. And just as Covid changed the way many of us lived and worked, so hotter summers are going to do the same.
The trouble is, we’re just not used to the heat.
Unlike our chums in Europe, we simply don’t know how to behave when the thermometer hits 30.
For Brits ‘dangerous weather’ means ice on the roads not the ability to fry an egg on your patio.
It’s not our fault. Climate change is a slow process and, in the depths of a long, dark, miserable UK winter we’re conditioned to pine for sunnier days. Why else do we go abroad to ‘get some sun’? Push the kids out the door to ‘make the most’ of the warm afternoon?
The moment it looks as if we can skip wearing tights we don shorts and stampede to the beach. Suncream? Nah, that’s for holidays in Spain!
Extreme heat still sees us rushing around, juggling work and kids and the weekly shop. And if the roads melt and the train lines buckle – well, it’s not the end of the world.
Except it might be. We have to rethink the way we live.
Not for nothing do shops and workplaces close in the middle of the day across Mediterranean
Europe to allow workers a break from the heat. School years run differently too on the Continent so kids avoid studying in the fiercest months; schedules for public transport change. Crucially, people slow down. Diets alter. Air con is turned up. It’s a different way of life. I’m not suggesting we should all eat salad, drink red wine and sit playing cards in shady squares until midnight – although that does sound rather appealing. But we do need to stop thinking long hot summers are a treat. For so long climate change was a vague, nebulous thing on the horizon; something our great great grandchildren might have to deal with.
Now it’s here and it’s happening. Rather like packing for an outing on an old-fashioned summer’s day – we have to be ready for anything.
Not for nothing do shops workplaces close in the middle of the day across Mediterranean Europe